Franklyn movie w/steampunk elements

I came across Franklyn, a unique, original and low publicized 2009 film by accident and I'm glad I did. This visually articulate movie, directed by Gerald McMorrow, has the feel of a well planned imagist's  journey, something akin to the innovative style of Alex Pyros. Franklyn falls out of any known genre, for the way the story line tugs at your synapses in a shifting collage/montage style reminiscent of  Stay and The Fountain.
In Franklyn, two alternative realities offer  a mind-tripping head game, sometimes a test, of whether you're following it along, gathering the symbols, assessing the subtle but important threads of the philosophy of cultures, humanity and civilization. However, it's not heavy handed, just highly intriguing and entertaining in a dark way.
Franklyn takes place in two alternative realities. One of them, Meanwhile City, is tragically and beautifully bizarre and dystopian, with breathtaking landscapes highlighting the sublime sacredness in decay. In contrast to the beauty of of the city, it's citizens have fallen into a trampled culture thanks to the government which mandates each citizen must have some sort of religion. The religions are odd and faked, even silly, but no matter the styles, one character, the oft-times masked Jonathan  Preest played by James Morrow, cannot abide the rules and struggles against the enforcers, a contingency of dressed-alike weirdos which clock in somewhere between the contrasting figures from Clockwork Orange and the steampunk ilk.
This cinematography is used as a tool to separate the contemporary London storyline which focuses on a poignant, disturbed jilted young man, Milo (Sam Riley) and a lovely depressed goth art student; Emillia, (Eva Green). As grim as it is, the visually stunning cinematography of the alternate world, Meanwhile City, is a place I believe most steampunkers would want to wander, simply for the influence of beauty found in decay and lost civilizations. The two story lines cut into each other in a highly provocative style, style, forcing you not only to wonder, but to think.  Slender paths and parallels  are offered for the viewer to untangle as they're drawn deeper and deeper in a dark, disturbing landscape.
  Franklyn is a dark subculture urban fantasy not in the style, but in the coloration and mood of movies like The Crow and Dark City and its commentary on current society, one felt by many folks in the steampunk genre, is subtle yet present throughout. 

Architectural painting

I didn't plan to go back to painting and leave the paper arts projects, but I was inspired to work on an architectural piece by both the art and photography of Wendy Farrow and by the wedding of William and Kate.  I created the first piece on the day of the wedding using a mixed media approach, started with a vintage photograph of a castle which soon was transformed into a very impressionistic approach to Westminster Abbey.  This is a style I love, which I started a bit in my New Orleans paintings during the early 2000's.  I don't do realism, and in fact want to distort my buildings in some way so they are more dream like, evasive and moody.  I don't know why the red came up - but it did.  I tend to just go with the flow, work fairly fast and just let the piece dictate how it wants to look.  I used a combination of paper, gesso, acrylics and water colours on mat board, then used masking fluid to remove the paint in random ways. 
The second piece I did two days later.  This is a painting of a part of the Brooklyn Bridge as inspired by the movie Stay, and it's dream sequences of the bridge on a rainy night as experienced by the young artist, Henry Letham, as played by Ryan Gosling.  It's one of my favorite films in the entire industry, due to the story, and certainly the amazing cinematography. Henry's paintings in the movie always move me and come to find out they are photographs taken by a German photographer, Stefanie Schneider
For this piece I decided to use canvas since I'm using more and more layers of paint.  This one started out in acrylics and then I added layers of watercolour and glaze, once again used the removal of paint with the masking fluid, then went over with a glaze, wiped it off, Drew in the cables of the bridge in blue and black pen and then went over the engraved lines with pigment inks, wiping off the residue so only the lines held the purple and green inks.
There's a scene in the movie near the end where the bridge actually comes alive in Henry's mind and perhaps also in the mind of his psychiatrist  and they float and move.  I was trying to catch that element although the photographs are quite different from my painting. Here's a photo from the movie of the series of polarized photos by Stefanie Schneider.