Private Project

THE SECRET BOX - The Rise of Paperboy

As part of THE SECRET BOX Trilogy, THE RISE OF PAPERBOY comes to us as a stand-alone motion picture short, introducing us to a 7-year-old Paperboy and letting us witness his first encounter with ancient paranormal forces in 1885. An abandoned street-kid in the docks of New England, Codie ‘Paperboy’ Basket is present when old adventurer Abe T. Huxley and his bunch of henchmen fail to open a lost wooden box. Facing this group of shady giants, Codie needs to pluck up all his courage and put his mind to the test, being the only one capable of unlocking the box. A path opens in front of Codie, that will lead him to become the true ringmaster of moving pictures, and the founder of the quirky Entertainment Network KTC® in 1964.

NOTE: Trailer and Screener are not the official release versions and only suited for internal festival-staff. Intro & Outro Credits are currently just placeholders. For promo versions suited for public, please get in contact with submitter.

NOTE: The official website is still under construction as well.

  • G.S. Leitgeb
    Director
    Dark Loop
  • G.S. Leitgeb
    Writer
    Dark Loop
  • G.S. Leitgeb
    Creative Producer
    Dark Loop
  • James Fagan
    Producer
    Land of Winter
  • Julia Stipsits
    Co-Producer
  • Kurt Kozina
    Executive Producer
  • Senan Jennings
    Key Cast
    "Codie P. Basket"
    Vivarium
  • Degnan Geraghty
    Key Cast
    "Abe T. Huxley"
    The Rhythm Section
  • Desmond Eastwood
    Key Cast
    "Dedalus Spinnet"
    Krypton
  • Charlie Hughes
    Key Cast
    "Manus Keegan"
    Fair City
  • Johnathan French
    Key Cast
    "Jimmy Keegan"
    The Harness
  • Wesley O'Duinn
    Key Cast
    "Hedley Keegan"
    The Young Offenders
  • Damian Draven
    Production Designer
    Penny Dreadful, The Harness
  • Ciaran Kavanagh
    Director of Photography
    Series of Unfortunate Events, Into the Badlands, The Man in the Highcastle
  • Patrick O'Connor
    Music
    A Day Like Today
  • Markus Hautz
    Film Edit
  • Philipp Erkinger
    VFX & Compositing
  • Christof G. Dertschei
    VFX & Compositing
    Wienerland
  • Sara Ben-Abdallah
    Costume Design
  • Audrey B. Corrigan
    Make Up & Hair
  • Wai-Har Healy
    Make Up & Hair
  • Mark Maher
    Model Maker
    The Hobbit, Alice in Wonderland, Into the Badlands
  • Project Type:
    Short, Web / New Media
  • Genres:
    Adventure-Mystery, Period, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Time Travel
  • Runtime:
    10 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    May 31, 2019
  • Production Budget:
    150,000 EUR
  • Country of Origin:
    Ireland
  • Country of Filming:
    Ireland
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Arri Alexa ProRes 4444
  • Aspect Ratio:
    2:1 (16:9)
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • FilmQuest Fest
    Provo
    United States
    September 11, 2019
    North America Premiere
    4 Nominations: Best Fantasy Short, Best Production Design, Best Score, Best Costume Design
  • Franzl Award
    Vienna
    Austria
    September 19, 2019
    Presentation of the Promotion Kit
    Winner of Best Cross-media Design
  • Short to the Point
    Bukarest
    Romania
    Winner - Best Fantasy / Sci-Fi Film
Director Biography - G.S. Leitgeb

Having directed numerous music-videos and commercials, THE SECRET BOX marks the international Drama Short-Film Debut for Austrian creator G.S. Leitgeb - with his current feature film in development, pursuing the same vibe, pace & colour. Following in the footsteps of well-known masters T. Burton, G. del Toro and W. Anderson, G.S. Leitgeb combines his work as writer, designer and director - moulding a fictional world filled with adventure, fantasy & mystery. Garnished with a sense of slapstick-comedy as the cherry on top. Inside the Dublin & Vienna based World-Building Studio KTC®Slingshot, he’s leading a Team of Creatives formerly involved in The Hobbit, Alice in Wonderland, Penny Dreadful or A Series of Unfortunate Events - offering services for writing, design and directing.


IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4928689/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

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Director Statement

This journey about discovering something hidden, ancient and buried, with its secrets only waiting to be unlocked, feeds our universal hunger for curiosity. Its stories, characters and objects move us back to the days where we used to hang out in treehouses and spent hours dreaming up dangerous adventures, only to come home late - dirty and bruised, but a tick wiser. Those happy days where fantasy and imagination ruled our world, and emotions were floating so effortlessly.

With its quirky designs, its eccentric characters and its twisted story-lines, THE SECRET BOX triggers our senses for retro, nostalgia and playfulness; inviting us to experience the world through the eyes of an innocent kid.

To go into great detail during the process of writing & development was vital for the creation of an authentic and wide-spread world. It doesn’t stop with the characters and stages. Fictional bodies, organisations and objects needed their own branding and identity - such as the ‘Peltzer Publishing Group’ - a fictional distribution company that runs a newspaper and is in cahoots with the secret Can Society. Or the company Straussman Werke Gmbh, which is dealing with all kinds of scientific gadgets in providing the equipment for The KTC® Time Jumper Program. When building a timeline from 1600 towards 1985, all of these things needed to be thought through to finally connect them with the events happening on The Secret Box.

The entire making of The Secret Box involved around 60 international Creatives plus 20 additional heads who worked as consulters in the back. For such a short format entertainment which is as complex as it is new, with all its different media-channels and story-parts, that is a lot of people to be held together. Right on top, you constantly have to keep an eye on not to loose focus of ‘the bigger picture’.