Scene Breakdown:
Scene I
Prelude
(00:00 – 01:00) Dancer pushed across the stage by an old man with a cane,
carrying a television. (1 minute)
Scene II
The Street
“The Persistence of Vision” (6 minutes) -- Movement
Street Scene
The curtain opens
On the backdrop we see the famous photograph of DaGuerre, a street scene that is taken to be the very first photograph of a human being. The photograph is that of a seemingly empty street, with a lone man leaning, leg up, on a post. It is unclear whether he is simply resting on a pump, or getting his shoes shined, as legend would have it. The Daguerreotype is deceptive, however. The street is not empty, it is filled with people. The exposure for that photograph was, of necessity, so long the film did simply not register anyone who was moving in the street. Only that one man, leaning motionless for a few long moments, could become imprinted on the film.
In our world, the inventor, “Carl”, is standing on the stage, leg poised in the same position as the man in the photograph. Behind him, the projection begins to dissolve into a 3-D CGI scene, and we begin to move into it. There is a long crane/helicopter shot, revolving around the man at the pump, (Carl). Eventually we come to rest at eye level with Carl, facing the large white building that had been in the foreground stage left. It is a Photographic Portrait Studio in Paris, circa 1890.
Dancers enter. On screen we see indistinct blurs rushing past between the building and us. They slow gradually and we begin to see the blur of people rushing by. Along the sidewalks we begin to see the movement of “everyday” life, the activity and individuals on the street become more distinct. It is a cross between Georges Seraut’s “Sunday in the Park”, (the painting) and “Moulin Rouge”, (the movie), there are posters, vibrant with color and motion, people strolling and strutting, site-seeing and being seen, hucksters and romantics.
Onstage, this is the moment of inspiration for “Carl”. He leans against the post, and looks at the world around him. It is the swirling, fertile world of Paris, 1890. All things are possible in this world; he is standing on the threshold of modernity. Gone are the days of mendacity, of tedium, of romantic justification of sweat and labor, ahead is the world of leisure and intellect, of sensuality and connection. This is the world of life, liberty and the explosion of the mind. All things are possible in this world, the machines, the technology, will open these frontiers to the potential of mankind.
Portrait Studio
On screen we begin to move again, this time into the Portrait Studio
Inside the colors become more vibrant, as people pose in front of scenery and backdrops of exotic locations, put on fanciful costumes and stand with their heads in painted plywood bodies, (“Coney Island” style).
Several smaller screens descend from the flies, and the characters stand in front of them to have their portraits taken. There is a flash on the screen and they are immortalized in their positions.
Perhaps some spoken text in voice over:
“In 1839 we could go, if we wanted our portraits taken, to the gentleman who painted us in oils, with the column, the curtain, or the cut orange on the plate, with an unnatural shirt collar, clothes too new for us, and eyes staring into vacancy….”
Scene III
Interview A: (30 seconds – 1 minute)
Interview on memories of motions pictures, portraits, television, etc. Graphically
altered.
Scene IV
CAFÉ
A “Faustian Bargin” (4 minutes) – Conversation with Edward
and Georges
Conversation with Edward at a café, joined by Georges, the Culture of Spectacle is happening behind them.
A conversation:
Carl (to Edward)
(Additional dialogue to be inserted here)
“ …As today, we capture a portrait of a loved one, of a scenic beauty, of an historic moment. We preserve these things for eternity. They are monuments to those moments that Xeno predicted, the building blocks of experience. But they are not the experience. They are but a speck of sand next to the river of our time. One can no more judge what that historic moment, that scenic beauty, the loved one passed away was like in life from a still image, than one can judge the power of the river from a single grain of sand….
…But what if I told you that I could place these moving images before a large audience? So that all could share in the experience? It would be as if an entire town could travel to the far reaches of the earth, could share in inauguration of presidents and coronations of kings, in the beauty of a woman’s smile as she gazed into your eyes with love. Think how much closer we would all be, how much more understanding there might be in the world.”
One day you’ll be like me. You’ll be sitting there, alone in the dark, and suddenly, it will come to you, that flash of inspiration. And you will see, you will see.
