PANTHERION - THE PLOT SO FAR

PANTHERION takes place in Austria, exactly: Styria. it is the story of a top secret non-government (and therefore very badly funded) organisation (deep under the castle-mountain of Graz)  for exploring parallel realities and other dimensions by using the so-called reality-radio, a steampunky device, left behind by a soldier of the infamous uss eldridge (the ship better known as center of the "philadelphia experiment") in 1943 during a strange series of ghostly appearances of paranormal entities in Graz.

using this transdimensional technology the investigation team of PANTHERION (currently consisting of five members: a paranormal black-ops-deserter, an impotent magician, a crazy female weapon expert, a nerdy tech geek with abductee experience and a young newbie with a very special tattoo on her back) is confronted with various more or less dangerous beings from "beyond" like life-force sucking vampires, lovecraftian monsters evocated by occult nazi cultists, extremely evil clowns, bodyless disease-entities and many more who all together want to enter "our" reality in search of the one and only "paradise dimension". so pantherion has a great deal to fight against intruders, to reverse-engineer strange tech and to find allies.

the plot includes adaptations of real stories and myths we heard of, real local ufo-witnesses/abductees and other interesting people we know personally.

This summer we shot the pilot (90 min.) so far with very limited budget but over 70 team members and actors/actresses on various locations; our project is knowingly non-professional based which means we all are film amateurs, semi-professionals or professionals in other art-related fields to ensure highest possible authenticity, spontaneity in using techniques and cross-media complexity. Language is german with strong austrian accent(s) so we are planning to subtitle the whole stuff in english. Currently the pilot is in status post-production, so we have to look forward and start to get money and support(ers) for the things to come. the projected series consists of 5 episodes per season minimum, each episode should have a minimum length of 20 minutes.

Technically we are filming in full HD / PAL (25) progressive scan with a sony xdCam. Depending on the financial support we have also the smaller version of the RED in mind. but that's future fantasy.

HELP US UNLEASH A WHOLE UNIVERSE!

PANTHERION is a widespread concept including radiosodes (the first is planned to get aired until xmas 2010), a pen-and-paper roleplay, graphic novels accompaning the video/tv/web-series, a series of pulp-novels written by our script writer etc. In addition we shoot mockumentary shorts to feed the pantherion-universe with reality/fake-reality - stuff.

In the moment there is also a gifted team working on the score and soundtrack which we plan to release with the pilot in spring 2011.

If this project is not going to happen a whole bunch of very talented and selfless helping and acting people will have worked for pure experience and fun. surely we are happy to see that teamwork, a strong vision and enough madness to film a 90 minutes pilot on a pure goodwill-basis without money lead to appr. 4000 takes and good material to post-produce... but how much more better it would be if we could finish the planned series, if we could show the public all the weird ideas hidden within the storyline, all the strange characters we created and will create! And, last but not least, we'd like to prove that there is mystery everywhere. Even in Austria.

GIVEs AND GETs

Okay: Now the hard part: We need money. And we need a lot of money to ensure our team not to work for the beautiful smiling of the director. And we need it for equipment and for renting long-term locations such as the PANTHERION-headquarters which should look the same during all the series episodes (we have to vacate the old basement in which we shot the pilot and need a new one).

As you see, the money we need will ONLY be used for equipment , performance-linked wages for the whole team and infrastructure.The huge looking sum of 150.000 $ will be used for the whole first season. Keep also in mind: A mystery-based plot may need some cost-intense special effects... but we try to use them economically.

Plus: we offer smart(!) product placement and cameo-appearances of supporters.

We proved that we can work without or nearly without any money but now we are literally drained. it's not possible to go further without funding.

FOLLOW US

So use facebook and other social networks to remember people watching our progress and join us. You live in Austria or plan to visit it? So do you want to act as a transdimensional being? an alien? a local farmboy? write us, get in touch. maybe we can offer a role.

Are you experienced in filming techniques, editing, sfx, sound mastering, cinematographing, weapon use, public relations, financial controlling or whatever works for us? contact us via facebook, prequel[@]chello.at (temporary mail address) or -after the relaunch in winter 2010- www.pantherion.at!

we are looking forward to your kind support,

joerg vogeltanz, director