LSGL BRAINSTORM Fr 02.29.08 Premise: Brainstorming an abstracted version of act II, where the visuals are built from symbols rather than literal events. 1. The war on water So, hereÕs a way of telling act II that came to mind. The shoggoths arenÕt viewed as single entities, but rather as a single oceanic body of water/blood. The eldersÕ relationship to The Shoggoth (singular, collective) is characterized like an attempt to control water: water doesnÕt want to be controlled... ItÕs wet and slippery and drains away and spills and rises -- it doesnÕt obey straight lines. There are moments when the elders try to push it back... Using weapons, or just using the powers of their minds... But in the end, the waters overpower the mass of ÒhumanityÓ and only a few individuals are able to escape. Start in outer space, the camera falling toward the solar system, and down toward earth. A group of elders create life. Maybe we focus on one elder and then pull out to reveal many... Or maybe we see a group (arranged like theyÕre in the balcony of an operating theater) that are arranged in a semi-circle, in tiers, their brain radio waves emanating, and their bodies going in and out of X-ray mode... And then we close in on the event that is about to occur: An elder cuts itÕs own finger tendril with a scalpel, and a drop of blood falls out. We zoom in even closer, and follow the course of the drop of blood as it falls, now keeping pace with it so it becomes like a globe that fills the screen, sitting dead center. [Perhaps this drop of blood could become the globe at another point?] ...Here IÕm having a problem with colors in my mind, because I sort of see the elders in green -- but want to see the droplet in red -- as well as most of the other elements of the sequence IÕm envisioning. Perhaps this droplet, this orb levitating mid screen, is subjected to sparks of electricity as it hangs in space. Maybe these bolts of lightning are what cause it to turn red. (Although, a red-and-green palette doesnÕt really make me happy... Perhaps it could somehow be variegated? Perhaps using the Òfind outlines in colorÓ effect?) The blob begins to boil... Perhaps it starts reaching out pseudopods. An interesting possibility: The Shoggoth could possibly be accomplished with paint on glass, using a traditional animation technique. Maybe I could mix black tempera or some other dye into hair gel -- something thatÕs going to stay fluid over time. Again, IÕm seeing that experimenting with different methods of capturing fluid dynamics using practical effects (which then get composited) could be a good use of my time. So the drop of blood has become a shoggoth. IÕm not quite how to transition from that yet... But then this first blob of life morphs into the evolution of animal line. We see a single red silhouette mid screen that turns into a tadpole, then a fish, then a fish with feet, then a lizard, then perhaps a brontosaurus... Perhaps other animal forms also explode from this one proto-animal -- pterodactyls flying off, monkeys scrambling away, trees bursting forth... The problem I have here is trying to keep The Shoggoth a separate entity from the evolution of all other life on earth. Perhaps the animals diverge sideways, and the camera pulls back to reveal a great row of animal silhouettes has emerged. A spear (for lack of a better idea) rockets from right to left, skewering the animals, and they flop over dead, suspended on this horizontal line. Droplets of their blood fall down from their wounds... The camera pans downward, and we see the elders standing below their prey, and the blood droplets falling into their mouths. We see the elders in X-ray mode, so we can see that there are teeth in the center of their star-heads, and we can see their lungs, and muscles, and whatnot... We see that the elders are feeding off the blood of the animals that they have created. Return to the blob of protoplasm floating in space... The original Shoggoth... It is increasingly angry, pseudopods shooting out and falling back into itself. This is where I want to show the elders now exploiting the labor of The Shoggoth to build their civilization on earth. IÕm not sure how to make the transition... I donÕt want to show lots of individual shoggoths carrying stones like Egyptian slaves... Perhaps, instead, the blob of protoplasm -- life -- stretches its pseudopods out into long straight lines... We see the lines shooting out of this organic thing turning into vertical lines... We follow the vertical lines upward, and see them diverging, creating new paths that begin to look like brickwork and spires. IÕm imagining the lines of a gothic cathedral, with all its spires and filigrees and arches. The lines that have shot out from The Shoggoth have become a city. I imagine the camera now moving away from a looking-straight-ahead angle... It moves to a place that is 45 degrees off of all axes, and we look down using X-ray vision to see elders now inhabiting the building that has come into existence. Whereas before the vision of the building was like the orthographic view of a blue-print, this is more like a cut-away drawing, where the boundaries of walls and floors are portrayed just as lines, and we can see elders standing on different levels, 25 feet above one another. ItÕs sort of like the elders are going through a process of asking too much from life... Like some sort of Ògiving treeÓ... First they asked of Life (not in the sense of existence, but in the sense of blood) that they be given life forms that they could kill and consume. Then they asked of