One day you’ll say to yourself, I’m tired, I’ll sit down. And you’ll sit down and you’ll look straight ahead at the screen, and you’ll see that there is light, there are others like me, I’m not alone. And you’ll say to yourself, I’m hungry, I should get up and get something to eat. But you won’t get up, and you won’t get anything to eat, because you won’t need to get up. You’ll call to the restaurant on the other side of the screen and say, I’m hungry, I’d like something to eat, and they will bring you what you desire. And you’ll say to yourself I’ll sit on a little while longer, because I don’t need to get up to get something to eat.
You’ll look at the screen a while, then you’ll say, I’ll close my eyes, perhaps have a little sleep, and you’ll close them. And when you open them again there’ll be no more walls, only the wide world opening up before you as you gaze into your screen.
Infinite horizons will be all around you, all the resurrected dead of all the ages will live again with you, there your world will be like a grain of sand on a beach of worlds next to an ocean of possibilities.
Yes, one day you’ll know what it is, you’ll be like me, except that you won’t have the future with you because you never embraced the opportunity.
Scene V
Interview B: (: 30 – 1:00)
Scene VI
Plato’s Cave
Dream One; The Power of the Moving Image,” (5 minutes) – Movement
Three performers are restrained, immobile, facing the audience downstage.
They are unaware that they are so bound. They know no other reality.
The Three Bound Spectators speak:
“Do you believe it?”
“Of course, I have seen it with my own eyes”
“It must be so, otherwise, why would it be before us?”
“They are like me, the people that I meet here”
“Yes. They are my friends.”
“And yet, there are others. Unlike us, who come into our homes.”
“Yes. I believe they must be stopped.”
“Yes. We must defend ourselves against them.”
“Yes. We must prepare for the coming conflict.”
“We must travel. We must shop. We must cut taxes.”
Mechanical Puppet Show
(On the backdrop, a series of ‘mechanical puppet-show devices depict changing scenes.)
Georges, the Master of Ceremonies
“Ladies and Gentlemen! Tonight we have for you something that will astound you! Never seen before! A History of the World from the newly discovered bones of the Caveman, to the Miracles of the Modern Age! You will see the triumph of Man over the physical world! You will see as we escape the earthly bonds of gravity and escape to the Moon! You will see as we leap to the higher spiritual planes and touch the face of God Almighty himself! Prepare yourself for the journey previously unknown in all of HISTORY!!!”
(A depiction of the miracles of the Modern Age )
First as a traditional, “vaudeville”, theatrical presentation
We see “mechanical” backdrops presented in a fairly rapid fire sequence, while onstage vaudville-esque depictions of these “historic” events takes place. (About 2 minutes)
The discovery of fire
The invention of the wheel
The burning of Rome
The invention of the Printing Press
The steam engine
The bicycle
Electricity
The light bulb
The camera
The Eiffel Tower
The Motion Picture
Then as Projected moving pictures
Stage Performers falling in the wake of, or running away from projections. (As the Lumiere Brothers exhibit of the Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat.)
The Three Bound Spectators speak:
“Well, that was something.”
“Yes, I thought we were done for.”
“A narrow escape, that.”
“It could easily have happened to us.”
“I feel that we are forever changed.”
“Yes, truly. To have been there and experienced this glory.”
“And tragedy!”
“Yes. But heroically, we survived.”
“They were people we knew.”
“Yes. They were.”
“We must honor them and go forth.”
“Yes. Let us go forth in their memory.”
“What’s on the Travel Channel?”
“How about the Home Shopping Network?”
“No! We must stay informed! CNN!”
The apparitions of Sergei Eisenstein and D.W. Griffith appear.
The apparition of D.W.Griffith:
“Today there is something new in the world, a great power that has been predicted in the Bible as the universal language. It will end all wars and bring about the Millenium. Moving Pictures will bring understanding among men – and bring peace to the world.”
The apparition of Sergei Eisenstein:
“?”
The old man with a television seated in the background, staring blankly at the screen.
