BLOCK WORLD
January 5, 2006

Concept:  Generate ideas for an animated story using blocks, white butcher paper, markers.  One paragraph each; use serial numbers.

#001
Garden of Eden.  A creation myth.  Only two blocks to deal with.  A tree that sprouts up...  Possibly into a jungle.  A Pandora's box.  ....Two characters live in a universe of white.  From nowhere, a black box falls out of the sky.  The two investigate and open it.  When they do, a tree grows up between them.  It grows more and more, into a jungle.  The world of white is replaced with a background -- grass, trees, ferns -- the two characters have been born into a material world.  The jungle continues growing around them as they explore.  New objects emerge...  Rising up from the ground.  They discover fruits, and more people.  A village is formed, and everyone dances around a campfire.

#002
A conversation between two blocks.  Break between close-ups of the blocks and shots that show them both.  When they speak, draw in speech balloons, with cursive writing that writes itself there.  A lover's spat:  "You don't love me anymore."  "But I do."  "No, you don't."  "Oh...  OK"  ...That's at least 30 seconds, right there.  The blocks leave the scene.  [There's something about this that seems really French in my imagination.  Weird.]

#003
An army of blocks marching.  Lines of them moving forward in spurts, simulating goose-stepping.  A much larger block stands above them, an overlord of some sort.  A cluster of block soldiers encircle a victim, push him around.  Perhaps the oppressed minority is a species of clay spheres that roll around.  Maybe, since Sculpey is white, the blocks should be black, for contrast.  Or maybe gray -- since black and white is just a little too, well, black and white.  Or maybe the blocks are white and the victims are black blocks -- but that implies U.S. racial relations, which isn't something I really want to go into right now.  So lets go with blocks in gray, victims either in white or a different shade of gray.  If victims aren't clay, then they should be represented by a modified wooden block.  [When I first came up with this idea, I used shot glasses and candle-holders -- both are a similar scale.]  ...Anyway, there are multiple scenes of victims being badgered and rounded up.  End with all of the victims surrounded by an army of blocks -- a moment of suspense.  This sequence could be used as an episode in a multi-part story.

#004  THIRD PICK
Robots.  Put a small wooden cube on top of a more rectangular block to imply person (inspired by the sculpture "Allotment II" by Antony Gormley).  Do something inspired by Karel Capek's original robot story, "R.U.R".  "They live among us."  Have humans represented by balls of Sculpey.  ...Although, I don't really want to work with balls of Sculpey -- it tends to roll out into a cylinder as you move it around.  Instead, I could rough out some human forms from insulation foam, cover them with clay...  Or cement.  That would chew up some time -- but it would be a great textural contrast.  And I like the biblical reference:  Adam = adamah = earth.  The people would move in arcs, the robots would move in straight lines, turning in place -- another good visual contrast.  I also like the idea of letting myself do a genre piece; sci fi being a love that I haven't juxtaposed with stopmo yet.  There's some good opportunities for shots that have multiple planes:  foreground, midground, background.  ...But I'm thinking a little too visually; let's get back to story.  "They live among us."  "We trust them."  Maybe it turns out to be the voice of the robots...  "We are exploited."  Intersperse curvilinear writing with shots of the robots moving around between the still, statuesque (that could be a problem) people.  End with an incident where the human is beating a robot.  End on:  "We want our freedom."  ...The human's arm could be a problem -- that requires an armature -- it takes me out of the realm of just animating objects.

#005
Abstract.  There are rows of cubes that all move forward together, or in spurts as lines.  Use a yardstick to move the lines all at once.  A small creature runs circles around the blocks, dodging amongst their ranks.  First there's one of these "mice" or "playful children", then more.  The blocks could all be moving forward, then suddenly be going to the right -- a 90 degree turn without curving.  That would break the illusion of a marching army, and make the animation more abstract.  Maybe begin from simplicity and work to complexity.  Show just one block in close up moving from left to right in little spurts.  Then show a pair of cubes traveling together.  Then a group.  Then an army.  Of course, this would require me to make many more blocks, and I could really regret having to animate so many.  What constitutes an "army"?  I have eight now.  I could see going up to as many as 64, to really create an impressive climax shot from above.

#006
Animate a chess game, using the pieces that come with the chess set.

#007
Wooden cubes that leave black lines behind them, like slugs.  What could they be drawing?  "The End."  ...That would be a gag ending, where you spend the whole film getting just glimpses -- and end with this for the reveal.  A circuit board (though I have no idea how one would draw that).  A maze.  I could pencil the lines in ahead of time with a light blue pencil -- that almost certainly wouldn't show up in a black and white shoot.  The film structure:  show lots of close-ups, and then increasingly wide shots, ending with the big reveal.

#008
Wooden cubes, or a single wooden cube, lost in a maze.  The maze is drawn with a black marker onto the white butcher paper laid down on the floor of the set.  Spend some time focused on the cube winding its way around turns.  Have a minotaur figure in the center?  With seven maidens?  If so, then you want a string being laid down behind the cube.  Occasionally tack the string down with hot glue.  Does the cube somehow hold a spindle of twine?  I could create some kind of elaborate system where the twine is concealed in hollowed out center in the cube, and comes out through a drill hole...  Anyway, the cube finds the Minotaur and confronts it, slays it, and it leads the seven cube hostages out to...  a boat?  Back to Thebes, guys?

