script draft 1 (and notes)

NOTE: this script has been discarded for now. Instead I am working visually.

Didn't know how to submit a PDF to this blog, so here it is hosted on Deviantart:
Draft 1, part 1


Problems with the current script:

The old mothlike. The old and young should have a conversation, rather than the old man's monologue. Things to discuss: Short lifespan, fear of dying. Self-centeredness springing from that.

The young man must listen to him even if he says nothing, we must feel he has absorbed and not dismissed what he says.

"And then one day you find 10 years have got behind you. No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun." (Pink Floyd, Time)

"There is so little time, so of course I would take the chance here. They offered me more time. I was so sure with all this time, I could (do/find), I would have enough time to (make it the best it could be). I could use time to learn, to assist, to rest when life made me weary. But instead all it did was help me to forget the end was coming, and it became more and more reasonable not to mind it. To seek comfort, and forget everything else. And time began to run together, until every day was the same, and the end was all I was waiting for."

-Depression from feeling trapped; a sense of knowing everything already, that things will always be the same, or interrupt the few comforts one can take in doing nothing. That nothing is exciting or worth pursuing.


The thinkers and the hearing place.
This government is in the story to show how people fool themselves and completely reject their mortality, voiding the potency of their lives. One of the traps on the path to self awareness is the fear of failure*. But another is those manipulators who benefit from the mindless complacency of others. Who are also only thinking of immediate gain and pleasure; maximum exploitation without plans for sustainable good or minding the consequences to anyone but themselves.
The urgency to unplug doesn't come through. It needs to be the popular opinion, with the other, branching opinions continuing off that train of thought.
*What are all the traps? Distraction (being entertained), apathy (the result of too many disappointments), misdirection (being sold a story that is incongruent with truth)

Why are there 7 thinkers? Do there need to be more or less, and do we need to meet all of them?
(Children are taught to become designers, engineers, producers, or polishers. But most of the great thinkers have their status because they were voted onto the board by friends and relatives. Even a prodigy would have to fight tooth and nail to earn their way in. * REFLECT THIS IN THE PERSONALITIES OF THE THINKERS- some are soft, selfish, and clueless, but others are hard as nails, fighting the group*
Maybe there should be a legion of thinkers, as it is the most desirable role in the city. But we don't need to hear from all of them. Only understand the conflict between those who earned their way in and those who didn't, as well as their dissenting goals/opinions.)
Is there a mayor or not? How would he be different than the thinkers? (For now, let's nix the mayor entirely)

There are so many thinkers because they are rewarded with extra energy and other perks? Like what? (They don't have to "work" in the way the others do)
How do the people react to these extra luxuries?
(They need the extra to think harder. They deserve it because they got there by being better than everyone else)

regarding the city and machine

((maybe scrap? Announcer (job to "keep peace and unity of purpose"):

Your plug is unbreakable, and just as unique and reliable as you are. Don't you want life you can trust to be there tomorrow?


No one wants to see their loved ones pass away. Treasure your life. Treasure your plug.


In just a few conventional lifetimes, we have come so far. With the safety, convenience, and reliability of our plugs, it's our turn to shape the future. We have the power.


Woman's voice: "I used to be sure there wa something missing in my life. And since I've earned higher output, I realize there was! I've never been happier. With my new level of energy, every day's a blessing. An I have to wonder, why did I ever settle for less?" -laughs-


Did you know? As your power flows through the machine, it becomes purer, more healthy, and better at keeping you happy and energetic. Every last watt of energy delivered to your plug is full of the love and strength of your friends and neighbors. But your heart is what makes it all so special. Yours is the heart of the city!

----))

Lights in the cavern- some kind of hypnotizing display. Comes directly from the machine, along with the white noise and announcements. Consumes energy but no one would dare cut off. It is the source of beauty and comfort in the cavern. Without it, people might have to look at the cavern as it is.
***
The distraction allows them to keep living, even when they are suffering from the lack of energy and purpose. It gives them relief from tedium and the drain of living a lifestyle that their bodies have grown used to, but were not meant for.
===========

The ground is paved with tar. Walking from place to place is impeded by thousands of houses.
===========
Inside the machine, the sound of heartbeats is overwhelming ( an ocean of loud white noise )

----
mwmh: What is it you want me to do?
-v.o as he walks through the machine-
vo: For some reason, there is a place within the machine that rejects the plugs and will not give energy. The last people who tried to enter had to be pulled out, mostly dead. Thankfully no one has been killed, but no one plugged in can stay there long enough to fix the problem.
mwmh: I am sorry, but my eyes cannot see. I do not think I will be able to find what is broken for you, and would not know how to fix it if I could.
vo: That isn't important. If you go in and do what you can, it is enough. We need you to try.