Scene VII
Interview C: (: 30 – 1:00)
Scene VIII
CAFE 2, The Illusion of the Projected Image (5 minutes)
– At the café with Edward.
Carl:
“I am concerned. Lately I have been having the most disturbing dreams regarding my invention. I see great promise in the possibilities of the new vision, and yet, I also see unsettling ramifications of the device. I mean, couldn’t the power of these images be used just as wrongly as the pomp and ceremony of the kings? And couldn’t, because of the reality offered by the objective, moving photographic image, a perversion of that reality be used for some insidious purpose? Where will people draw the line between their own lives and the lives of those projected before them? And won’t they find their own lives lacking, once they see the perfected reality that is manufactured and portrayed in front of them? And what happens when there are so many stimuli that their minds begin to simply give up and even the most horrific scene is seen with a jaded and cynical eye? What kind of beings shall we become then?”
Melissa
“The making of images is no longer a question of survival after death, but of a larger concept, the creation of an ideal world in the likeness of the real, with its own temporal destiny.…if underneath our fond admiration we do not discern man’s primitive need to have the last word in the argument with death by means of the form that endures. …(the photograph is of) lives halted at a set moment in their duration, freed from their destiny…photography does not create eternity, it embalms time, rescuing it simply from its proper corruption….The cinema is objectivity in time. The film is no longer content to preserve the object, enshrouded as it were in an instant, as the bodies of insects are preserved intact, out of the distant past, in amber. The film delivers baroque art from its convulsive catalepsy. Now, for the first time, the image of things is likewise the image of their duration, change mummified.” – (Andre Bazin)
Projections, shadow play, etc.
Kristin
“Last night I dreamt of a vision, its transparent flesh miraculously photographed in color and wearing a spangled costume, danced a kind of popular Mexican dance. Her movements had the flow of life itself, thanks to the process of successive photography, which can retain six minutes of movement on microscopic glass, which is subsequently reflected by means of a powerful lampascope. Suddenly was heard a flat and unnatural voice, dull-sounding and harsh. The dancer was singing along with her fandango.” --( Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, L’Eve Future.)
Momentary lapses in reality, perhaps through falling sequences.
Scene IX
Interview D (: 30 – 1:00)
Scene X
Dancer in a Dog Head (1 minute)
Scene XI
Time Slip, Dream Two; Time and Identity, a slip in reality
– Conversation, Movement (5 minutes)
Nora
“Come, my love, let’s go to the movies in the village.
Transparent night turns like a silent mill, grinding out stars. We enter the
tiny theater, you and I, a ferment of children and the strong smell of apples.
Old movies are secondhand dreams. The screen is the color of stone, or rain.
The beautiful victim of the villain has eyes like pools and a voice like a swan;
the fleetest horses in the world careen at breakneck speed.
Cowboys make Swiss cheese of the dangerous Arizona moon. Our hearts in our mouths,
we thread our way through these cyclones of violence, the death-defying duel
of the swordsmen in the tower, unerring as wasps the feathered avalanche of
Indians, s spreading fan on the prairie.
Many of the village boys and girls have fallen asleep, tired after a day in
the shop, weary of scrubbing kitchens.
Not we, my love, we’ll not lose even this one dream; as long as we live
we will claim every minute of reality, but claim dreams as well: we will dream
all the dreams.”
– (Pablo Neruda, “Ode to a Village Movie Theater”)
An “Eisenstein-esque” montage of bodies and parts.
Time Slip.
A dancer enters and performs a movement.
A film of that dancer entering and performing the same movement follows.
The dancer performs another movement.
The film repeats the movement.
The dancer performs a third movement.
The film performs a response to that movement.
The dancer and the film perform a duet.
At the same time, a second dancer enters and repeats the process.
Then a third dancer enters and repeats the process.
While this is happening, Edward enters and seduces the three dancers on screen.
Real Time Edward enters onstage and interacts in a pedestrian manner with Real Time Dancers (Natasha, Kim, Melissa and Kristin).
Onscreen Edward and Dancers perform amazing and impossible feats.
Carl enters onstage. He is walking alone.
Nora enters upstage of him.
