Going on a minor tangent to the usual madcap approach that I usually take on these kinds of assignments, the main difference between this project and previous projects I’ve worked on is that, although the concept is still kind of deranged in my ridiculous style, the level of comedy can vary depending on who is interpreting it.
So, for this project, I am writing a surrealistic black comedy script. Having never really worked on anything with a surrealistic style before, I figured it would be cool to experiment with some new stuff. With the free flow nature of the genre, there are so many artistic and experimental directions that I can go, and so many different ways that I can play around with audiovisual cues. Here’s an excerpt from the script, the story is complete bullshit, it makes no sense at all, but that’s the point:
GIRL: Hello, master. I was on my way to bake a cake and was wondering if I could borrow some… creeeeeeeeaaaaa… m?
[The LAMP stares blankly at GIRL]
LAMP: You are not safe here.
GIRL: Why?
LAMP: The zomboids. They like to lick your s-s-s-skin.
GIRL: I would just like to borrow some creeeeeeaaaam. Some cream for my c-c-caake. Then I will be on my way.
LAMP: Do you not understand? The cream has been with you all along.
[The GIRL looks around. The SHADOWY FIGURE is gone. A jar of CREAM rests tiredly in her hands]
GIRL: I don’t understand.
LAMP: The Fourth Dimension is too complex for the human mind to comprehend.
GIRL: But I am not a human. I am a spaceship.
[The word ‘SPACESHIP’ echoes through the empty plains]
LAMP: I see. In that case, you must understand that in the Fourth Dimension, nothing is real, yet everything is real. The sounds of love and hate echo sharply through the cosmos, creating a dance of darkness and light, which we call the universe. Everything happens for a reason, little one. Even you. Even me. Even us, right here, right now. You must grasp your burdens. Grasp them tightly, and then, only then, will you find what you’re looking for.
[The GIRL looks behind her. A MOTHER stands there, crying while she cradles a bowl of chips]
This is just the initial draft of the story, and so it’s probably only just a rough skeleton, or a teaser of what the final screenplay would be, but hopefully, it reflects the type of feeling that I’m going for.
But the main reason I’ve chosen to take this approach is because I wanted to find a way to be able to give personality to inanimate objects. In this line from the excerpt; “The LAMP stares blankly at the GIRL”, I want to try and explore different ways that I can give these inanimate objects character. I also ask the question, what does “blankly” imply?’.
I found my initial inspiration from the 2004 animated webseries, Salad Fingers. I wanted to try and follow the creepy-funny vibe, but focus more on using weird ambiences, as opposed to a creepy music track in the background.
My main source of inspiration was from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Now, those of you who have seen it would know that it generally has a silent-creepy vibe to it. I found this to be a good base of inspiration because Kubrick cleverly used cinematography and sound (or lack thereof) to give HAL 9000, an expressionless villain, a shitload of character.
So, in my traditional laziness of ending both blog posts and presentations, here’s a final summation of all the important shit I’ve talked about (a TLDR). Overall, I’m aiming to:
- Investigate ways of giving expression to faceless characters
- Try out surrealism
- Create a script that one could describe as ‘interpretive’