The Gloaming introduces a world of ghosts, ghouls...and quantum theory
PRLog - Oct. 21, 2014 - REDWOOD CITY, Calif. -- What happens when we die? Is there a heaven? A hell? Some kind of ancient Land of the Dead? Or perhaps we are just recycled back to another corporeal form. A cat maybe. Or a slug. And what about those who vanish before they die – sufferers from Alzheimer’s Disease, or those condemned to live out their lives in a coma or persistent vegetative state? What happens to the part of them that was truly them? What about ghosts? How do they fit into things? Are they always searching for the resolution of something they left undone in life? Are they echoes of the past recorded and endlessly played back by the bricks, stones or trees? Or are they just a figment of overactive imaginations?
Award-winning Bay Area author, Helen Stringer, tackled some of these questions in her middle-grade fantasy novels, Spellbinder and The Midnight Gate, as well as the novelette, The Blood Binding. But writing the award-winning science fiction novel, Paradigm, inspired her to think about ghosts in a new way, a way that combined the world of spirits with that of science. And so The Gloaming was born.
The Gloaming will not be a new book, however. Instead, it will be a web series structured like Classic Doctor Who, with six 20-minute episodes. While this may seem like a radical departure from writing novels, for Stringer it’s more of a return to her first love: film. In addition to being a novelist, she is also an award-winning filmmaker, having attended the AFI’s prestigious film school as a Directing Fellow, before going on to work in television in Los Angeles. “I see all my stories like movies in my head,” she explains. “So I thought that this time I’d bring fans right inside my personal theatre.”
Stringer explains that The Gloaming looks at the world of the dead in a more space/time way - creating a universe in which ghosts are real, but not as you might expect. More trans-dimensional and less ethereal. Stringer points out that science has always been a presence in her life, thanks to her father, who was a prominent research scientist at the Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto, and her sister, a microbiologist who worked for many years doing cancer research before taking her skills in a new direction by opening a brewery.
“My father was also a lifelong scifi fan,” she says. “The kind of person who was curious about absolutely everything. He also had a hilarious mischievous streak that my sister and I both inherited and which pops up in everything I write.”
A few years ago, Stringer’s father was diagnosed with an accelerated form of dementia, and watching the deterioration of such a great intellect also played a role in the development of The Gloaming. “I kept on talking to him as if he was okay,” she explains. “As if the part of him that was really him, was still there, somewhere in the room, waiting.”
After he passed away, she began to work on the story of a scientist who discovers that the worlds of the paranormal and those of scientific investigation are not incompatible, but intertwined.
Research for creating this new world consisted chiefly in reading about quantum physics, and the various theories of space/time. “It almost made my head explode,” she says, laughing.
The first episode of the series will be shot in February, and Stringer is raising financing for it through Kickstarter.
“The Gloaming is such a different take on the traditional ghost story that I thought shooting the first episode as a kind of “proof of concept” would help people understand the story we are trying to tell,” says Stringer. “Obviously, there’s a risk in supporting a single episode, so there is a special reward for everyone who pledges $40 or more – they get to become beta-viewers.”
She explains that “beta-viewers” will be able to view rough footage on an exclusive “Gloaming Production Team” page, and be a part of the editing process along with the rest of the team. “I’ve had a lot of experience working in this way,” she says. “My last novel, Paradigm, had many wonderful beta-readers who helped ensure that none of my ‘Britishisms’ crept into the book, which is set in the US. It’s really helpful to hear opinions from outside the immediate team – you really can’t beat a fresh pair of eyes, and nearly all my beta-readers have gone on to become friends, which is fantastic.”
The Gloaming Kickstarter campaign runs through November 20th.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2127711499/gloaming
http://www.thegloaming.tv
http://www.helenstringer.net
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JSFBY2
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Award-winning Author Pens Ghostly TV Series
October 21, 2014 at 19:06 PM EDT