Carl feels her presence, finally sees/connects with her. They dance together.
Nora leaves him.
?
Scene XII
Interview E (: 30 – 1:00)
Scene XIII
Land, Dream Three
– Movement (8 minutes)
– A movement from Romanticism to Futurism, with foreshadowing… Turner comes to life, the introduction of the machine.
Kim:
”I was standing once on the bank of the Danube near a small bridge. We
had gone down to the river with the idea of rowing and were struck
suddenly by the unexpected beauty of the water, which looked almost
silky. We longed to have it run through our fingers, to swim in it, to
taste it.
The stream swelled up over the bank, over the wet grass that was a shade
of emerald green almost painful in its brilliance and depth. It seemed
that the stream overflowed with the very essence of life itself. And then
it started to rain. A great heavy drenching rain, clear raindrops as large
as crystal prisms.
But this was what was most extraordinary of all-It rained on only one
half of the river, leaving the other half and its bank in brilliant sunlight.
I stood back from it and looked. I couldn't move at all. I understood that
I might have stood on this river bank all my life waiting for this to
happen- but this would be the only moment that I would be in the midst
of such a miracle.” – (Charles L. Mee)
Carl: (not necessarily spoken…)
“Last night I dreamt of landscapes, soft, fertile, tranquil, as the painters of old would see them. As I moved through them, gently floating over the hills and pastures, I began to see figures, small at first, dancing among the trees. As my dream progressed, the landscape changed, the hand of man became more apparent, and the earth took on the hard angles of agriculture and construction. The colors faded and it became real, plastique, I viewed it as though through the objectif of a photographic camera. The people were changed too. Now, instead of dancing, they became larger, more prominent and toiled across the hills. Buildings began to appear, and as I flew farther and farther out, I could see that the land had taken on the form of a nude body, that of a woman, stretched out to the horizen. I could not see the whole of her, only her curves and parts, yet I knew that it was human. And then she was covered in chains and iron structures. I saw what looked like insects crawling over her, but when I looked more closely, I could see that they were men, workers, as at a foundry, toiling and miserable, yet foolishly rejoicing in their accomplishments, devoted to their task. The few trees that surrounded the scene were barren, stripped of their foliage, enormous block-shaped structures rose around her, and in the center was a gigantic wheel, slowly turning. As that wheel turned, so did her body, and indeed, the entire scene wheeled about, the insect-men scurrying to and fro like ants in a colony. Then, suddenly, pillars of fire sprang from the earth at the place where machines were pumping an oozing black liquid from it. The structures began to burn and crumble, I saw men leap to their death from the buildings as they fell. All was destruction, and through the smoke I saw the woman, rising, in sorrow, yet filled with hope and determination. She extended her hand and another reached out to grasp it. Another woman rose and she extended her hand. Another hand grasped it and a third, then a fourth joined them. As I looked, I saw dozens of figures extending hands, rising up from the destruction and stepping forward. Then, just as suddenly, one was left alone, standing before the ocean, holding her head and turning slowly in circles.”
Scene XIV
Interview F (: 30 – 1:00)
Scene XV
Dada, Dream Five;
(4 minutes)—Movement, Conversation, Lecture
Scenes with legs, Dada, all expressions are artifice….
Natasha:
“(the point of poetry is) to know how to recognize and collect the traces
of the power on which we attend, which are everywhere, in an essential sign-language,
engraved on crystals on shells rails in the clouds in the glass inside snow
light on coal hand in the rays which group themselves around the poles of magnets
on wings.” – ( from Tristen Tzara)
Scene XVI
Interview G (: 30 – 1:00)
Scene XVII
Chaos, Dream Four; (8 minutes) -- Movement
The chaos of collage…
The Old Man
(version A)
“You start off slow, tentative, naïve. At first it’s just the fact that you can see it, that you can do it, that’s the point. And there’s a thrill and joy in just exploring the feelings and the wonder it arouses.
Then you sort’ve seen that. You know, you say ‘so what’, what else can you show me. You start to get kinda bored with just seeing it. So you start thinking about new combinations, getting an appetite for the unusual. It’s gotta be different somehow, what’s the latest thing, you say.
