expanding
OZ
The original cover of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, penned by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W.W. Denslow
Generating a detailed portrayal of an expanded Land of Oz in cinematic detail using Midjourney and PikaLabs.
Dorothy as she appears during her first years back in Oz. She continues to heal from the traumatic event that marks her return.
The process of generating images and video sequences via Midjourney and PikaLabs has allowed me to advance my prompt engineering and A.I. media development to a precise and marketable level.
Using detailed vernacular around art history, design, architecture and the natural world, I have been able to create highly specific images on-demand that reflect my cumulative vision of Oz. This has inspired my writing profoundly. It has encouraged me to imagine freely in the process of expanding Baum’s universe, not just in Oz, but on Earth too, as well as other worlds in the dimensions beyond our grasp.
Cinematic Sequences
A.I. is shifting the animation and film landscape at a disorienting pace. Already, creators are producing films using A.I. which feel like they’ve required large teams, lots of time and technical skill to produce.
At the same time, the currently available generative A.I. video products do some things very well (textures, materials, liquids, gas, vapour) while other things (facial details, specific actions & interactions with the environment) are still too nuanced for the models to represent with detailed accuracy. Those many details require a high degree of technical finesse in live-studio and post-production, with the resources to support integrating current methods of filmmaking with the visual support and tone-setting offered by the generative models.
Cinematic imagery
using Midjourney to reimagine Oz in the likeness of enlightenment-era oil painting, early 20th century photography and midcentury cinema
A.I. is shifting the animation and film landscape at a disorienting pace. Already, creators are producing films using A.I. which feel like they’ve required large teams, lots of time and technical skill to produce.
At the same time, the currently available generative A.I. video products do some things very well (textures, materials, liquids, gas, vapour) while other things (facial details, specific actions & interactions with the environment) are still too nuanced for the models to represent with detailed accuracy. Those many details require a high degree of technical finesse in live-studio and post-production, with the resources to support integrating current methods of filmmaking with the visual support and tone-setting offered by the generative models.
Taking inspiration from science fiction juggernauts including Niven and Tiptree to author derivative works about the origins and future of Oz.
Poster for the original Broadway run of Wicked, the musical adaptation of Gregory McGuire’s derivative work.
The land of Oz exists in the literary universe created by Lyman Frank Baum at the turn of the 20th century in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900).
Baum wrote thirteen sequels, to the widely-known classic, and published most of them. His final volume, Glinda of Oz (1920), was released posthumously in the year after his passing. The source material has been expanded upon over the last century in film, on stage and in written, animated and illustrated adaptations as well as derivative works.
The novel Wicked and its accompanying Broadway musical and upcoming film adaptation are an example of derivative work, where the artist has taken the characters and settings and has reimagined them or developed new histories for the involved parties.
Midjourney-generated cover art for my Oz sequel series. Top left to bottom right: The Gale of Kansas, The Fortress in the Sand, The State of Magic, and The Ancestors of Oz
The fourteen novels that comprise L. Frank Baum’s “original fourteen” Oz stories, later revisited in an official capacity by authors including Ruth Plumly Thompson
The fourteen novels that comprise L. Frank Baum’s “original fourteen” Oz novels, later expanded upon in official capacity by authors including Ruth Plumly Thompson
In addition to generating images and video sequences, I am authoring my own derivative works about Oz: a three novel arc following the life of Dorothy Gale, as well as a standalone story about Oz’s earliest origins. The content of the original Baum novel and its thirteen sequels are the source material from which I am deriving my unique narrative perspective on Dorothy and Oz.
The American heroine from Kansas is sent as a small child on her own unique Homer’s Odyssey by Baum. Dorothy’s original journey to the land of Oz is rife with dangerous trials and bizarre, whimsical, and often threatening characters for her to interpret and interact with.
Tinged with turn-of-the-century Americana throughout, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is regarded as the foremost modern American fairytale, much like Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Alice Through The Looking Glass are recognized as such in Great Britain. In my own derivative works, I take inspiration from the science fiction authors and artists who have inspired me the most: Larry Niven, James Tiptree Jr./Alice Bradley Sheldon, Vernor Vinge, Isaac Asimov, Philip Jose Farmer and the partnership of Alexander Jodorowsky and Moebius/Jean Giraud amongst many others.
Midjourney-generated cover art for my Oz sequel series. Top left to bottom right: The Gale of Kansas, The Fortress in the Sand, The State of Magic, and The Ancestors of Oz
Cover of the novel A Barnstormer in Oz by Philip Jose Farmer, an example of a derivative work from a science fiction lense.
