Inspiration

Mister Knightshade:

Re-Cycle - A Chinese film about a writer who's writing her next novel. It contains a lot of great imagery for ways The Hedge can work in an urban area. 

Always thought of this as more a Changeling: the Dreaming film (seemed to me it's not really about the writer, it's about the character in her novel).

But awhile back I'd actually been brainstorming about alternate ways the Hedge could manifest in different environments, and I like your suggestion in these regards.

Peter K.:

Always thought of this as more a Changeling: the Dreaming film

Mister Knightshade:

Pan's Labyrinth - The connection with all things Fae is obvious. But it is also a very dark tale, about emotional abuse and abuse of power. 

This one is listed in the corebook as a source of inspiration.
Among others I have drawn from:

Fables (a series of graphic novels where the characters from Grimm's Faerie tales and myth are exiled and come to live in modern day NYC, hiding from mundanes).

Sandman (another graphic novel that explores dreams/universal unconscious themes, great inspiration for oneiromancy).

Tithe/Valiant/Ironside (YA novels by Holly Black, excellent).

The Good Neighbors, Kin/Kith (graphic novels by Holly Black about a changeling girl discovering what she really is).

Courtney Crumrin (graphic novels about a girl who visits a Goblin Market and meets the True Fae, who are depicted very similar to CtL).

Those are all great! What about art or picture inspiration?

I know that deviantArt is where I keep track of all the art and artists that inspire me in a gaming sense.  I love the talent and sheer variety of the things that can be found there.  Some artists are great at expressive portraits that seem to have their own stories.  Others are wonderful with fantasy landscapes and locations, and a few paint things that would make excellent Keepers.

Wow very very impressive...

speaking of art..

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v419/shock223/09-Harmthrivis-Uphobia.jpg

Elvenbane and its two sequels, by Mercedes Lackey and Andre Norton. Although there are a couple elves with human hearts and evident compassion, they're a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of the elves - and how's this for a backstory?

Beautiful creatures possessed of godlike magical power tear their way into medieval Earth from Some Other Place, where they were the losers in a brutal war for dominance with the rest of their kind. Using their impossible magic and legions of attendant constructs, they utterly level human civilization and enslave the entire race - before their fragile alliance collapses and the great endeavors their shared might had made possible fall to ash. Now they exist as decadent god-kings over a vast slave-nation, endlessly striving to outdo each other in wealth, land, talented slaves, and magical displays, using the subjugated human race for labor, gladiatorial combat, and sexual diversion as they build their private empires and finance enormous, heavily glamoured palaces and gala events. They're not above damning each other to petty servitude, with raw magical power being roughly equivalent to social status - the weakest barely above the level of highly skilled human artisans.

And they fear what, beyond all else, even each other? The products of occasional careless liaisons without contraceptive, the half-blooded children of human and elves with magical power that can reach far beyond the wildest dreams of either species. These they hunt down ruthlessly and destroy them wherever they're found...

Yeah, sounds familiar - the halfbloods having more power then the average elf is a different twist, but in practice the average elf isn't the ancient, malevolent, unfathomably powerful creature leading vast hosts of slave armies against them. Oh, and there's a bunch of shapeshifting shamanistic dragons hanging around too, but I'm pretty sure one of the authors just really likes dragons - they serve various plot-devicey functions but don't really fit into the rest of the setting. You can ignore them.

The general viciousness of elven politics makes it worth a read, as do several of the wilder Fae events - particularly Dylan's parties or the attempted seduction of a young elven lady. The over-the-top, look-at-my-power magic used to transform ordinary settings into wondrous displays gives you a good look at how a group of Exiles might choose to compete with each other, or simply how Others in general comport themselves on Earth or in the Hedge. There's little that could serve as Arcadian inspiration, but how much time will your game be spending there anyway?

Is that a movie? Anime? Comic? Novel?

It's been several years since I've read any of his stuff, but Charles de Lint has written a lot of Fae themed stories. IIRC a lot of them have the whole abuse / innocence harmed theme, as well.  I may have to dig through my storage boxes and find those old books now.  I remember quite liking them at the time.

Some of my inspirations for changeling are as follows

Peter Pan: you could probably guess this by looking at my screen name, but I'm generally a huge fan.Both Peter Pan and Captain Hook make for good feuding Fae, with the pirates, the Lost Boys, and Wendy caught in their war.

A Nightmare on Elm Street: Freddy Kruegar is great inspiration for a  terrible gentry or twisted autumn courtier

Stephen King's "It"-  centered on an ageless and potent spirit that feeds off of fear and death, not a bad gentry at all

Also Zenescope comics' Return to Wonderland and it sequels:

"Alice is no longer the little girl who fell down the rabbit hole and discovered Wonderland. Now an adult, she once tried to commit suicide by slitting her wrists. Mentally disturbed and in a dream-like state, her only link to reality is the disturbing white rabbit that she clings to.

Calie, not wanting to deal with her mother's mental illness, is now a substance-abusing, alcoholic, promiscuous party girl. The series will deal with the entire Liddle family, Alice's childhood, and Calie venturing into a darker and more frightening Wonderland than the one her mother knows."

its stuff is ripped right out of C:tL, and is pretty damn good, even if its a little smutty

For ideas based on talecrafting, take a look at the anime "Princess Tutu" a great show about a town controlled by the fantastical, and always tragic stories of a long dead author's ghost, and the people, places, and animals transformed by the power of the story. GREAT ideas for changelings here, and if the first season is too cute for you, the second is much much darker.

Hivemind:

Those are all great! What about art or picture inspiration?

Easy, almost everything by Charles Vess.

I like movies, and I like being inspired from ... atypical sources. Like:

I didn't see Neverwhere mentioned, but it's a damn near perfect representation of a lot of Changeling elements, from pledges and Contracts to some excellent examples of the Hedge.