(Whether or not the outsider actually changes anything or not, they are simply looking for a way to mask other changes they have planned- by telling everyone it was the outsider's actions that gained the energy, removing the plugs from other people, or falling on reserve energy supplies kept for emergencies, they can continue their farce. They kept the secret of the anti-plug room to avoid what speculation it might cause among the public ((stumbling across the possibility that the creators of the machine did not intend themselves to be plugged in- something the thinkers have figured out- and are figuring out how to unplug themselves safely, so when the machine breaks, they have the backups of their own hearts. Of course this fate would be as miserable as death for them, but they are blind to anything but pushing back the date of their expiration and increasing their pleasure in the world)). Now that the outsider has come as a scapegoat, they can tell the public about the room and say the problem is solved, even if tmwmh is completely powerless.)

regarding the Mothlike Pilgrims

Note: None of this has to be revealed or dealt with in the story itself. It's just here so I don't get confused and accidentally add things that don't need to be there/contradict my thoughts.

The land of love is the place where all mothlike people strive to find. However, it is not a single country. Each mothlike person is meant for a different land, a different home. Each land is different and each mothlike is different.

How do the mothlike recognize the place they belong?
(A young mothlike may decide the first land they visit is the correct one. And some die of age, having never settled for a place.)

When do they begin the journey, and why do they leave their home?

(Mothlike children are born in every country of the world. Some are born to mothlike parents, but most come from unrelated families. They are recognized by being quiet, having white hair and dark skin. It is known that their lives are shorter than the average person's, maybe 50 years ((hence the oddity of the old mothlike hooked into the machine- have him mention his fear of their brief lifespan))
It is common for them to forget their parents, and so sometimes they find the land of love was where they began- only they had to see other lands first)

What is the land of love? What do the mothlike find there?
(purpose; the meaning of their life-
~work that is meant for them to do and fulfills them
~a lover which with they may bear a child
~a philosophy which they must support)
(Something physical? Some item?)

What happens if the mothlike don't find it?
(They quietly waste away, listless and useless; mostly mute and unproductive. This is why people usually let the mothlike children go readily, and soon.
But, it is known that a mothlike who finds their land of love is often a 'genius', a 'savior', or an artisan; a staple of their community, the lynchpin of something great. So they are welcomed in each land. Some try to trick them, not understanding that a fit can't be forced.)

Why is our mothlike blind? What does this keep him from doing? If it doesn't present any limitations or advantages, should he be blind?

(I wanted to focus on touch- texture and "seeing" the world through the other senses. What if, the city of the machine is hypnotically beautiful? The lights pulsing lull those who enter into susceptibility and complacence. Our blind man is immune to this charm. Instead, he smells the tar, feels the chill, hears... what? The oppressive white noise of the machine. The hard stone underfoot instead of the soft grass.)

When would it be prudent for him to make it known that he is blind?
(In most encounters he avoids revealing his disadvantage so he is not abused)
(But in a situation in which his blindness would make him unreliable to others counting on him to see, he should make it known)??
Need research into the perception and treatment of the blind across various cultures, historically

first concepts- overworld

My goal with all of the overworld environments was to create something interesting and beautiful to contrast the sterile and cramped underground city. A surreal, vivid, living world that you would want to visit and travel in its entirety.
Inspired in part by this image (source unknown) which has been circulating the internet.
I would like all of these landscapes to become more lush and distinct. I'm not sure how much of the overworld will be seen in this story, so the impact of these few settings is key to adding value to the 'unplugged' world.
I avoided other humans or civilizations to lean towards minimalism.

first concepts- additional characters

Early on, the old man met with tmwmh before he encountered the city. They met in the overworld and the old man told him of the machine and the people hooked to it. I think that I changed the timing of their meeting here after outlining the story to my teacher. The old man's extremely negative description of the city seemed to distance my teacher from being able to see it from the city people's point of view- of the machine as a miraculous savior (rather than simply horrible). I also wanted tmwmh to learn about the city as he traveled into it, gaining bits of the full story from its citizens and forming opinions as he went, rather than going in with so much information.


