LSGL BRAINSTORM
Fr 01.18.08

PREMISE:  Hammer away at the story.  Ask “what was it like when...?” and “how did it feel when...?” -- identifying significant moments.  Take the bland sequence of events and add color/texture by finding those points where the characters would have some sort of emotion/reaction/significant experience.

1.  Anasazi frogs
In yesterday’s brainstorm, I contrasted using “rough” hand-drawn/painted elders with the “crisp” outlines of silhouettes generated in LightWave.  After the basic shapes have been created, either of these options can be “distressed” using various filters.

Last night it occurred to me that the “crisp” route can go in one of two directions...  I could use silhouettes that are based directly off of my original LightWave models -- or I could create a crisp symbolic style that is attributed to the elders themselves.

Yesterday when I was thinking about pictograms, I was thinking about the “universal” pictograms that get used to identify the men’s bathroom vs. the women’s bathroom...  The sort of generic depiction of people that gets used at the Olympics, where you need to be able to communicate “skiing” to people who speak 15 different languages.

However, another sort of pictogram would be those drawings made on stones by aboriginal peoples.  Think of Australian aboriginal art or Anasazi drawings...  Often their forms are built out of somewhat geometric shapes...  Or perhaps the huge line-drawings in the Andes that are supposedly messages to UFOs...  Referencing these shapes would subconsciously cue two very useful associations:  (1) the sense that the elders are very old -- and (2) this idea that maybe the “ancient astronauts” were the elders!

I did some sketches last night, and came up with some images I rather liked which I’d describe as “Anasazi frogs.”  Simply because the elders are capable of photo-realistic art -- holograms, even, I’m sure -- doesn’t mean that their own visual language wouldn’t be made up of stylized symbolic images.

2.  What was it like at the moment when Cthulhu was defeated?

3.  How did the war with Cthulhu begin?
Was he the one to strike the first blow?  If so, how did he do it?  And from where?  What were the initial damages / casualties?

4.  What was it like when the elders’ army left port to do battle?
I have this image in mind of legions of elders lifting off the ground in clusters.  Not flapping their wings, but rather lifting up as if they’re levitating or filled with helium -- simply using their wings for maneuvering.

5.  How do the elders fly?
The elders flying into space to do battle -- it raises the question:  how do they fly?  This is a problem in the original novella:  based on the wing dimensions that Lovecraft describes, it’s impossible to image these things actually lifting themselves off the ground with their wings.  They’re actually a largely aquatic race...  Which leads me to image them using their wings for underwater propulsion -- much like an octopus uses its skirt for propulsion. 

The original text is unclear about whether there are just two wings or if there are five.  If there are just two, it doesn’t make any sense -- how would they attach to the beast, given their five-sided radial symmetry?  When I consider that the wings were originally evolved for underwater use, however, it’s easy to imagine that there are five “wings.”  The original artist for the Astounding Stories magazine run gave the elders 2 wings -- but his interpretation isn’t particularly accurate in any regard, so I see no reason to stay true to his work.  When I look at contemporary artist’s works, most give the elders two wings -- but one or two give the creatures five -- which is my choice as well.

Anyway...  With regards to how these things fly, the novella says that as the species grew decadent, the knowledge of how to fly through the ether of space was lost.  This suggests to me that in addition to using their physical wings, there was a technological component to their ability to fly.  I have two visions of what this could look like:  (a) a sort of mechanical sphere, which makes the elders lighter than air; (b) a pill which not only does that -- but which also allows them to sprout wings.

The mechanical device might be strapped onto the creatures...  And so seeing them strap on these devices would be a precursor to seeing them lift off for battle with the spawn of Cthulhu.  I can believe that the Elders are reasonably aerodynamic -- it’s just their weight that gets in the way...  Perhaps the machines would be based on the anti-gravity substance that we see in “First Men In The Moon” -- that has an appropriately pulpy flavor to it.  There’s a Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon flavor to this idea...  The machine is not doing the flying for you -- it merely gets you off the ground...  Control of flying is entirely a matter of your own skill.

The idea of the pill is perhaps even more exciting...  A pill that both makes you grow wings and become lighter than air -- that’s an absurd, and radical, and “sensawonda” invoking concept!  Who wouldn’t want something as simple as a pill that allows you to grow wings?!  That’s the variety of old pulp sci fi which is obviously implausible -- but which I miss nonetheless.

With either of these two options, we get two shots:  (1) The elders engage the thing that gives them the power of flight -- (2) and then we see them rise off the ground.  The important thing is that they lift off not by flapping and struggling -- they simply start to rise.  Obviously I’m excited by the “flying pill” concept...  It has the additional benefit of making it easier for me to explain the elder’s current lack of wings.  I don’t have to resort to “genetic degeneration” as I’ve previously been thinking.  I don’t have to show in-between stages in the devolution, where the wings become vestigial and then disappear entirely.