the Life Water (The Shoggoth) that they be given great buildings to live in. So far, so good. They ask a lot -- but nothing damning. Now they make their mistake: they ask the Life Force (which they created) for slave servants to obey them. From up in the higher layers of the city, the camera falls downward again... As if The Shoggoth is a lake at the center of the world, a seed from which the tree of every thing else grows... Always we go back down to that blob at the center of all things. [Technically, maybe the way to achieve the effect of the city growing like a tree from the shoggoth is to create the completed image in a vector-based program like Adobe Illustrator, and then in Photoshop, progressively erase the lines. Although, maybe first the vector image has to be brought into LightWave, so the camera moves can be accomplished... Then you take single frames into PhotoShop for modification. When the erasure process is played in reverse, you get the lines seeming to grow and come into being.] So, weÕre back on The Shoggoth, maybe even back in the original operating theater... But this time with the shoggoth much larger. Maybe we get to see the lines of the room this time... Tiers for the elders to stand on, like rows in a coliseum, maybe a balcony -- a subtle detail, suggesting a distance between them and this massive, undulating blob of life that theyÕve created. The elders start going in and out of X-ray mode again... Maybe there are lightning bolts... We do a fast zoom in on The Shoggoth and see an eye snap open. Consciousness! Perhaps we rise up to the level of the city again... And this time we see individual shoggoths moving around... Carrying platters like butlers? How do I convey that the shoggoths are being used as slaves? I think we sort of focus in on an individuals now, and show an elder giving orders -- pointing and commanding a shoggoth... Then another elder using a pain stick on one of the shoggoths. Pull back, and we see that the shoggoths are beginning to cover every aspect of life in the city... This is conveyed by them no longer being simple blobs... Maybe smooth globules like the wax in lava lamps? Instead, now there are expanding spills... The texture of paint streaks running down a wall -- but in reverse, so the runs are going up the wall... Everything is getting messy with shoggoth on it. And so, now it seems weÕve reached a point where a crisis is needed. The elders in this symbolic telling are fairly active... They WANT things. They want a planet to live on. They want things to eat. They want beautiful cities to live in. And they want servants to take care of them. ThatÕs three major ÒwishesÓ that theyÕre making... Rubbing the magic lamp, where the Ògenie in the bottleÓ is The Shoggoth -- the great bloody mass of the life principle itself. Where they go too far is in giving the shoggoth sentience... It would obey their desires otherwise -- but by giving it a mind, theyÕve made it too powerful. It has a will of its own -- it has WANTS of itÕs own... It wants to grow and consume everything. It wants to be free and wet, spilling out everywhere... But thatÕs NOT what the elders want. They want it to stay obedient... And they canÕt have both things. Either you get obedience, or you get sentience -- but not both. And so, the elders take measures trying to force the ocean of blood and its disobedient children puddles to obey. Previously IÕve always envisioned a conflict between one elder and one shoggoth, where the elder tries to punish using a pain stick, and the shoggoth decides that its had enough and strikes back. Now, however, IÕm thinking that I might mix in the imagery of the war of resubjugation at this point. The elders own city is infested with this messy, expanding muck -- and so they use their ring guns to try to kill off the cancer, pare back the growth... Sort of like pest control, fumigating oneÕs house. The Shoggoth doesnÕt tolerate being pruned back, and explodes from its well in the basement. Great terrible waves of liquid pour up the castle walls. [I imagine pouring black water out of a bucket, then flipping that silhouette upside down, so itÕs exploding upward.] The settingÕs a little unclear to me, but we see a couple of individual elders hit by the wave... Either crushed, or simply blown off screen by the massive force. Having the castle walls breaking, too, would be pretty spiffy. Now we see a 2D illustration of rows and rows of elders... Regiments of them arranged in a grid pattern... Essentially a tiled wallpaper. The camera is panning across these millions, with the wave chasing it, claiming hundreds of victims as it spreads. We see a small group of elders actually running, and they seem to be managing to escape. The beacon spins into view, fading in from the black void. We see rings of elders standing around it come into view. Maybe there are three or four concentric circles of elders around the beacon. The elders, beginning with the innermost ring, activate their mental radio waves... Their silhouettes leave their bodies (just outlines, not filled in with color). The beacon starts shooting out lightning, and the silhouettes dissolve into the body of the machine. Perhaps at the edges of the concentric rings of elders, we see that the shoggoth ocean has them encircled. ItÕs claiming the outer rings, and is closing in the inner enclave. Cut to Act III. 2. Analysis... the shoggoth queen OK, so there are some things to point out about this new telling, right off the bat. First off, this is interesting, that IÕve essentially turned this into a Ògenie