In the Beginning...

Like most big ideas, the earliest stages of Hammerfist's development are pretty muddy. But if I think back on it reaaaaal hard, I think I can connect a few of the dots.

I had (have) a habit of frequenting obscure thrift stores with friends, not usually with the intent of buying anything, but more just looking for wacky old technology to gawk at, and wonder about the ill-fated fashion statements of forgotten decades.

As early as 2012 I remember telling my friend Nick that a terrible plastic computer monitor would be a good prop piece if we ever decided to make "a Kurt Russell action movie". At the time, I think I pictured one of us wearing a mullet wig and typing furiously at the fake computer as intense music thumped in the background. There wasn't much more substance to the idea than that, but the beginnings of something were obviously struggling to rise up. Fueled by the thrift stores, an image began to form in my mind of what such a movie could look like - an image of flashy costuming, outdated technology, and stylization overplayed to comical effect. This was Part One of the marriage of ideas that created Hammerfist.

 

Things didn't evolve much after that; at least, not until an important catalyst of inspiration would finally light a real fire under my ass.

Notably, things only took a more serious turn after a very important experiment. An experiment that unwittingly proved to me that this vague idea was just as much fun as I hoped it would be, and that with the right tone, it could work.


That experiment's name was High Five.

Filmmaker Jacob Hilger and I collaborated on the idea in late 2013. We had both just wrapped on another project, Outlawed Prospects: The End Is Near, which had proven extremely stressful and a bit over-taxing. With a simple desire to create something fun, relaxed, and easy, we looked for a new idea that we could shoot quickly and turn into something charming.

Now, going back to this - so what, you may ask, was the ever-important Part Two of the inception of Hammerfist?

Easy. Music.

I'm fairly certain that every creative idea I've had in my life has hinged on some sort of reaction to music. I've never visualized anything without a soundtrack, and I've never written anything without a loop of inspirational playlist in the background.

For whatever reason, around 2011 I had taken up listening to what was then a brand-new genre of upcoming music - back then it wasn't so easy to define, but now, we call it "Synthwave".

The movement had it's roots in neo-80's nostalgia, and many of the small, underground artists of the time produced simple music videos that were merely re-edits of period films. Many of them were cyberpunk in tone, and heavily featured cars and motorcycles (Akira proved to be a popular donor). These early videos solidified my visual association with these new sounds, forever after.

 
Somehow, I got the idea of two overstuffed 80's badasses slugging it out on comically undersized mopeds - a perfect visual representation of the overly-dramatic style that I thought would be funny. I was working at a scooter repair shop at the time, with friends that were willing to help and lend their machines, and after finding the right song to fuel my imagination...well, the rest is history.

High Five succeeded ten-fold at Jake and I's original goal. But it did so much more beyond that. It lit a spark in the back of my mind that told me that the neo-80's comedy/action idea could work. It was essentially a prototype for Hammerfist.

Keep in mind, this was 2014, and the RetroWave world was still largely unexplored. Kung Fury wouldn't release for another year, and we still had many more years after that before Stranger Things, Ready Player One, etc. We'll get into all that in another post...

But for the time being, my mind was set. I had my concept. I had visual reference. I had music to inspire me. I started writing.