6.  What if I eliminated the “decadence” theme?
In Lovecraft’s novella, the elders’ fall from power is due to “decadence”...  A social critique that, I believe, Lovecraft leveled at society around him.  I don’t know much about his biography really  -- I’ve seen documentaries about him at the HPLFF, but they don’t really go into the detail I’d need in order to address this question:  what are the roots of Lovecraft’s preoccupation with decadent degeneracy?  Are the themes of decadence and degeneracy separate or one and the same?  I do know that the degeneracy theme was probably strongly related to Lovecraft’s racism.  He was a racist, pure and simple...  And so when we see humans interbreeding with fish creatures (he had an abhorrence of fish), it’s clearly drawing upon a hatred he must have for miscegenation.  ...So when I ask myself “what caused the elders to become decadent?” -- is the missing puzzle piece that Lovecraft sees society as a whole falling apart due to the presence of black people -- but in this particular story he didn’t deal with that theme, so the decadence appears purely out of habit, without explination?

Given the ethical fulcrum that I’ve pulled out for LSGL, there might be an irony:  Lovecraft’s oeuvre is racist -- but I’m using his story for an anti-racist cause.  The ethical fulcrum:  Slavery (by the elders) is responded to with Genocide (by the shoggoths), culminating in a belated Massacre (which effects the explorers).  I want to humanize both the elders and the shoggoths -- which runs contrary to most of the horror that Lovecraft pours into their alienness...  Although, the insight that the “elders were men like us!” is in the original...  So, at a deep level, my radical departure from Lovecraft is in humanizing the shoggoths -- which map onto black slaves in the real world.

Lovecraft’s explorers have the insight that the elders are merely scientists like themselves.  The massacre of the initial human expedition is forgiven -- it was an understandable panic-reaction to waking up to vivisection.  However, the shoggoths are never forgiven for overthrowing their superiors...  Despite having been enslaved, Lovecraft maintains that the slaves are a horrifying abomination, which -- despite the sentience they were given -- is rightfully inferior to the great race.

So...  What if I eliminate the decadence theme from my telling entirely?  When I did my hand-drawn animatic for the “deep history” last year, I came to realize that the “and then they became decadent” portion of the story is extremely difficult to show visually.  The best images I could come up with involved the elder things drinking from brandy snifters (a ridiculous concept) -- and the elders erecting lots of grandiose statues of themselves...  Which the shoggoths could later topple for dramatic effect.

If I get rid of the decadence trope, then after the war is over, it’s simply a question of “when do the shoggoths rise up? “  What’s the precipitating event?

7.  Use of transparency
While I’ve been imagining stark black-and-white (well, black-and-green) silhouettes for the deep history -- largely because of the “wide-flat” 2D storytelling space I’m developing -- I realized last night that I don’t necessarily have to use 100% opaque colors.  In particular, the wings of the elders might be semi-transparent -- which would be an interesting effect that I haven’t seen elsewhere.  Having transparency might (or might not) be useful when we see the flying army lift off.  The unfurled wings will have width that will occlude whatever’s behind them -- less so, though, if they’re transparent.

Transparency may also have some use for the spawn of cthulhu -- I haven’t done any sketches yet, but I can see that the facial tentacles may prove problematic in terms of getting good silhouettes.  If the facial tentacles hang down over the chest, they don’t show up on the silhouette at all.  Do I have the spawn always be facing sideways?  That seems equally problematic.  Perhaps with the spawn, unlike the elders, the 2D CG models would need to be done as two layers -- a head and a body.  You wouldn’t always see the facial tentacles -- but when the head rotates, facial tentacles would emerge that you hadn’t been aware of before.

I haven’t looked much into the idea of creating bit-map textures for the pictograms...  In some ways it goes against the concept of symbolic image-based writing -- but it might be particularly useful with the spawn.  With the elders, I’ve vaguely contemplated that their pictorial self-image might be in X-ray vision.  Maybe when we are looking at them from the side, we get to see the insides of their lungs.  (This is an idea influenced by the visual style of “The Planiverse” by A.K. Dewdney.)

8.  What’s the point of the war with Cthulhu?
To an extent, the purpose of Cthulhu is to show that the elders were bad-ass -- that they were able to put down the biggest celebrity in Lovecraft’s universe.  (Uh-oh.  When I put it like that, it strikes me that I really ought to look into the canon explanation of how he got sent to R’lyeh.)  ...But in terms of the core themes of my story -- Slavery, Genocide, Massacre -- how does Cthulhu fit in?

Right now he’s utterly two-dimensional:  he attacks.  For no reason, just because.  Why would Cthulhu have an interest in any planet -- let alone one as backwater as Earth?  What was Cthulhu doing before he began his invasion?  Are the Elder and Spawn empires in competition with each other, each trying to conquer the galaxy first?  (I can’t help but think of the conflict between the Sontarans and the Rutans in the Dr. Who universe.)

9.  Spectacle:  the elders flying
Yesterday I was searching for “key scenes” that make Act II worth doing.  Getting to see the elder things fly might be one.  It’s unexpected, it’s amazing, and I’m excited about the new “flying pill” concept which feels absurd -- but in a daring way.  Seeing a sample of elders eat a pill, wings sprout from their sides, and then a whole army begin lifting into the air -- that’s pretty damned cool.