in the bottleÓ story -- or perhaps a ÒmonkeyÕs pawÓ tale? Sort of a combination of the two. The elders get three wishes. The first two go fine, but on the third they get cursed, because theyÕve let the genie out of the bottle. [Actually, it might do me good to look up the Ògenie in the bottle story/metaphor, because I donÕt think I really know it. I seem to remember seeing a film that looked like it was made in the 50s or 60s in my youth, that told the tale... I donÕt recall if the story is identical with Aladdin and the Lamp... But IÕm not even sure how that tale goes, now that I think about it. Certainly not like the Disney version. ÒLetting the genie out of the bottleÓ is a phrase I most associate with nuclear proliferation, actually.] I seem to have postulated a new entity: the queen shoggoth. ItÕs not quite like the queen alien in the movie Aliens... But in this new telling, itÕs as if the master Òsour dough starterÓ that the shoggoths originated from never left its original vat... It just kept growing and producing over all these billions of years. The individual shoggoths seem to be extensions of itself, which can detach and live autonomous lives -- but then can also be reabsorbed. IÕm not at all sure that this is an innovation that I would want to keep in the ÒLast Days of LengÓ novel... But in terms of an abstraction of the story, itÕs got a lot of merit. IÕm rather pleased with the thought of taking all the shoggoths in the story and condensing them into a single character... An amorphous presence that is simultaneously water and blood -- a personified force of nature, which is also identified with life itself. I doubt IÕve got the telling correct yet -- but I suspect that this is the ÒrightÓ solution for how to focus act II. 3. Eliminating Cthulhu Part of what makes this the ÒrightÓ answer: IÕve stipulated previously that act II really ought to just be about the relationship between the elders and the shoggoths (or in this case, The Shoggoth). This solution does that. I was asking myself earlier this morning, ÒWhat can be eliminated? What can be cut out?Ó It seems like a pretty key question, both for story development and later on for editing... This new ÒThe ShoggothÓ story eliminates Cthulhu and the spawn. Bringing in Cthulhu introduces a fourth major character (in addition to the humans, elders, and shoggoths) -- but I only have three acts... A pretty good sign that I was over-extending myself. Cthulhu kept seeming necessary because the eldersÕ conflict with him seemed so central to explaining who they are. The war with Cthulhu seemed like such a turning point... Although I havenÕt got the link perfectly worked out, it seems like that conflict was part of what prompted the elders to give the shoggoths intelligence. Either (A) the elders needed the shoggoths to be sentient so they could act as more effective weapons during the conflict -- or (B) in the wake of the conflict, when the elders found themselves much weakened, it became necessary to give the shoggoths more power just so the daily chores of running a civilization could continue. But neither of these two story paths are entirely satisfying; at least not in the course of a film -- maybe they could work out just fine in a book, where youÕve got more room for explorations. On the one hand, if the shoggoths become sentient during the war, then it seems like a long wait for them to then turn around and kill their masters. On the other hand, if the shoggoths become slaves in order to help a species that is so weakened, it seems like theyÕre just hastening the inevitable -- which means that thereÕs no real conflict with the elders. It would be a bit of a tragedy, but the elders wouldnÕt seem to be very active in bringing about their own destruction, which seems requisite for this tale. IÕve also been pinning the moral status of the elders on the war with Cthulhu. The elders are bad guys for being slavers and inveterate carnivores who eat the very life theyÕve created on Earth -- but thatÕs balanced out by them also being the defenders of Earth, our only long-term hope for protecting ourselves against the far-worse threat of the spawn. This, as I keep saying, is a very interesting trope which I might be able to pull off in a book... But in a film, itÕs such a radical departure from the original ATMOM tale, that I think the purists would howl. Also related to Cthulhu: the issue of whether or not to show the eldersÕ wings. If I show Cthulhu, I need to show the elders flying in battle. If I donÕt show Cthulhu, then the wings are a non-issue, and I donÕt have to go out of my way to awkwardly explain why the elders in the cave donÕt seem to have any, while the elders in battle do. I suspect the right answer for a 5-6 minute film is to keep things as simple as possible. I love the mental image of the elders flying... But perhaps IÕm basing that mental image more on other artistÕs conceptions of the elders than on my own. My elders are larger and more barrel-like than most artists picture them. The leap of credulity, convincing the audience that they could really lift off the ground is larger. 4. Shoggoth in the basement In terms of visual space, the Ògenie in the bottleÓ story IÕve put together today seems to place the shoggoth at the center of everything. Rather than having the camera traveling far and wide, with no sense of Òhome,Ó it always loops back to this one creature at the center of everything. IÕm not sure how I feel about having the big vat of shoggoth starter in the basement, though. This contradicts the literal story to an extent, since we end Last Days of Leng with the elders living in a subterranean city. I was really pleased with my answer to Òhow could the shoggoths overcome the elders?