The x-ray specs device is perfect for lofi scifi — super-striking and cinematic.
The movie is pretty entertaining, and like most Carpenter stuff goes between smart and stupid in the same movie. There’s some smart stuff near the end with some dialogue that says that to the aliens, Earth is third world — a concept I’ve always thought about teasing out.
We have access to one, probably multiple, babies with parents who are “cool”.
I have resisted posting a picture of Sidney here, but needless to say: STAR QUALITY.
Babies are weird and strange.
Instead of the universe being one where the Nazi’s won, it’s a tiny tiny change — it’s a universe where all water is actually blue instead of clear (excepting seawater, which is green). Or a universe where people’s internal clocks are so slow to adjust that it takes immigrants years to sync up, condemning them to years of a nighttime existence. Each world could be a different episode.
I’m thinking they could be accessible via the alleys, since alleys are betwixt and between, themselves.
Flick suggested this to me after seeing Infest Wisely as having a disjointed (though disjointed in a different way) story structure. This scene made me think of the minorly alternate universes idea.
I found the movie engaging on a “how will he shock us next” kind of way, but it feels more like a comedy sketch or music video, lacking any emotive power.
If we can find good people for these roles I’d like to assign them early in the process.
I was talking about the alley theme with Sean last night and he brought up this guy who gives alley tours, which made me say “Alleyologist”. It rolled really nicely off the tongue, and I’ve been picturing a trailer:
A tall, good looking young man with a doctor’s bag walks through an alley.
He’s peering at small things in the alley very closely, an earnest look on his face.
A close up on his mouth as he speaks into a small dictaphone: “The city… is sick.”
A hipster girl, arms crossed, gently mocks him. “So what — a bit of garbage in an alley makes you panic?”
He responds intensely: “Of course not. Alleys are the lower organs of the urban organism. Garbage, grafitti, all these things are like flora in the lower intestines. They’re natural. It’s something else.”
I’m seeing alleyology as being this slightly arcane practise passed down from his father — they’ve been monitoring, and in some cases treating, the cities they live in for generations (I’m imagining a great great father who was an ex-flâneur in France). He’s slightly out of step with modern life due to his passion and focus, but the girl has a serious crush on him…
This is where I begin my campaign to utilize a different kind of structure for this project. Learning from the episodic nature of “Infest Wisely” (and the countless anthology features our there), I propose to move the genre forward into new territory.
Much like a big feature film has a director, second unit director, director of visual effects, etc. I think it could be interesting to split up the four or so directors into similar roles, and “interlace” or “blend” together elements from all the directors into a single cohesive film, instead of sandboxing everyone into their own episodes.
A few ways this might be achieved:
I believe the benefits of doing it this way could be… beneficial? It’s a new and fresh way to tackle the anthology genre (people like new things), creatively it would be a challenge, not only to write, but to delegate who does what and what the overlap would be (but that’s part of the fun). Serializing it online wouldn’t be a problem, and I think it might give the people involved more ownership and involvement.
Potential problems could include:
Anyhoo, I’d thought I’d get the seeds planted on an idea like this so we have many nights to mull it over.
It’s time to think outside the bun, people.
I’m going to this Trinity Square Video workshop this weekend on Lighting and Sound. It had a max of 4 and is full, unfortunately, but I’m thinking I could probably take notes and (along with one of the other more experienced directors) run a free workshop for this project’s participants. If you’d like to participate let me know in the comments (Dec. 21 aft is good for me). Any other skillshares that would be good?
Update: You can see what we’ve decided to do in No to ACTRA, Yes to Releases, Maybe to Cyberhats but I’ll leave this here for archival purposes.
I’m thinking about doing stuff legally with this movie, where it doesn’t cramp our style. It’d keep our options open for a broadcast sales, and doing paperwork at the beginning of the process is easier than at the end when I’ll be wanting to promote the movie and get it out there and move on to the next project. Some issues I have to look into are:
I’m planning to meet with a couple of experienced movie makers and I expect to have many more bullets to add after consulting with them, but any input is appreciated.
