SWORD, CAVE, FEAR
W 10.11.06

See story idea #22.

1.  Perseus and the Minotaur.  Perseus is walking down hallways, dragging a read twine behind him, sword in hand.  He has a moment of being startled by his own shadow.  But then the Minotaur is behind him.  It looks like he's going to be taken unawares, but then he whips out his sword at the last second -- ending with the sound of steel being drawn.

2.  A person with a sword is hanging out in a cave, sharpening the sword.  He's afraid to leave the cave, and peeks out from the entrance.  He pokes a toe out into the sunlight.  Perhaps a knight in shining armor -- although, I don't know why he would be in the cave in the first place.  I'm just reversing the normal expectation that the cave is the scary place.

3.  A dragon in a cave who is afraid to go outside -- and sure enough, a knight with a sword is waiting outside for him, after we've built up sympathy for the dragon character...  A meek soul.

4.  My creature "Spikey" lives in a cave.  There is no reference to the daylight world.  The "sword" is implied, because we hear the sound of knife-steel every time Spikey takes a step -- making for a terrifying cacophany when he walks quickly.  The story concerns a person who is trapped inside his chest...  And cuts their way out?

5.  A person who is in a cave.  A knight falls from the ceiling and hits the floor.  Other things (leading up to this) fall from the ceiling.  The person takes the sword and cuts open the wall, and we discover that they've been trapped inside of a dragon's belly -- it hasn't been a cave at all.  (It would be difficult to fabricate armor, and I don't really have much interest in learning how...  Unless I could perhaps use the same techniques to simulate an insect's carapace.)

6.  The sword is merely a painting on a set of great oak doors, which lead into a forbidden cave.  Perhaps this is the beginning of the Perseus story I outlined in story concept #1?

7.  The cave is in another dimension.  Our protagonist is entirely black, and lives in a world of white.  The antagonist lives in a black cave, and is entirely white.  The protagonist cuts into a book, creating a gateway into the other dimension?  Or they put the sword into a mirror, in which they can see the antagonist, thus killing the other?  Or perhaps themselves?  That would be interesting:  to try to kill the thing in the mirror -- but it slays oneself, and the antimatter thing is released into our world.

8.  The sword is never actually used.  It is stuck in the ground, sort of like "the sword in the stone"...  It's a threat -- the notion that someone might pull it out.  Have two characters arguing, and the knife is present.  There are tense glances at the knife...  But both of them realizing what will happen if their argument escalates, they back down and don't fight.  Maybe one of them "caves in" to the other's demand.  It sort of becomes a metaphor for nuclear proliferation.

9.  Maybe the cave is not a deep tunnel, but rather a shallow nook.  Have a scene where a character is hiding in a shadow as armed goons pass by.  Perhaps they carry knives / swords?  Scary skeletal Nazi creatures.  My assumption has been that there was only one sword...  Maybe there are many swords.

10.  A sword fight in a cave, between a hero character, and a skeleton -- re-enacting one of Harryhausen's famous fight scenes.  Perhaps the fight is between a hero and a magical creature that is controlled by a wizard.

11.  Magical swords that aren't held by a character, but float in the air, whiz at you.  Perhaps guarding a door.

12.  Inside the cave is a good witch, an old bedraggled swamp witch, and the hero character is merely carrying the sword for safety.  Or maybe the sword is in a scabbard and never even gets drawn.  Perhaps the cave is a tunnel from the outdoors to another outdoors place -- the end-point is not a main cave vault.  I'm thinking of Augra from the Dark Crystal, and how there was a sort of cave entrance that led to a celestial observatory of sorts.

13.  Perhaps there is a castle, or an old monastery, and behind a crack in a wall is some sort of a cave that leads elsewhere...  Such as down to an opening at the ocean, or to a crypt below.  There's an assumption that a cave's entrance is outside -- but perhaps it is actually inside, and the building has been built in front of / above it.  Maybe there's a cute note here:  the entrance is guarded by mice carrying swords or bayonets.  [I'm thinking of the movie "Dark Waters," which I just saw at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival.]

14.  Continuing with the notion that the cave entrance is indoors...  In dreams, there are often tunnels that lead from one place to another.  Perhaps the universe that we inhabit is governed by dream logic.  So the cave would lead out of a bedroom.  Or out of a dining room.  Or some other exceedingly normal place.  [Hm.  In terms of what universe I want to set stories in, I suspect "dream realm" might be about right.  Not a dragon-fantasy world, or a realist world, or a good/evil (angels, vampires, demons) world.  I can picture having characters that are almost abstract in appearance, as if sculpted by Brancussi.]

15.  Maybe, getting even more bizarre, the cave entrance is between couch cushions.  Or inside of a comfy reading chair.  The protagonist is maybe having a conversation with someone who isn't paying attention, and then makes their escape down between the cushions, down into another world.  That's an interesting start to the story!  ...And I think I could even manage to fabricate a comfy chair.  ...It'd be fun to create a yakking character with an enormous mouth.