Ó -- which was ÒtheyÕre unbeatable in enclosed spacesÓ and Òthey were like a tidal wave smashing into the city, and there were no unblocked exits.Ó That sense of the apocalyptic flood isnÕt as much in this telling as IÕd like. On the other hand, symbolically the shoggoth is at the root of the eldersÕ society. With the exception of coming to Earth as pioneers under their own power, everything that theyÕve accomplished is thanks to the shoggoths. So, having The Shoggoth as the visual foundation for everything else could make a lot of sense. 5. The three wishes So, if I go with the Ògenie in the bottleÓ telling for the deep history, I see this structure: three wishes, bookended by an intro and an outro: 1) intro: arrival on Earth 2) wish #1: the creation of animals to eat 3) wish #2: great cities in which to live 4) wish #3: sentient slaves to serve the elders 5) outro: apocalypse and escape via the beacon This strikes me a really solid structure. It would mean that act II is really oriented toward storytelling -- in contrast with act I and act III, which are dedicated to spectacle. Notice that while the structure could be sound, IÕm not at all married to how IÕve suggested any of these chapters (sections?) be told visually. IÕm not sure how I really want to show the evolution of life... What the city looks like... How to interpret the shoggoths being used as slaves... The events that precipitate apocalypse. These might (hopefully) be things that can be further clarified through a visual brainstorming process, working in sketchbooks -- which is the development process I intend to experiment with next week. 6. Ending the film on an abstract note IÕm wondering if act II might impact how I end the film... If for the last shot I somehow fade from literal visual space into abstract visual space... Maybe having the elders switch from 3D objects into Òanasazi frogsÓ in X-ray mode, floating in the black void, being smacked down by The Shoggoth -- the Life Force. This might allow me to set up some sort of tableau, which by its composition conveys that the Shoggoth is smacking down the elders -- but as they fall, humans are standing in their path and will get crushed. Freeze frame on this inverted pyramid: giant shoggoth on top, elders in the middle, tiny humans at the bottom. At one point, I had the thought that during act III, as the explorers are leaving the hive, I would have the elders around them pop into green outlines -- a visual way of saying that the explorers are looking around them making the connection between the things they saw in the magic mirror and the creatures they are seeing around them. I wouldnÕt mind reviving that idea -- and keeping it for the last shot would in some ways be a nice sort of dialectic: A + B = C... Synthesis of the visual style we saw in act II and the visual style that we began with in act I. Logical... Not sure if I love it, though. At this point, though, I think IÕve given up on having a protracted epilogue. Having Andrew stand up and go over to CarlÕs body, where itÕs lying beside a dead elder... I guess itÕs not ruled out yet. IÕve been thinking that we saw Andrew die already -- but maybe... Actually, now that I think about it, yes, I really have closed off that path. When Andrew hits the ground, he doesnÕt just go dark (which could represent unconsciousness) -- he has blood pour out from beneath him. So, no, I canÕt have him survey the carnage, go over to CarlÕs body, and then be surprised when he hears a Shoggoth scream in the distance. AndrewÕs death is one of my strongest shots -- IÕm not going to sacrifice it. It stays in the film. So, what options do I have at this point? I could do a slow-motion shot of the elder falling on top of Carl, and cut to black (or freeze frame)... Which seems to leave things dangling... Or I could transform this last shot into an abstract visual. So, right now IÕve got two options. 7. Voiceovers The Ògenie in the bottleÓ telling doesnÕt seem to need a voice-over. Given the problems associated with getting a voiceover to sound alien and at the same time be clear enough to understand, this is probably a good thing. Last fall I came up with the idea that what entices the explorers to touch the beacon is that it seems to hypnotically whisper to them. I can keep this. In fact, if the voices are indistinct, I can use them as a sort of a sound effect (rather than dialogue) during act II where appropriate. At one point I had the idea of having a brief voiceover during the blackness before the film, where human voices on a radio (to be played by Michael Hall?) say ÒWeÕre getting some strange interference. WeÕre going to go down and investigate.Ó I havenÕt decided yet if IÕll commit to that. I had been thinking -- when there was a voiceover for all of act II -- that there would be an audio repetition at the end of the films, when I cut to black, where we hear the cry ÒSend help! Send help! Send help!Ó That no longer fits. But, if I went with the radio message at the beginning of the film, I could possibly end with something similar in darkness... Either the people on the other end of the radio asking where the explorers are and saying theyÕll send out a rescue party... Or more radically, the base camp sending out their own distress signal, saying that some sort of creature has emerged and become aware of our species, and is killing everyone... Maybe everyone in the world??