Thinking about who would be in charge, I began with the idea of a mayor. But I wanted to include the inefficiency that comes with bureaucracy, and corruption in the form of people rising to power because of connections rather than competency. This page is mostly exploring the limits of exaggeration in the facial shapes and overall style of faces.The "food animal" and "pet animal" designs. The food animals do not bleed or move. They neither eat nor excrete. They are more or less breathing meat. My hope for the pet animals is that they are are aesthetically pleasing and naturally impractical.

first concepts- people of the city

First designs spring from the insect theme, though with the removal of tmwmh's antennae, the city people lose theirs as well. Very brief contemplation of animal-people (rabbit), but abandoned.
First thoughts of some device that binds them to the machine- holes in neck and wrist. I wanted to avoid taking too much from the song, but the more I thought about what these people exchanged for near-eternal, bloodless life, the heart seemed the most appropriate thematically.


About this girl- I wanted a representative of how the residents of the city were before the crisis- someone completely blind to anything at all odd about her situation, having perfect faith in the system, utterly ignorant to the outside world or any merit it might have, and yet not responsible for her ignorance.


An unfinished painting of the girl and people of the city. I wanted to show the plugs even through their clothing, and thus came the glow. I wanted the buildings in the city to look uniform, egglike, and simple (for ease of rendering).

Imagining how close together the buildings are, and the shape of the cavern over class notes.

The rough idea

The following are two summaries I wrote to two friends of mine. Please forgive any redundancy.
==============

I want to tell a story that doesn't revolve around violence;
There instead will be a societal problem that an outsider encounters. The solution to which should involve becoming self-aware and striving for self-actualization of every individual.

The man with mothlike hands comes to a land of ruined people. The buildings look fine, but everything is broken. The people plug themselves into some kind of machine (right now I think of it as "the blood machine" because this concept is inspired by this song: http://youtu.be/clZ73KJB8S4 )*. They did so at first because it was meant to make them better, fill holes in their lives, refine them or grant them "more" out of life. But ultimately there is no need for such a machine, and being attached to it keeps them from leaving their ruined cities to see the magnificent world beyond. I think something in the machine is winding down, and all of the people will break with it, if they can't separate themselves from it.

I think that the man with mothlike hands has been out in the beautiful world. Maybe he's seen it in a dream. But when he comes to these people he recognizes they have trapped themselves.

I don't know why he's important. Maybe it's because his hands are so sensitive that he could find his way inside the machine, to where things are broken. Maybe, ultimately, the people are freed from the machine. But more likely, he will fix it to save their lives, and they will continue to rely on it.

I'll illustrate certain scenes and make digital "puppets" that can be animated (something like this http://vimeo.com/23700170 ). I don't want to include much dialogue, but may have to use voiceover or silent text to explain the situation. Texture and tactile information must be an important element.

===============
Shortly after, with a little more development, I summarized it like this:
===============

The young man is blind, and his dog, Moon, helps him seek "The land of love", a place all mothlike people go on a pilgrimage to find. He encounters an old man who says he is also a mothlike, and stopped in a city deep underground for many years, in hopes it was the land of love.

In this city, the people trade out their hearts for a battery which is connected to an incredible machine. Through the battery their bodies are sustained so that they do not need to eat or sleep, and they can live almost indefinitely while plugged into the machine. It makes them feel good and happy. However, what the old man explains is that they are unknowingly trapped there, tied to the machine. Their city is barren of anything that could support life and they rely on the machine completely. It stunts their growth and if they leave the range of the machine's energy projection, they will die.

Because the law forbids taking back one's own heart, if someone wants to unplug legally, the must first give up all rights to their heart, still in the machine, and when they unplug they will die.The old man begs the young one to go and help them repair a part deep in the machine where those plugged in can't go. The old man can no longer return, as he unplugged himself illegally and stole back his own heart, and would be sentenced to death for that crime.

When the mothlike man arrives in the city, a young girl is fascinated by his lack of 'glow' (the plugs emit a glowing light) and he learns a little bit more about the people. The heart exchange happens soon after birth, and when plugged in, the people do not bleed. There are some animals plugged in as well, mostly for eating (a kind of leisurely luxury hobby), but they are hairless, earless, and mostly blind.

The people think of the plug as a protector and they spend most of their days repairing and creating new trinkets for the machine, although the people are in a great panic because they realize the machine slowly winding down, and with the repair of the simple parts they understand, the whole thing is breaking. Ideas for action fly back and forth, but there is little execution of plans. Still, reassured that he is saving them to buy them enough time to save themselves, he enters the machine and finds the room that does not allow plug energy. It seems the people who built the machine had no intention of being part of it, though in subsequent years, those who took command had already been plugged in since birth.

