This film puts kids of color in the driver seat of an intergalactic adventure. We will feature a diverse crew and will be partnering with youth job placement org’s as well. This film is trying to inspire kids from urban areas to dream and travel far.

 

Three rowdy kids from the inner city stumble upon a dying alien who fuses their minds together enabling them to fly its spacecraft. Now, these ghetto astronauts are the keepers of the most important discovery in human history and must decide whether to use their new found consciousness to help the world that's never cared about them, or escape into the unknown.

This film is about those who are left out. Those who society doesn’t feel are worthy of an adventure of this caliber. Maybe it’s because they’re too poor, or their culture doesn’t fit into the mainstream’s sense of what it means to be normal. The heroes of Joyriders aren’t "worthy" by any traditional sense of the word. They aren’t the ones that most people would choose to drive an ice-cream truck let alone pilot the most important discovery in human history. I am interested in the question of what would society do if they suddenly realized that their most forgotten members have suddenly become their most important?

 

 

Joy Riders is in the genre of Afrofuturism and draw on African folklore and fantasy for it’s aesthetic to create a sci-fi adventure. Traditionally the Sci-Fi genre pulls from European and at times Asian influences. In contrast, the Afrofuturism genre pulls from an African aesthetic and sensibility to inform the content. We’ll use practical miniature, motion-controlled cameras, drone footage and CG rendered backgrounds to create the visual effect of the alien ship zooming through Atlanta and the cosmos.

 

The film takes it's lighting inspirations from films like Moonlight and shows like Insecure. Dark skin will be highlighted with vibrant splashes of color that is almost otherworldly. The camera uses long lenses (50 to 85mm) puts our characters against soft backgrounds, invoking a sense of isolation and being lost in a sea of floating city lights. Slight drifts will be detected throughout the handheld feel of the film, this will help convey a sense of uneasy realism that contrasts the stylized backgrounds and environments.

 

 

We’ll uses practical miniature, motion controlled cameras, drone footage and CG rendered backgrounds to create the visual effect of the alien ship zooming through Atlanta and the cosmos. A group of professional model makers and designers who have worked with some of the best fabrication companies in the world (Laika, Marvel Studios, Jim Henson Studios) have already expressed interest in donating their time to this project.