I found the linked photo in my soon-to-be-deleted-junkyard-of-digital-detritus folder and I thought that it could contribute to the tone of my world. I treated the photo with a mawky but pretty filter on Instagram to emphasise the dark foreboding feel which is appropriate for the establishing shot of Treehorn’s neighbourhood.
Treehorn, a shrinking character in a short kids story by Florence Parry (1971), is my protagonist in an adaptation that I have been working on since I was inspired in our first class. My interpretation of Treehorn’s character, is one that is sinking into self loathing and addiction and perceives himself to be ‘shrinking’ though no one listens or cares. By extension, Treehorn’s paralysing mental subordination has seen him fall victim to the ruthless and predatory H who will use Treehorn for labour, sex and even sadomasochism.
The Treehorn concept came about after jamming on a class activity where we were asked to state what we hated and what we loved, then, we were to question who would love what we hated.
The character profile that emerged from ‘a person who loved what I hated’ became a ruthless, corporate, sadist whose relentless ambition would have them stop at nothing until they had consumed everything in their path.
Aside from Macbeth, I couldn’t quite think of a person with such vicious tenacity. Therefore, I had to delved into stories from my childhood of which one such story was The Shrinking of Treehorn by Florence Parry (1971). The moral of Parry’s story was that all people need to follow through tasks until the end, even if those tasks are boring.
With the vision of this pathetic shrinking kid in my head, I continued to fashion my characters.
Three character types emerged from this exercise, they were;
1) needy and desperate (Treehorn)
2) ruthless and sadistic (H)
3) defiant, wise and the voice of reason (having seen it all before).
These characters live in an acrid dog eat dog city devoid of humour where Character 2 (H) is malevolent to the core and makes a sport out of sucking the commoner financially and emotionally dry. Character 3, a transexual gardener, has a life long goal to reduce CO2 omissions and soon realises that he is seemingly the only hope for happiness.
These characters came before I had imagined a ‘world’ and thus I have had to do as John Cleese suggested (1991) and stick close to where I need to be (creatively) in the hope that an idea will arrive out of the blue. Thankfully, I was ‘open’ (a state of creativity posited by Cleese 02:40) and saw the linked image as the foundation for the world of Treehorn.
Though the frame is noir and morose, the splash of light to the right of frame may imply that there is a talisman of hope for all.
(Cleese, John 1991 A lecture on creativity, https://vimeo.com/18913413 – 27:20mins).
Parry, F 1971, The Shrinking of Treehorn, Holiday House Publishing.
