In early 2020, Brian and Anthony Arciga started brainstorming for a short film they planned to submit to a local school film festival. All they knew at the time was that they wanted it to be set in a post-apocalyptic world, starring a silent protagonist. For the story, they drew inspiration from movies like Star Wars and Mad Max. It was also decided very early on that only music from the music duo Daft Punk would be used for the soundtrack.
Ruben Aguirre, cousin of Brian and Anthony Arciga, created a thin foam helmet that Brian used to create a prototype of the helmet used in the film. Brian drew inspiration from Hajime Soroyama's "Sexy Robot" art, Power Rangers, and the iconic Daft Punk helmets when designing the helmet. However, due to unforeseen circumstances, the school film festival was canceled. Nevertheless, the crew, including Brian, Anthony, Robert Garcia, and Damien Gonzalez, continued to discuss story details. In 2021, Brian created a new and improved helmet using thicker EVA foam.
In 2022, it was announced that the film festival would make a comeback. Brian began working on finalizing the character designs. During this time, Liz Garcia also contributed artwork for the Nomad and Vendor, which served as inspiration for their final designs. The crew eventually came together to brainstorm and finalize story beats and details. Robert worked on the nomad costume and the bladed staff. Once the costumes were ready, the crew started scouting for locations. The costumes were brought along for test shots, and some of those shots even made it into the film. The entire filming process took five days. Special thanks to Johnny Rivas for letting us borrow his dirt bikes and helping us out with stunts. The Wanderer won the best picture award in the "Alumni Productions" category.
In early 2021, Daft Punk shockingly announced that they would be splitting up. This news came as a big surprise to Brian and Anthony because The Wanderer was originally intended as a tribute to Daft Punk. The film exclusively featured their music, the helmet design was inspired by theirs, and various visuals and locations paid homage to their music videos and film Electroma. It was purely coincidental that the split was announced shortly before filming began.
Originally, the plan was to upload the film festival version of the film to YouTube, however, the crew knew they had something special in their hands. With more time and a larger budget they knew they could produce something bigger, better, and much more polished. After going back and forth, it was unanimously agreed that starting from scratch and going big was the right move. There's been extensive discussions about world building, new characters, as well as plans for future movies, including potential spin-offs so stay tuned!
In 2023, a gofundme page was specifically created for the film (see the support page for more details).
Over time, the original foam helmet started to deteriorate, especially the lip area. We recreated the helmet in Fusion 360 and now have a 3d print! (Many thanks to Creat'R Lab at UCR for the print!) Currently, we are in the process of sanding the helmet, and it will be completed in the near future. In addition, we are actively working on crafting other costumes and props. We are also working with After Effects to improve the VFX. Thank you for sticking around and follow us on our social media platforms for more updates!