And then it’s a status thing, a society thing. I saw this, I experienced that. A sort of one-upmanship of high water marks of the unusual and the extravagant.
Somewhere along the line, the thirst for knowledge creeps in. Or, at least the desire for the appearance of being informed. And you’ll seek it out, drink it in deeply, believing that somehow, it will help to make sense of all that you see in front of you.
And then, you’ll feel you have seen it all. Disaster and inhumanity, you’ve heard every joke, seen every promise broken, felt love and then managed to forget it. Every so often something comes along to shock you out of your numb slumber, and just as quickly, you fall back in. The images, the experiences, wash over you, like a warm rising tide.
And you’re able to look back over it all and see those images again, and you say to yourself, I know more about humanity now than when I started. And it affects me still, and I am less shocked, and I react with an ever-decreasing heartbeat.”
(alternate version B)
“You start off slow, just one at a time. At first it’s just that you can see it and keep seeing it and it pulls you to it. And you keep seeing it and you need it even more. It’s a thrill to be there. You want to be there…
Then you’ve seen it, and you say, what else? Can you give me more, and you keep asking for more. But it has to be different somehow. It has to be new. You want something else. It has to be new. From inside your belly it has to be…. something.
And you’ll seek it out, believing that somehow it will help…. But it won’t help and you won’t see anything new.
And then you think you’ve seen it all. You’re numb and you can’t remember… you know there was something once, long ago, how long? And you can’t go back there. But you still want it. You still want it and you can’t remember why.”
Abstract background animation, (as in “Like a Swarm of Angry Bees”)
There is a swirl of abstract shapes. It begins slowly at first, the builds. It is as if Carl is being attacked by a swarm of angry bees. The images enter and assault him, singly, then in pairs then multitudes at once. At first they are simple shapes, but then they grow and become recognizable images, angry images. They are films of destruction and anger and atrocity. They haunt and pursue Carl. They are seductive and perverse; they are the imagery of the twentieth century.
Scene XVIII
Interview H (: 30 – 1:00)
Scene XIX
Consequences (4 minutes)
Movement, Lecture, Conversation.
– Image play.
It is the story of construction and decay. Of the rise and fall. Of order and chaos. We see as buildings rise and are brought down. We watch as hope is built and crushed. Possibilities arise, potential is revealed, and then thwarted. The hope of so many good things fails; the world becomes a magical place that is doomed to subversion.
Scene XX
Interview I (: 30 – 1:00)
Scene XXI
Saturation,
Dream Six—the graveyard of images; (5 minutes)—Movement
The dulling of the senses.
The drug of image.
The commerce of dreams.
The Old Man speaks:
“ One day you’ll be like me. You’ll be sitting there, staring
at the screen, alone in the dark with only the glow of that opaque window for
company. You’ll stare at the screen and say to yourself, I’m hungry,
I should get something to eat. But you won’t get anything to eat. You’ll
stay on and sit a bit longer and you’ll say to yourself, just a few more
minutes, just a few more minutes and something new will be on. After that, I’ll
get up and go on with my life. But you won’t get up and you won’t
get on with it. Instead you’ll sit there and not look away. Not look away
because the world around you is gray. The world around you is dull. The world
around you is ugliness and pain and struggle and complexity. You’ll stare
straight ahead and you’ll feel good and the darkness and the emptiness
will close all around you.
And then one day you will turn and look and you’ll be blind. You’ll
try and speak and you’ll be mute. All around you is darkness and silence.
And you’ll be alone because your life is through that opaque window. Because
you never knew how to live. Because you only watched and you never were alive.
And then you will die. And it won’t have made any difference because your
life was there, through that screen.”
Images flow like a river at flood.
They are neither good nor bad, simply inundating. We cannot differentiate between
them; they simply flow, tranquil and turbulent, with undertow and overflow.
