Scene • People’s Poetry Slam V1

Sequins and bubble wrap conjures campfire

A campfire, with sparks rising up juxtaposed with Christina and bubble wrap being popped. Close up of hands and bubble wrap with sparkle dress perhaps. We hear a hint of Christina humming and the snap of the popping bubbles. The snap and crackle of a fire and the popping of bubbles. She is recreating the fire. Snap, snap. Bubbles. Snap. Crackling fire.

Christina's daydreaming about stories she heard around a campfire, or imagined she heard one night, long ago, sparks rising. She's elsewhere while in the present, tales others told converted into living memories, she's the teller now, she was there. She becomes the best adventures, as she was taught to do.

[03-03-19] She's collapsing quantum wave functions, each bubble is a locus in the multi-verse. She is negotiating / navigating alternate realities.

• snow trudgers
• memorized the lines (perhaps referring to the lines on a scrap of paper?)
• steadicam or he / she pauses to say the lines
• Sleeping Bear in the distance
• the shire is here, the gathering and bonfire

The Poetic People, a Chorus

if you could tell yourself something
from this back to then
would you whisper be better or
for god sakes, more sin?

if you could rewrite your present
by visiting your past
would you try to be gentler
or kick some more ass?

why mourn that lost lover
heart broken and how?
when another you’s smiling
near here, almost now

A lone traveler in the snow, or perhaps two travelers. Trudging. He/she turns and speaks directly to us (to the companion), friendly, perhaps this is a word game to pass the time. The fire crackles in audio still, distantly. This cold is within the fire, this moment. He/she is asking you.

• Another Christina from the bust down, matching hands to pop bubbles. Bri?

[03-03-19] Just shot with Lena. Edit ahead.

• Lighting concept tests, room colors dress to fire. Light color transition from white to red. Lumi bulbs?
• An inspired approach
• Campfire, woodstove test?

Clans Gathering, Lighting the Fire

Same location, later that day. People are dragging logs and branches to a pile. A new character drops their branch and recites. A few stop what they are doing to turn and listen. Others keep working.

• Live action
• Casting - actors, extras
• Branches cut and prepped
• Shooting date
• Weather
• Crew
• Shot list

Telling the stories, way after the fact.

An oral tradition, poetry slam. A contest, Elvis Bearpaw. A singing game. Singing lyrics, a montage of imagery, then clapping. In the fire, images appear as they sing.

This is the pretty post Apocalypse, where many clans rise and start fresh, laughing at and making legends out of what once was and why. Christina's dream, her memories constantly reshuffled. This is what it was like. Her self, doll self. Travels with Joe across the land, or at least what she remembers as her travels across the land, because his stories of traveling feels like she was there, even when she wasn't. Effective transfer of knowledge.

Clan Exposition (unordered)

We are inside Christina's reconstruction. Between the fire moments, a tour of her cabin. Filled with toys, souvenirs of her rememories, talismans from each story, significance either authentic or embued. Other angles of Christina sitting? Empty shots of her cabin? This is bookend for Gerry and the tour of his experiments during box exposition. Carefully tho - Not Heavy Metal or wandering robots (Sotir Gelev's Zoetrope) eg a bunch of totally disparate shorts strung together with phony relevance. What do these tales tell us about Christina's becoming, how Joe has guided her, how she has created herself?

Also, if this is say 20 minutes, there's another story here, perhaps the Clique at the periphery, we're hinting at what cannot be put into words. The insomniacs. the mistaken, the Clique arethe random number generator built into the duality app. Something to push against.

After each song or song fragment, there is applause, or drumming, sticks, percussion instruments played like applause. There are snippets of Christina's memories inserted, like Canyon Princess.

There are 4-5 stories about 3-5 minutes each with a smattering of live action in the fire. Each story gets more involved. Eventually, we fuzz out on particularly long story and end with applause.

If not live action, dolls and stock footage as placeholders for Cannes

Commission sequences to contractors, Matt Kern, Matt Von Dayton. Sequences like Snatch and Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, edits on REPLICA and DESERT EAGLE, and "Groovy" edit from Evil Dead II.

Switch to doll campfire, crinkle fabric, logs lit from within.

Two dolls, by the fire. Tall man doll throws an old rocking chair onto the fire, maybe an encylopedia. The other is a woman. Chorus of creatures, iconic post apocalyptic masks, worn by the dolls. One at a time they step forward into the light. Singing.

She's imagining the clan telling stories, but then when does the story get real? Joe stands up, "I'll put this tank down here". Sound of heavy clanking. Christina is startled! She's awake.

The now, which we'll revisit from another viewpoint with a slight shimmy into the near past which she is moments away from sensing. There's about to be a distant presence on the periphery of her awareness, paying attention to her, waking her up.