Among the New Years Eve celebrations in the Kashmir restaurant, Val Hargreve sits alone. As the chief custodian to Ryan Industries, Val has privileged access to the inner workings of Rapture's most powerful company. Access that he's all too happy to exploit.
Elsewhere, mythical freedom fighter Atlas has escaped from prison and is wasting no time attempting a coup of the city. He has asked one of his followers, Samantha Kemp, to meet with Val and purchase two stolen bottles of the experimental Lot 192 plasmid.
In at attempt to squeeze some extras cash out of Samantha, Val attempts to withhold one of the plasmid bottles. After all, he's not the type to let a good grift slip by. But Atlas is not the type to take no for an answer.
After watching the Kashmir erupt into flames, Val comes face face-to-face with Atlas. Here, Val finally realizes the truth: In the Great Chain, he's just another weak link.
The film
1959 is made by passionate fans, who also happen to be professionals in the film industry.
We shot the film entirely on the LED volume stage at SMASH Virtual in Chicago. We opened the studio in 2022, and since then have provided virtual production services to countless television shows, movies, and commercials. We talked about making a Bioshock film way back when we first opened, but it took four years to build our skills until we felt confident enough to do it justice.
We spent about a year recreating Rapture in Unreal Engine 5, to a level of fidelity suitable for cinematic use. The assets were entirely hand made specifically for this film, using game levels and art books as reference (along with some creative interpretation.) We shot tests as we went, adjusting the sets to serve the story, and adjusting the story to make full use of the sets.
The challenge of this project was telling a story that was lore-accurate but didn't require deep game knowledge, and to create blockbuster-quality visuals that didn't feel like a fanfilm. And to do all of that in the runtime of a short film! It took time, but we're very excited about what we managed to create.
Many of our friends watched our progress as we worked on the sets and excitedly asked if they could be on the crew when we shot it. Eventually, that time came!
In the weeks leading up to shooting, we shot a full rough previs, which helped us better understand the film and lead to some story and blocking changes. Art department worked diligently to build the physical sets that really brought Rapture to life, including the infamous Kashmir Restaurant and an old Fontaine Fisheries bathysphere dock.
The crew of 1959 are the same people working on shows like The Bear and Dark Matter, and they poured their passion into this project, donating their time and going above and beyond to make the film genuinely memorable. As a fanfilm, we can't make any money on this project, so it was important to us to ensure the end result was still worth everyones time.