#009
A cube finds its way through a maze.  It comes to a sign that says "exit".  It goes through the passage, and finds itself in a little room packed with other cubes.  The camera pulls back.  The end.

#010
Rather than leave lines behind them, the cubes leave foot prints.  Each cube, though identical, leaves a different animal's footprints behind it.  Human, cat, bird, elephant, snake.  If I were working with sound effects on this project, you could have some amusing confrontations.  Mouse chased by cat, cat chased by dog.  Person surprised by cube that roars like a lion.  You see the cubes, then check on the foot prints to see what kind of creature it is.  Lots of little incidents; show cubes behaving like their respective animals -- e.g. a cube pecking like a bird?  Maybe even sitting in a tree?  End in chaos, all of the animals chasing each other everywhere, a cacophony of grunts, roars, chirps, screams.  "The End" appears, overlaid on top of all the tracks that have been left behind.

#011
Lines that the cubes must obey; lines that are left behind the cubes; footprints left behind the cubes...  Lines are being drawn on the floor in curly fern patterns.  A sort of disease on the table top that the cubes must avoid.  If a cube touches it, then it turns all black (animate painting it with black acrylic).  The disease of the earth spreads and spreads; the cubes increasingly find themselves cut off.  Ultimately they find themselves encircled.  Perhaps backed up against a wall -- it might be useful to add mountains, or other 3D obstacles that sit on top of the table.  End on the cubes encircled -- a "suspense" ending.  Or show all the cubes being "poisoned" and turning black...  After which they all go about life as normal -- but as black cubes -- all the fear having been for nothing -- a gag ending.  If I went that route, it would be cool to be working in digital, so I could flip everything into "solarized" mode, the entire world switching to a "negative" look.  If I needed to cover that much area, I might go with painting a huge lake of black, rather than just curly tentacle lines...  Black acrylic or india ink instead of crayola markers (non-toxic).  The crucial question:  how did the "plague" begin?  An apple or an inkwell stolen from a pedastle marked "do not disturb"?  Maybe an inkwell tipped over, so the stain is really just an enormous spreading spill?  Something mined from a mountain?  A satellite that has fallen from the sky -- like that meteor in the movie "Creepshow"?

#012
Another instance of the backdrop being drawn in.  Instead of a jungle, this time a city.  Maybe pair this up with the "Adam and Eve" story -- begin with two cubes, then they have a third as a baby.  A second family is introduced, their kids have kids.  Maybe have something like trees as a 2D element in the background, drawn on a separate piece of cardboard or so, so it can be dragged off to the sides as the world becomes populated.  A city skyline is drawn in:  just a single line, implying rooftops.  Windows appear.  If there are faces on the cubes, the faces can appear in the windows.  Since they'll probably just be taped / glued on, 2D pieces of paper can be used in the windows, and I won't have to figure out how to put cubes behind the backdrop.  The ending:  The city skyline is drawn in from the left and the right, converging in the center...  But instead of meeting, a gap is left between the final two skyscrapers.  Teeth emerge, and eyes open, and the city skyline gnashes its horrible maw.  Sort of like the hallucinated demon machine in "Metropolis".  Perhaps the blocks are marched into its mouth, and it devours them.  ...Not sure I really want to deliver an anti-urbanization parable, though!

#013  FIRST PICK
Back to writing words on the backdrop.  Maybe as the characters speak, words are added to the backdrop without erasing the previous ones.  The dialogue is added increasingly quickly and angrily, until the air is blackened with accusations.  If I were easily able to do it with Super8, I'd then have everything go still, and let it all fade away, being replaced by a clear white backdrop again.  If I were going for crude, one of the characters would then say.  "So, wanna f*ck?"  Or, the punch line, after all the furor could be "I love you."  Or I could try to steal that beautiful scene between Tara and Willow on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" where Tara says "I know we have so much to repair...  but could we kissing now?" (paraphrase).  ...In this set up, the cubes hardly move, except maybe to twist and turn a bit while talking.  All the action is in what's being written up above them.  This is probably not more than a minute-long gag:  as the air gets increasingly cluttered with words, you either have to focus on the words or the cubes -- you can only really show the whole conversation written above the cubes and have it remain legible early in the game.

#014
Instead of having the dialogue written directly onto the backdrop, have speech appear in dialogue balloons that are taped onto the backdrop.  Having the balloons disappear by popping out of existence might be awkward...  It'd be most elegant to switch to a reaction shot of the other cube when it's time for the speech bubble to disappear.  Alternately, one could use a replacement-animation strategy, creating maybe 40 bubbles for each line of dialogue:  that way you can have the words write themselves -- and then unwrite themselves.  It would probably get old quickly, though, watching every bit of text unwrite itself.  A replacement strategy would probably also create a lot of jitter...  But it might be a charming effect.  ...If speech bubbles aren't a permanent addition to the backdrop, then the cubes can travel, talking to different people.  A simple story:  a cube meets three people on it's journey, and then encounters the gag.  "Have you seen the muffin man?"  "He's just up ahead."  Repeat three times.  Wind up confronted by a muffin:  "Hi."  The end.  ...If the block is traveling, maybe he only really moves forward a few steps -- but the backdrops simultaneously rolls from right to left, to create the illusion of motion.