It lifts us up and drowns us; it swallows and embraces us. The eddies and tides
of triumph and defeat, of individual heroism and collective sorrow, of the foolishness
that it is to be human, and of the perversion that need demands, all rush past
us in an infinite wall of complexity. Gazing into the flood we see the objects
of our world, the figures of those swept away, of the mortal bodies of this
world helpless in the flow of indeterminate mud. We climb to the top of our
buildings and stare down at the apocryphal scene, wondering how we arrived at
such a place, hanging on to boards that hold our lives above the oblivion, and
dream of sun-filled days.
The flood recedes, the mud left behind, the broken bodies of the dead.
Scene XXII
Interview J (: 30 – 1:00)
Scene XXIII
Conclusion
(3 minutes)—Lecture, Movement
The decision to continue, or not. The consequence of invention. The conclusion of the lecture.
Carl is standing on the same street where we first encountered him. On the backdrop is projected an image of the scene from the first daguerreotype. It is empty again, but this time not because the shutter is too slow to capture those moving through the street, it is because all of the inhabitants are inside. Through the windows in the buildings lining the streets we see the glow of screens.
Carl:
“I came to you today with news of an invention that man has sought since
the beginning of time. An invention that will alter our notions of time, of
travel, of social interaction and the shape of our society. It is an invention
that will undoubtedly bring untold wealth to some, and bring ruin on others.
It is perhaps the most powerful tool ever known to man, and I hold in my hand
the blueprints for it’s making.
Carl:(cont.)
I cannot say whether or not this invention is good or evil, whether mankind
will benefit from its existence. I can only say that we are changed. That our
history will not be the same, that our future is altered, that our perceptions
will be different from all those who have gone before us. In a hundred years
time, no doubt few of us would recognize the life that is our great grandchildren’s.
Nor, in two hundred years time will they recognize the world of their descendants.
Our world is changing rapidly, far more rapidly than we, as simple mortals,
can comprehend. All that we can do is understand that fact, and summon the intelligence,
and the reason, and the humanity that lies within us to understand each other,
and world we will leave for those that follow.”
Natasha
“I leave aside the question of whether, by continually refining humanity
in proportion to the new enjoyments it offers, indefinite progress might not
be its most cruel and ingenious torture; whether, proceeding as it does by a
negation of itself, it would not turn out to be a perpetually renewed form of
suicide, and whether, shut up in the fiery circle of divine logic, it would
not be like the scorpion that stings itself with its own tail – progress,
that eternal desideratum that is its own eternal despair” – (Baudelaire,
1859)
Scene XXIV
The “Butterfly Dance”
A dancer appears on stage, performing “the Butterfly Dance”, a spinning
solo with flowing fabric.
Her image is projected live on the screen.
The camera then begins to zoom out, capturing the entire stage and the screen itself, eventually creating a sort of “hall of mirrors” effect.
The lights gradually fade.
Total Running Time: approx. 75 minutes
Scene
Start Time
Name
Length
Action/ Location
Projection
Audio
I
00:00
Prelude
1:00
In front of curtain
None
II
01:00
Street/ Portraits
6:00
Dancers on stage
Street scene
Portrait Studio
III
07:00
Interview A
1:00
On Screen
Video, Graphics
IV
08:00
Café
4:00
Conversation, spectacle, Sidewalk café
Street backdrop
V
12:00
Interview B
1:00
On Screen
Video, Graphics
VI
13:00
Plato’s Cave
5:00
Dream, Melies set, cave
Mechanical Puppet Show
VII
18:00
Interview C
1:00
On Screen
Video, Graphics
VIII
19:00
Café 2
8:00
Conversation, Sidewalk Café
Street Backdrop
IX
27:00
Interview D
1:00
On Screen
Video, Graphics
X
28:00
Dog Head
1:00
On stage
XI
29:00
Time Slip
3:00
Dream, Dancers on stage/ on screen
Movement video/ animation
XII
32:00
Interview E
1:00
On Screen
Video, Graphics
XIII
33:00
Land
8:00
Dream, Dancers on stage
Animated Depiction of Landscapes
XIV
41:00
Interview F
1:00
On Screen
Video, Graphics
XV
42:00
Chaos
8:00
Dream, Dancers on stage
Abstract, Motion Graphic/ Motion Picture Swarm
XVI
50:00
Interview G
1:00
On Screen
Video, Graphics
Scene
Start Time
Name
Length
Action/ Location
Projection
Audio
XVII
51:00
Dada
4:00
Dream
Breakdown of “logic” and “Reality”
XVIII
55:00
Interview H
1:00
On Screen
Video, Graphics
XIX
56:00
Consequences
4:00
Monologue, Café
Street Backdrop
XX
01:00:00
Interview I
1:00
On Screen
Video, Graphics
XXI
01:01:00
Saturation
5:00
Dream
Overload of imagery
XXII
01:06:00
Interview J
1:00
On Screen
Video, Graphics
XXIII
01:07:00
Conclusion
3:00
Monologue, Café
Street Backdrop
XIV
01:10:00
Butterfly Dance
1:00
Dancer, Onstage
Live video, “hall of mirrors”
XV
01:11:00
Curtain
XVI
XVII
Tasks and materials
Scene #
Scene Name
Basic Elements
I
Prelude
II
Street/Portraits
3D Street modeled, mapped, lit
Passersby filmed, composited
Portrait Studio modeled, mapped, lit
Build 3D models of early animation, moving picture devices.
