Guerrilla Productions presents

The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

Welcome to the Dream-Quest

Our World Premiere at The H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival completely rocked! Yay!

"Three times Randolph Carter dreamed of the marvelous city, and three times was he snatched away while still he paused on the high terrace above it."

Thus begins H. P. Lovecraft's epic tale of the courageous dreamer Randolph Carter and his search for the mystical sunset city by petitioning the gods of Kadath. During his journey, he travels deep into the world of dream, to the edge of the world, to the moon and back, and to the heights and depths of human and... inhuman experience.

Guerrilla Productions brought The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath to the big screen in a full-length adaptation, premiering October 11, 2003 at the H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival. Now we're shipping the feature-packed DVD! Buy your copy today!

Dream-Quest uses an unusual narrative style. Rather than live action (as if we could afford that!) or full motion animation, we're using a technique sorta' like what we've used most recently for "The Testament of Tom Jacoby", a motion-still sequencing. We have no affectionate name for this technique (well, we're currently describing it as "sorta' like what we did with Jacoby, but even better, with some animation thrown in"), nor can we even think of a really good example off the top of our heads, but we hope you'll like the result. Our image source is Jason Thompson's unbelievable comic book adaptation, published by Mockman Press.

Cast

Bragging Ghoul, Dylath-Leen Bar Mate 3, Oriab Villager 3, Randolph Carter: Toren McBoren MacBin (aka Toren Atkinson) (IMDB listing)
more to come...

Crew

Writer/Director: Edward Martin III (IMDB listing)
Producer: Katrina L. Martin (IMDB listing)
more to come...

Music

"Trust"/Opening Loop & prelude Cyoakha Grace O'Manion and Mark Brown/Equinoxe and Land of the Blind Originally "Trust" by Land of the Blind from Ordinary Magic Original Violin: Aryeh Frankfurter Additional Violin/Kadath: Alison Bailey Montage by Cyoakha Grace O'Manion	"The City Theme (The Sunset City)" Cyoakha Grace O'Manion Based on two musical works with bass and keys by Scott Kungha Dregsen Warped by Cyoakha Grace O'Manion
"Ulthar Theme" Cyoakha Grace O'Manion Electric guitar: Gywnn Adams	"Dylath-Leen Theme" Cyoakha Grace O'Manion Original bed: William Blum Transformations/Additions/Alterations: Cyoakha Grace O'Manion
"SpaceSlaveShip" Cyoakha Grace O'Manion Background piece: "To-Ka-Ge" and "Passiflora" and "Through Plexiglas Sheets Ov Harmony" recorded Live at Drift Catalyst stage, Burning Man 2002 © Tiffany Lee Brown and Joshua Camozzi Milligan Guitars, Loops, Singing Bowl, Theremin, Etc.: Joshua Camozzi Milligan Voices, Crumpling Parchment, Bells: Tiffany Lee Brown	"And If I Fall" Cyoakha Grace O'Manion and Mark Brown/Equinoxe Based on "Ingeous" by Equinoxe from Worlds Beyond Language Transformations/Additions/Alterations: Cyoakha Grace O'Manion
"Catacomb Creature Crawl" Cyoakha Grace O'Manion and Mark Brown/Equinoxe Based on "Golden Domes" by Equinoxe from Worlds Beyond Language Transformations/Additions/Alterations: Cyoakha Grace O'Manion	"Enchanted Forest Music" Cyoakha Grace O'Manion and "Slow Thoughts" by Akash
"Sailing to Celephais" Cyoakha Grace O'Manion and Mark Brown/Equinoxe Main groove/beaten autoharp detuned: Cyoakha Grace O'Manion Layers include "Embroidered Galaxies", "Anyone stop to document", and "Depths of Mahogany" by Equinoxe from Worlds Beyond Language Transformations/Additions/Alterations: Cyoakha Grace O'Manion	"City of Celephais" Cyoakha Grace O'Manion and Mark Brown/Equinoxe, Based on "PerMutations", from Worlds Beyond Language Transformations/Additions/Alterations: Cyoakha Grace O'Manion
"Vile Flutes" Cyoakha Grace O'Manion Original Bed: William Blum Original flute: Melo Cady, Land of the Blind Additional flute: Cyoakha Grace O'Manion	"Battle Themes" Cyoakha Grace O'Manion Electric guitar: Gwynn Adams
"Room of the Dead" Cyoakha Grace O'Manion "Nyack" by Tiffany Lee Brown from Brainwarmer, Corporate Collapse Records "Ahmet's Circus" and "Ahmet's Circus Reprise / The Enumerators" by John LaSala	"Giant Battles" montage includes "Baruhula", from City of Thlath by Equinoxe, "olympus mons at perihelion", "bearing ominous forecasts", "mantra of the colonies", from Red Planet by Equinoxe, Tony Boughen & Cyoakha Grace O'Manion
"Final Ride" Cyoakha Grace O'Manion "Slow Thoughts and "Spiritual" by Akash "Nyack" by Tiffany Lee Brown from Brainwarmer, Corporate Collapse Records	Miscellaneous Dulcimer Pieces Krystov
"Monster" or "A Little More" Cyoakha Grace O'Manion, Tony Boughen, Krystov, Land of the Blind from Land of the Blind's Ordinary Magic