#015
Instead of writing text on the backdrop, write it on the ground.  This allows for shots that are more from above -- more interesting cameral angles than the usual proscenium staging.  Combine this with the block leaving a trail behind it...  Maybe a dotted line.  And it's a map that he's traveling across.  Generally keep a tight framing on the cube, and have the camera move with it.  ...This would be difficult using my tripod.  Text is in an fake autobiographical voice:  "When I left home...  I was searching for something...  I didn't know what...  Or who...  But I believed I'd know it when I found it...  I was right."  At each bit of text, the cube stops and looks at some object that has been place on top of the map...  Things like monopoly pieces, dice, a tiny bottle.  Have the cube end with a "female" cube; have them dance in celebration of finding each other.

#016
Purely abstract.  Have lots of cubes, have them move around with each other in interesting patterns.  Lines of cubes that move in contrary directions with each other.  Cubes that shuffle around stationary cubes.  Square dancing (couldn't resist).  This all depends on camera angle to keep it interesting -- can't just stay looking at it all from one vantage point.  Looking at a close-up with cubes moving past makes you try to guess what the larger pattern is.  This concept also depends on there being a very large number of cubes to work with.  For variety, I could paint a set white, a set black, sets in shades of gray.  Advantage:  it would be pretty easy to improvise sequences like this.  Much of the artfulness would probably come in the editing process.  The beginning has to do with the viewer discovering what's going on:  that these cubes are all moving in patterns.  The ending probably has to do with pulling back for a beauty shot.  Or you could show the blocks doing what they will be doing for the rest of eternity in a medium shot, and then super impose "the end" over the top.  This could be done by using a grease pen on a plate of glass.  Refocusing the camera on the glass might be tricky, and might put the cubes out of focus.  The fuzziness could be interesting in itself.  If I felt more confident about being able to control the Super8 cam's focus, then I might be willing to play around with fuzziness as a design element -- beginning with everything fuzzy, and then moving into clarity.  ...The middle of the film might deal with rhythm:  a slow sequence, a sequence where everything speeds up.

#017  SECOND PICK
Choreography with a smaller group.  Rather than having 40ish blocks dancing with each other, what could I do with a dance that only involves a small ballet troupe?  It would be nice if I could do more with the cubes than just slide them around...  Like if I could make them roll over.  This would probably involve using a small bit of putty (or more likely Sculpey), and slowly tipping the cube over.  I could see that being frustrating -- things tipping over at awkward moments.  ...Anyway, the cubes could race across the screen together in twos.  Two could cross and one could cross in the opposite direction between them.  It would be cool to see four stand in place, and then rise up onto their edge, as if they were standing on a pointed toe.  A pair could circle each other.  Two pairs could circle each other.  Four pairs could circle each other.  Two pairs of four could circle.  There could be a figure eight of cubes revolving.  The cubes could all spin in place.  The cubes could slam dance:  one sliding into the next, and propelling it off screen.  Cubes could pop into and out of existence.  They could slide to one place, and then reappear in another a moment later -- and continue with the motion they were in before.  One cube could slide toward another, which would disappear at the last moment, and then reappear just after the aggressor slides by.  A group of eight could pop in and out of existence sequentially.  Of the eight, one could be missing at any time, so it's the negative space that we see moving.  Two negative spaces could circle the group.  There could be eight places to stand, but only three cubes to cycle through those places.  The cubes could slide at angles, from the back left to the front right.  It'd be nice to have the camera moving, slowly rising to a bird's eye view, spinning, and coming down on the other side (ha!). 

#018
Character based animation -- but using the cubes.  Photocopy faces from magazines, tape them onto the cubes.  Have the cubes interact in one-on-one pairings, improvising segments based on the faces they're wearing.  The more recognizable the celebrity the better.  ...Or, draw (replacable) faces onto the cubes by hand.  Same idea.  ...Or, draw faces for the sides of the cubes, but replace them sequentially in order to have changing facial expressions.  Cut out a hundred pieces of paper that are the right size beforehand, so it's easy to quickly draw new ones.  Perhaps pull out the light table, for some very rough onion-skinning.  ...Or, determine what kind of personality each cube should have beforehand -- but don't give them a face; just have them "act" according to persona.  E.g.  bully, girly girl, heroic boy (Hm.  Gender-stereotyping anyone?), psychotic killer, frenetic, droopy / sulky, speedy...  

...

End experiment.  Approx 2 hr 15 min.

First pick:  Two characters argue, words piling up on the backdrop.
Second pick:  Cube "ballet troupe" dancing.
Third pick:  A short story, clay people and blocky robots.  Surprise:  it's the robots' voice.