I’m still concerned that this new telling of Act II is going to outweigh the rest of the film -- but I guess I need to just put that aside for a while.  Let myself consider all the possible key scenes...  There are ultimately going to have to be some choices, though.  Am I going to tell this story from the POV of the elders, the shoggoths, the beacon, or the explorers?  If I choose the elders, do I tell their whole history -- or constrain the beacon’s message to a quick SOS?  To an extent, I suppose that choice is going to be influenced by the back-story as it emerges...  I still don’t really know how the surviving elders in the cave got there!

Another word of support for seeing the elders fly:  When I think about constraining Act II to a brief SOS message, I find myself somewhat disappointed for two reasons.  I’m attached to the image of elder things spiraling down to Earth on their wings, when they first colonized the planet.  I like that image a lot.  Second, I feel like part of my mission in humanizing the alien involves really making them the center of the story -- and showing that like any people, they have a long history.  There’s a strong argument for keeping my film short and punch -- but it’s important to keep coming back to what my core mission with the film is.  The way I articulated it yesterday:
	(1)  Act II should be able to stand on it’s own
	(2)  No more animating 3D elder things in Act II
	(3)  Humanize the alien
	(4)  Demonstrate how Lovecraft should be illustrated with glorious color

[That last point was discussed later in the brainstorm, it wasn’t in the original list.]

10.  Should act II have to be able to stand on its own?
If I view Act II as being book-ended by Acts I and III, then yes, there should be severability.  However, I’m bothered by this notion of “severability” -- it makes Acts I and III superfluous.  And that feels like a disrespect to the work I’ve put in on those elaborate segments.  Arguably Act II should actually be incomplete -- so that we don’t have all the pieces in the puzzle of the story until Act III arrives.

11.  Severability vs. Incompleteness
Here’s my dichotomy:  Severability vs. Incompleteness.  If Act II tells a complete story unto itself, then it’s severable.  If, on the other hand, it’s incomplete, then that makes Act III important -- it solves certain puzzles that act II raises.

Arguments for having act II be “incomplete”:  (a) It allows me to make a shorter film, which is easier to complete.  (b) It doesn’t undercut the climax in Act III.  [“Undercut” is a good word.]

There are different approaches for making Act II “incomplete.”  On the one hand, I could make it just be an SOS message, which the elders had to make in a rush -- so it presumes a lot of prior knowledge for whoever’s going to be receiving it in the future.  On the other hand, I could make a “damaged message” where certain elements simply cut out -- we only get to see some portions of a message that was originally complete.  On a third hand (!) I could make an “impressionistic” telling...  The message is supposedly transmitted telepathically, so we get waves of knowing that just transmit the most important events.

If I go either the “damaged message” or “impressionistic” route, I think I’d be well-served by first creating a fully developed story, which then gets excerpted.  Since reading Robert McKee’s book “Story,” I’ve had it floating around in my mind that it is the duty of any fiction writer to know their world inside and out.  Right now I don’t have that with LSGL.  [I don’t have that for Professor Ichbonnsen’s universe either.]  However, I’m beginning to see that with this “identify significant moments” brainstorm tool that I’m pioneering today, I may finally have my tool for getting somewhere.  Clearly it’s an enormously labor-intensive process -- but by creating a number list of thoughts like this one, it’s not a difficult process...  It’s easy-but-time-consuming -- which I can do in spades.

12.  Who are the surviving elders in the cave?

13.  How did the beacon get into the cave?

14.  How did the beacon get turned off?  Why does it turn on now?

15.  What was the event that precipitated the shoggoths’ uprising?
Hm.  Notice that these three questions are different from my “what was it like?” sequence.  These are issues of “why did it happen?”  ...Getting the internal logic of a story to work is more difficult than generating texture/color by focusing on “what was it like when...?”  Can I get to one from the other?  For instance, if I start all the way back at “what was it like when the elders arrived on earth?” -- can I work my way through, moment-by-moment, to their downfall?

16.  What was it like when the elders first arrived on Earth?
When the elders arrived on earth, I imagine that there were mountains and naked stone...  Not even oceans?  From what I recall of the origin of oceans, hydrogen and oxygen were released when the earth was still molten...  Resulting in a burning fog of vapor and steam...  Which, as the earth’s surface cooled, condensed into oceans.  It seems to me, then that there must have been oceans when the elders arrived...  In fact, that’s probably part of what attracted them to earth.  I’ve already established that the elders are primarily oceanic creatures...  Well, Lovecraft established that -- but I’ve embellished, deciding that they evolved in an oceanic context, thus their “wings” are really just fancy fins that have been multi-purposed for use in space flight.  It occurs to me that given the oceanic aspects of the spawn’s bodies (spawn of cthulhu), they too must have evolved on ocean worlds -- which sets the stage for a conflict over who gets to possess earth.