FAQ

I can't seem to play this DVD. Is there a problem with it?
These are commercially produced DVDs, so there shouldn't be a problem with them. However, about one every 200 DVDs or so, we seem to encounter some sort of glitch. In all previous cases, it has turned out to be a local issue, so please try playing it in someone else's DVD player. Maybe it's an older DVD player, or one that has some weird glitch inside it. If you can't get the DVD to play in someone else's player, then please contact us and we'll set up a replacement right away. Our goal is a happy customer!
The images seem very "flickery". Is this supposed to be happening?
The "jitter" seems to be simply because the artwork is so high contrast that movement causes "ringing" in the video. I minimized it as much as possible, but there's still that subtle bit. As an experiment, I digitally colored a more egregious panel and did the same pan across it and voila no jitter. Unfortunately, that would have required that we color the entire movie, something that would have made it tremendously more expensive (and way beyond our newbie skills).
The music seems louder than the dialogue. Is that a problem with some kind of setting on my end?
There was an early limited-edition release where there were some mix isues and the music was a bit louder than we would have liked. This has, of course, been rectified in the Production Run.
How can I get a copy on VHS?
Seriously?
How can I get the DVD?
Hop on over to our shop, of course!
Are you still selling copies?
As far as we're concerned, this product will be commercially available forever. So, yes, you bet!
Will there be a soundtrack released?
Cyoakha has already released a soundtrack and you can find it at her website!
How the heck do you pronounce "Nyarlathotep", "Zoog", "Kadath", etc.?
Everybody seems to pronounce "Nyarlathotep" differently. For our production, we're pronouncing it as a four-syllable word: nyar (blurs together as a single syllable) let (pronounced the same as "vet") ho (pronounced the same as "go") tep (pronounced the same as "hep"). We emphasize the ho, as we interpreted instructions from our resident Egyptologist on pronouncing the "hotep" string. When I say it in my mind, the first half rhymes with "varlet".
"Zoog" is a no-brainer. Pronounce the "oo" the same way you would pronounce it in "tool", "fool", "school", etc. I pronounce "Kadath" to rhyme with "a bath".
Why do this in the first place?
Of all of Lovecraft's work, I think Dream-Quest has always been my favorite. It's hard to say, of course, I enjoy everything I've read so far, but this book's always been the one I wanted to see. It's beautiful, terrifying, awesome, horrible, ecstatic, tremendous, and, well, everything else. It was around before fantasy was transformed into a Tolkienesque land of fur-foots and wizards. Randolph Carter is just a man. He can't cast spells and he can't hide in shadows and he can't fly. I still hope to someday make a live-action (or computer-generated) adaptation of the story, but for now, I'm happy creating this weird-ass multimedia version. And more importantly, I'm having a helluva great time doing it!
Why does the animation seem different for different shots?
Two reasons, really. First, this is a distributed animation project, with all volunteers. That means that the people who can do fancier animation are going to do fancier animation and leave us muddies behind. Some pieces are simple to animate, some more complicated. Some people do only separations, some do entire animation sequences. The second reason is that as each of us works, we learn new things and figure out how to solve problems and keep 'em solved. So each of us working on the movie learns and grows and adds their own lessons to it, too. I look at things I animated at the beginning of the movie (we're pretty much moving sequentially through the timeline while animating) and compare them to whatever I did last night and I'm almost embarrassed. Well, almost, but not enough to redo it. Otherwise, I would never get this movie done! After the animation is complete, I'll go through and try to pick up the more egregious things and make 'em look better, if I can.
Is it going to be all in B&W?
The current plan has the movie being in B&W, although color will occasionally be used for subtle (and not-so-subtle) effects.

Production Diary

we're transferring that soon...