III
Interview A
Conduct interviews, edit, add graphics
IV
Café
Street Scene backdrop modeled, etc.
Background animation w/in the picture?
V
Interview B
Conduct interviews, edit, add graphics
VI
Plato’s Cave
Mechanical puppet show of the history of invention, modeled, animated, etc.
D.W.Griffith, Sergei Eisenstein apparitions modeled, rigged, lip synch, (?)
VII
Interview C
Conduct interviews, edit, add graphics
Scene #
Scene Name
Basic Elements
VIII
Café 2
Street Scene backdrop, modeled, etc.
Background animation w/in the picture?
IX
Interview D
Conduct interviews, edit, add graphics
X
Dog Head
Build a Dog head costume
XI
Time Slip
Dancer footage shot, shape animation.
Needs choreography, scripting
XII
Interview E
Conduct interviews, edit, add graphics
XIII
Land
Rework scene.
Needs editing, rework staging, music
XIV
Interview F
Conduct interviews, edit, add graphics
XV
Chaos
Create the “swarm”, collect; edit stock footage video of historic
events, etc. Combine with graphic elements.
Needs music, script
XVI
Interview G
Conduct interviews, edit, add graphics
XVII
Dada
Create 3D/2D animations of Dada artworks come to life.
Needs music, but could begin work
XVIII
Interview H
Conduct interviews, edit, add graphics
XIX
Consequences
Street Scene Backdrop
Background animation w/in the picture?
Repeat of Scene II a, this time with a truly empty street, people indoors-watching
television.
Scene #
Scene Name
Basic Elements
XX
Interview I
Conduct interviews, edit, add graphics
XXI
Saturation
Collection of video/film imagery, commercials, entertainments, etc.
Needs music, choreography, scripting. Collection/editing could begin
XXII
Interview J
Conduct interviews, edit, add graphics
XXIII
Conclusion
XXIV
Butterfly Dance
XXV
Curtain
XXVI
Video Interview Questions:
Try to video your subject against a neutral, solid background, one that will easily key out. Don’t move the camera; keep it locked down on a tripod. Let your subject talk as much as they want to, (and you can stand), there’s no such thing as “too much material”.
The Questions:
What’s your name, how old are you, and what do you do for a living?
What are your earliest memories of the movies and television?
What role did motion pictures and television play in your family life when you were growing up?
What are the most significant events that you’ve seen in motion pictures and on television?
Do you admire any celebrities? Which ones? And why?
How do you think the movies and television have changed our world?
Where do you get your information about local, national and world events?
If you could look like any motion picture or television star, from any time, who would it be? Why?
If Hollywood bought the rights to your life story, what kind of movie or television series would it be? Who would you like to play you on screen?
What do you like to watch these days?
Make sure and get their full name and the correct spelling. I’d like to put their name in the program if they’re agreeable to it, and if they make it past editing. It would also be great if we could get their mailing address so I can send them a thank you note for participating.