After replacing the vital part, the man returns to the city to find everyone rejoicing. He stays for a few more days, but what he hears, instead of continued discussion of the problems, is people who bring up the machine's decay being shushed and pushed aside as downers. It becomes clear the push to unplug and retrieve their own hearts came to a halt with the resolution of the one small fix. The people eagerly invite the man and Moon to plug in as a reward for their service.

They leave the underground city behind and return to the world above, full of light and water and growing, living things, and continue their search for the land of love.

========
*The reason this song struck me so was the idea of a beloved anchor, slowly sinking and taking people down with it.

Another prominent influence comes from Ishmael (written by Daniel Quinn), in which a point is illustrated with the following metaphor.

"As the flight begins, all is well. our would-be airman has been pushed off the edge of the cliff and is pedaling away, and the wings of his craft are flapping like crazy. He's feeling wonderful, ecstatic. He's experiencing the freedom of the air. What he doesn't realize, however, is that this craft is aerodynamically incapable of flight. It simply isn't in the compliance with the laws that make flight possible but he would laugh if you told him this, He's never heard of such laws, knows nothing about them. He would point at those flapping wings and say, "See? Just like a bird!" Nevertheless, whatever he thinks, he's not in flight. He's an unsupported object falling towards the center of the earth. He's not in flight, he's in free fall...

... Fortunately, or rather, unfortunately for our airman, he chose a very high cliff to launch his craft from. His disillusionment is a long way off in time and space. There he is in free fall, feeling wonderful and congratulating himself on his triumph...
... However, looking down into the valley has brought something else to his attention. He doesn't seem to be maintaining his altitude. In fact, the earth seems to be rising up towards him. Well, he's not very worried about that. After all, his flight has been a complete success up to now, and there's no reason why it shouldn't go on being a success. He just has to pedal a little harder, that's all.

So far, so good. He things with amusement of those who predicted that his flight would end in disaster, broken bones, and death. Here he is, he's come all this way, and he hasn't even gotten a bruise, much less a broken bone. But then he looks down again and what he sees really disturbs him. The law of gravity is catching up to him at a rate of thirty-two feet per second at an accelerating rate. The ground is now rushing up toward him in an alarming way. He's disturbed but far from desperate. "My craft has brought me this far in safety," he tells himself. "I just have to keep going."

And so he starts pedaling with all his might. Which of course does him no good at all, because his craft simply isn't in accord with the laws of aerodynamics. Even if he had the power of a thousand men in his legs, ten thousand, a million, that craft is not going to achieve flight. That craft is doomed and he is too unless he abandons it."

first concepts- tmwmh and moon

The first sketches of "The man with mothlike hands" and his dog, Moon. Primary thoughts: Guide dog, emphasis on textures and the tactile. He is searching for a place he has never seen. Possible names for tmwmh are all hand-related, but I was unsatisfied with these options. In the notes, he suggests that he was not born blind.

Concept render. Based on some feedback on this image on my deviantart gallery I chose not to use the antennae in future drawings.

There was a dog with eyes like these hanging around our department building. The name Moon seemed natural with the theme. A moth being guided by the moon to a faraway land... I wanted her also to be large and intimidating enough to protect tmwmh on his journey, but still very tactile and touchable.

The relationship between guide dog and handler was very much on my mind. I did some reading about how neither party is always in command- sometimes control shifts as the situation calls for it.

About this blog

In the fall of 2011, I had an idea. It began in the abstract; the words "The man with mothlike hands", something regarding Chad Vangaalen's song "The Blood Machine", and a number of emotional and philosophical questions regarding my depression, mankind and nature, and the meaning of life.

I hope to continue working with this collection of ideas which I am calling the Mothlike Project ( a tentative title ), named so after the "Mothlike pilgrims" in the story. My goal is that by sharing even small, rough concepts, I will have to continue moving forward to keep the attention of others, and realize and refine problems with ideas and execution.
I also hope this format will help me collect and organize my thoughts, rather than everything sitting tucked away in some neglected file.

Any comment at all is greatly appreciated. Sharing a link to this blog is very welcome, but ask for my permission before posting art or other content elsewhere. Thank you very much for looking, and my greatest gratitude for your thoughts.
rt

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