Month: January 2007

The more things change the more they stay the same.

SAMPLE OUTLINE WRITING FOR FILM SPRING 2007

Vehicle: 1 min short Title: HYPERVENTILATION

THE WORLD OF THE STORY
A fleet of starships of varying size and function are caravanning through space. They carry with them 17,000 refugees of varying social and political background who have lost their homes to an intergalactic territory grab. This fleet is occasionally attacked by space-pirates, who are fought off by a small militia/police group made up of ex-military and volunteers. The story focuses on one refugee, a musician, lying in a tiny bunk looking out an 8″ oval porthole watching a starfighter dogfight between raiding pirates and the militia.

THE CHARACTER
Julius Kaddo (27) – the man in the bunk, is scared. Being a musician he is essentially helpless in this circumstance. This is not the first time he has had to deal with a fear of raiders; he treats panic like a form of stage-freight. He rolls the brass mouthpiece of a trumpet in his hands intermittently placing it to his lips and blowing; it seems to soothe him as he watches this fight through the porthole.

ACT I
Julius sits up in his bunk writing on a musical staff with a nub of a pencil. His stomach growls and he smacks his lips acknowledging hunger pangs.
Inciting Incident:
A loud THUD occurs and the lights in the tiny room become a dim blue, a bright red flash shins through a tiny port hole in the ceiling of the room.
Progressive Complications:
Julius recoils into a fetal position in his bunk as the lights flicker and further THUDS occur.

ACT II
Explosions from the firefight occurring outside lighten Julius’ face, his eyes are frozen like a deer in headlights watching the beautiful but deadly dance of the fighters in the cold vastness of space.
Crisis:
Julius, his face sweaty from panicked convolutions begins to hyperventilate.
Crisis Continued:
His body begins to enter a more intense convulsion and his breathing becomes more labored, his vision becomes blurry.

ACT III
Climax:
About to lose consciousness he pulls himself to clarity his vision sharpens and in the dim light of his room he frantically scans for something. He sees the item shining on a small table next to his bunk. He lunges from his bunk and grabs the item falling back into his bunk.
Resolution:
He allows the item to roll around in his hand for a moment watching the space battle escalate. He places the item, the mouthpiece of a trumpet to his lips and blows through it, in so doing he controls and calms his hyperventilation. His breathing is normal as the final light from the battle ceases and the light in the room brightens.

THEME
The plot’s crisis/climax express the idea of how a civilian might be forced to deal with a military situation that is out of his control. Julius is a musician, as such he is not a fighter nor do his skills lie in tactical strategy or anything that might benefit the fleet in avoiding pirates. As such when the fleet comes under attack he is forced to face his helplessness and accept his mortality a thought which elicits panic. He has found that the best way for him to deal with this panic is to rely on that which he does know, his musical training. So like many horn players who practice blowing through mouthpieces to keep their lips and lungs in shape Julius does it to calm himself with something familiar.

So in a few hours I’ll be 26 years old and it struck me that this is the usual number of episodes of most anime shows so I thought I’d see if I could break down my life like one of those series.

episode/year

1 This is the beginning it’s kind of abstract and scattered focusing mostly on images. The main character has few lines and prefers to “play dumb”. He is not fully mobile nor are his skills or the power that he has within him full realized.

2 More of the same, except the main character begins to move about more and befriends a dog. His brother who would for a time become his greatest foe only to later become a great ally is born.

3-5 Prior to starting school our main character makes a few friends with other “children” at pre-school, he and a few of these friends break a tire swing and it is his first traumatic event, though there is no trauma, this will be a running theme through most of the “drama” of his life.

5-10 The formative years. These episodes have some good stuff as our main character begins to develop a cynical sense of humor to replace his original fresh faced innocence. Also at this time his imagination begins to flourish as he spends most of his time playing in the redwood Forrest backyard where he lives.

11-13 Cable TV comes to the area and he is introduced to culture in the form of MTV, grunge music and Batman TAS. Also he starts to develop feelings for a girl, this would not be the first time for this but his skill set is quite lacking and so nothing comes of this, another running theme.

14-18 High School years see him honing his anti-social arrogance as a tool for dealing with the vast number of rednecks and generally annoying types that saturate the school. He forms a few solid friendships with others of the “geek” crowd and begins a sincere pursuit of medicine as a career, focusing on his studies while ignoring any remaining adolescent rights of passage.

19-22 College. It is an unfamiliar environment. The culture shock is dulled by once again meeting people of like-minded apathy and interests. For our main character this is the period of the greatest ambivalence, it is good and very bad. Then our main character discovers drugs and satellite TV and it’s mostly good, in a foggy sort of way.

23-26 Losing his passion or whatever it was for medicine our main character recoils back to the redwood Forrest where he studies film in a vague attempt to sort out his own confusion about life, etc.

It should be noted that the final ep 26 has just began and might provide a serious change in the direction of the show possibly offering a cliffhanger to a sequel if audience interest demands it.

My favorite episodes so far 4,5, 7-10, 13-17 (puberty they were good eps), 20-22 (having has his own kingdom), 25.

So last night I caught the end of a Legends of Jazz episode on The ‘S (Public Broadcasting Station). Anywho these guys are just speaking gibberish into mic accompanied by a band playing Dave Brubeck’s Take 5. They were skating and it was on Legends of Jazz which makes it legit, that is to say this was the episode that features two of the world renound skat men. That skating is legit, seems ridiculous but also kind of pisses me off since this is clearly my calling. Hell I love to speak gibberish when a tune strikes me right and yes I know these guys are doing more than that but it certainly seems like fun though it is totally ridiculous. Anyway I feel sad since clearly this was what I was mean’t to be and now it’s a bit late for me (1 week away from “26 years on my way to hell”) to begin learning how to become an expert skatman. Though my fortune cookie tonight said this: “You are talented in many ways.” If only I knew which ways damn it because I’m pretty sure that skating could be one of them.