16.  Maybe the swords are worked into the set in some unexpected way.  Like, for instance, the legs of a chair are swords.  It's an appealing idea to make the props in the set interesting unto themselves, rather than generic representations.  If I had a bench grinder and a little bit of stainless steel, it wouldn't be too hard to make some miniature blades.  I could probably also accomplish the prop using a file and sandpaper.  A Scotchbrite wheel (or maybe a buffer wheel) would be required to get a really good shine, though.  Filed and sanded magic sculpt or epoxy putty might suffice, too, if you had a decent metallic paint.

17.  Fear seems like the easiest part of this film to do.  There's some sort of threatening creature, and the main character freezes with wide eyes for a moment.  That implies that I'm going to have some sort of monster puppet.  I keep imagining the monster sitting at the very back of a cave, lounging in their lair.  However, the threat could also be more prevalent:  an enemy army marching in the streets of one's home town (although that would require fabbing more puppets).

18.  ...I suppose that fear need not be of potential violence from an enemy.  It could be fear of heights, as a character edges along a trail on the side of a cliff.  Or as the character crosses a high bridge.  [I keep wanting to do a bridge as part of a set...  Sort of like the one crossed in the mines of Moria in "Lord of the Rings."]

19.  Fear could be of getting caught...  Not by an enemy per se, but caught in a lie.  Or caught while impersonating someone.  Characters traveling in disguise are a classic element of mythic hero stories.  You have Luke and Han dressing as stormtroopers in "A New Hope," or Queen Padme pretending to be the servant of her double in "Phantom Menace"...  Or there's the queen in hiding in Kurosawa's "Hidden Fortress."

20.  Protagonists could be disguised -- but then, the antagonists could also be disguised.  If so, then you have a doppleganger scenario.  The fear is because you don't know who to trust, rather than because you fear being caught.  This is typically dramatized by having characters start suspecting and accusing each other.

21.  Fear could be in the moment when the villain is revealed from their hiding place.  I'm imagining Spikey -- who's maybe 14 feet tall -- rising up out of the suit / shell of a man who's normal sized.  That would be impressive...  Sort of like when the Edgar Bug is revealed in "Men in Black."  It's mind boggling in part because something so huge shouldn't fit in a package so small.

22.***  Building upon the idea of the cave entrance inside the comfy chair, and upon the idea that the cave is a tunnel rather than an end point...  The cave from the couch cushions exits from behind a painting hanging in the dining room.  We don't actually see the tunnel -- it's implied.  Maybe what we have is a kid who's being lectured to by his father...  He escapes to another room in the house.  Maybe the father follows and finds him there.  The kid slips away again...  But this time, as he's going through the caves, he's stopped by his father -- who is inside the cave too!  Then the father sheds his skin, and a 14 foot tall monster is revealed.  End on the kid looking up in terror.  Wow -- that's an essentially complete story concept!

23.  A stopmo short needs to have a manageable number of characters -- at least this early on in my development!  However, I find myself thinking that once you have a protagonist and antagonist, then you want to fill out the world you've created with supporting roles.  I'm thinking that a sidekick of some sort, in particular, would be a good addition.  And then maybe some sort of helper character, like a bird, who can deliver crucial assistance.  And maybe an old wise man living somewhere reclusively.  ...Romantic interest?  Shakespearian fool?  Comic relief?

24.  Suppose I were to try to bend "cave, sword, fear" to a Lovecraftian theme.  "Cave" and "fear" are pretty easy to accommodate...  I suspect the sword would either be thrown in as some little unimportant detail, or it would be ignored altogether.  Maybe it would be a ceremonial dagger for human sacrifices.  I could see it being fun to create a statue of an Elder God which cultists worship.  Filming multiple cult members would be trying, though.  One could use CG, live-action, or roto-scoped characters for humans -- having only the creature itself appear as a stopmo creation.  It would be an interesting textural combination, using multiple animation forms all together.

25.  What if I used "cave, sword, fear" purely as words?  I'm imagining the word "sword" getting re-arranged to spell "words"...  I can imagine using hand-drawn 2D animation to show the words dancing around in the air.

26.  Maybe "sword" is a character's name...  Or maybe it's text that appears on their costume.  I like the imagery of having puppets with words written on their faces and clothes; not in ways that make it look like the words are part of a known fashion, but rather superimposed abstractly.  [And hey, with a brother named "Shield", "Sword" would be an excellent name!]  ..."Sword" I imagine being the name of a soldier-for-hire.

27,  "Fear" also has potential as a character name.  To have a villain whose name is "fear" -- I like the abstraction of it.  Not "doctor fear" or anything like that -- just "Fear".  Nor do I imagine the character as being an abstraction of the emotion fear.  Just have the villain be who he is, but have his name be "fear."