Alice Bradley Sheldon c. 1980
Alice Bradley Sheldon, who wrote by the pen name “James Tiptree Jr.”, is a particularly distinct author from this list. Sheldon was a Major for the US Air Force during World War II in the photo-intelligence group. Before her tenure in the military, she was an artist and graphic designer.
She shares some notable parallels with Dorothy: fiercely independent, highly intelligent, high-achieving despite social-historical circumstances and gender disparity. In the later Oz novels, Dorothy could be described as “tomboyish”, a quality that I speculate may have been brandied toward’s Sheldon at some time in her life.
Sheldon’s career highlights her national origin and possibly reveals some of her innermost motivations. It could be argued that Dorothy and Sheldon both share a deep loyalty to their place of origin. Not only Sheldon’s work, but Sheldon herself, is an ongoing inspiration for the adult Dorothy I am ultimately authoring in the derivative work.
Cover of the novel A Barnstormer in Oz by Philip Jose Farmer, an example of a derivative work from a science fiction lense.
Alice Bradley Sheldon c. 1980
The Novels
current word count: 13,000
word count goal: 150,000
It takes Dorothy 50 years to complete the machine that she hopes will finally take her back to Oz. For decades, she has traveled the globe tracing the family lineage of the original Wizard & collecting artifacts, which she believes are components to a theoretical machine that she eventually engineers into existence.
Through the turn of the century & the 1910s, Dorothy takes up leadership on her adopted family’s farm. She develops & patents machinery and systems which bring the farm out of poverty & make it profitable. She enrols at the University of Kansas where she studies engineering and meteorology. Dorothy is ultimately tasked with becoming the leader of the farm, as Em & Henry grow older & less capable of managing the growing operations.
Through the 1920s and 1930s, the wealth generated from the farm allows Dorothy to sell the farm & study the natural sciences abroad. She eventually becomes a tenured professor in Europe, authoring papers in a variety of subjects. It is during her tenure that she globetrots & pieces together her path back to Oz. She returns from Europe during the Second World War & resettles in Liberal, Kansas, where she gets to work building her machine.
The present year is 1950. Dorothy has witnessed both World Wars & is now living in Cold War America on the farm compound, where she continues engineering and patenting machinery & systems. Her public patents are a guise concealing her true work: beneath her compound, a secret lab houses the machine. Dorothy has reached a stalemate with the mysterious contraption. The United States & the USSR live in stalemate, holding the globe hostage with the threat of nuclear war. Dorothy’s machine holds her hostage, as she races against the unpredictable clock of global chaos to solve its mechnical-chemical puzzle & successfully return to Oz.
Soon after arriving in Oz and recognizing her power, the leaders of the inner kingdom — Scarecrow, Glinda, Tinman, Lion and Ozma — ratify Dorothy as a new ruler. Dorothy completes construction of the yellow brick fortress, where she integrates and translates her earthly knowledge and skill into a functional magic in Oz. The Flying Monkeys have pledged their allegiance to her, believing her to be a spiritual guide.
Dorothy constructs her fortress in the northern hemisphere of the Deadly Desert, the harsh ring of land which surrounds Inner Oz like a moat. With the help and cooperation of the Flying Monkeys, Dorothy begins the process of terraforming the desert & alchemically changing the composition of the sand itself, to render it inert & to take down the barrier to the outer realms.
Despite the era of prosperity & peace in Inner Oz, the outer realms are still mired in conflict & bear unknown danger. Dorothy must confront the beings that dominate the outer realms. She must negotiate & cooperate with them, or she must consider the necessity of eliminating risk to Inner Oz & to the future overall wellness of Oz.
For an Ozzite millenium, Dorothy has ruled the land and developed the scientific-magical arts. She has completely transformed Oz into a world where magic courses through all things like components of our cells and the blood in our veins.
Through her surreal and metaphysical discovery of her reality, Dorothy has developed a plan to merge Oz and Earth, and to completely integrate the two worlds.
The Earth that Dorothy left behind in 1950 was grey, traumatized and on the brink of nuclear devastation. She has become driven by the speculation that she can use magic to save Earth from itself and heal its suffering.
As Dorothy perfects the final techniques required in order to pursue her ultimate goal, she is met by a series of messengers. The messengers present her with practical and philosophical scenarios she must consider if she is to complete her project of integration. The messengers take Dorothy on dreamlike pilgrimages to observe in realtime the potential consequences of her future actions.
A meditative counterpoint to the excitement and velocity of generative imagery, the published novels will include hand-drawn illustrations in the style of John R. Neill, Oz’s primary illustrator after W.W. Denslow.