28.  It's really easy for me to envision characters traversing caves.  Caves are relatively friendly passageways in my imagination.  Or rather...  Ones that are warm earth tones are friendly, ones that are in cold blues and purples are threatening, the sort of place where Spikey would reside.  Let's think of variations on the generic cave.  A cave could be vertical, rather than horizontal -- a pit going down into the earth, sort of like in "Journey to the Center of the Earth."  Or a cave could be underwater.  [That presents a lot of problems for stopmo, though.]

29.  A cave could be the lair of some terrible monster.  A cave could be a refuge for guerilla fighters.  A cave could be a secret passageway.  A cave could be a secret hiding place for a lone individual.  A cave could be where something ancient and forgotten waits.  A cave could be where a city of friendly alien creatures live (like fraggles, or in "The Day of the Ness.")  A cave could be a psychological space inside of a character's own mind.  A cave could be a magical passageway between places that couldn't possibly be connected by a cave.  A cave could be a prison, or a place where people are sent to get lost / eaten.  A cave could be where a magical hermit lives.  A cave could be underwater, or hold a subterranean lake.  A cave could be the hiding place for a monster that raids the town.  A cave could be an ancient source of power, where "the navel of the world" is located.  A cave could be permeated by tree roots, or lead down from an opening in a hollow tree.  A cave could be where friendly gnomes live.  A cave could have been sealed for eons, and then reopened by explorers, like a time-capsule.  A cave could be symbolic of a vagina or a uterus.

30.  Fear could be a habitual phobia.  Fear could be shock at seeing something horrible happen.  Fear could be fear of getting caught while doing something prohibited.  Fear could be hesitancy to try something that one things one will fail at.  Fear could be the atmospheric dread that something bad is going to happen in this place.

31.  A cave full of words (including the word "sword") which float and dance in the air.  This place is discovered by characters who have words emblazoned across their costumes or their faces.  Maybe each character has only one word on them.  Maybe they have multiple words.  If there was just one character, maybe they would have the word "fear" emblazoned on them...  Maybe it would be pressed (as if with typewriter keys into clay) into their forehead.  [This could be done with letter stamps if the head were being sculpted out of Sculpey or an oil clay.]  Maybe the character is coming to the cave to trade in the word they've been marked with for another.  Hope?  Courage?  Truth?  ...A character who is marked with the word "Truth" would be awful interesting.

32.  Going with the "cave of words" idea some more...  Perhaps we go with the "language is a virus" concept.  Maybe a word -- "terrorism"? -- is infecting people across the land.  The word is appearing on their clothes, on their faces.  Someone travels to the cave of words and finds an alternative word -- "truth"? -- which makes the word go away.  Sort of like an inoculation.

33.  Maybe it's not whole words, but just letters that mark puppet actors.  Like a large letter "N" that takes up most of a puppet's face.  Even if there were no real place for this in a story, the aesthetic would be very intriguing to look at.  [Although, it does imply that we get to see quite a few puppets -- which means more to build -- and the audience would start looking for a logic, trying to figure out how characters are being categorized.]

34.  Maybe characters are labeled with the names of constellations.  Auriga.  Virgo.  Cassiopeia.  Maybe there is a cave full of stars.  Maybe each character is a single star.  ...Well, that works well for Rigel or Alnitak -- but there are a lot of stars without meaningful names.  If characters were stars, I suspect I'd wind up using "lens flare" in LightWave to create some star effects.

35.  Maybe "sword" would only arise in dialogue.  "I am the sword of God, striking from the stars through the darkened void that is your heart..."  Or something similarly picturesque.

36.  "A man with a name like 'Sword'...  It can't help but intimidate one's enemies." -- "You begin to understand, my friend.  My reputation precedes me.  Victory by avoiding a fight is better than defeating one's opponent."

37.  A time of war.  A force of guerilla fighters hiding in a cave.  Their leader's right-hand-man is named "Sword."  The enemy force carries flags that simply say "fear."  The flags are charte font, light turquoise on deep red.  As the enemy battalion passes the cave, the freedom fighters storm down from above (the cave is on a hill).

38.  A single freedom fighter named "Sword", who infiltrates the base of the Nazi demon creatures, where groups of children are imprisoned in cells.  The climactic moment is when Sword releases the children...  Or perhaps some small child-reminiscent alien creatures? ...from their cell.  He leads the group out of the base silently, leading them in a train, all holding hands so no one gets left behind.

39.  Sword is in love with a girl who is imprisoned.  He sneaks into the place where she is confined several times, and they have longing conversations while separated by bars.

40.  Maybe the girl Sword is in love with is separated from him by bars that divide the dream world from the world of the waking.  So he is able to come visit her, but as she is only a dream, he can never take her beyond that gate, back with him to the waking world.