Holographic scenes are trembling moments of pure gestalt. Put them in a sequence and call that a movie. Perhaps an alternate sequence reveals more. If you play it backward you hear, “I buried Paul.”
I’m imagining a burst of experience that also has a whole story inside it, everything is there.
Won’t a series of holographic scenes feel repetitive, like we are saying the same things over and over again? What if the things we are saying in each scene are slightly different. One thing about people is their layered motivation. I don’t shoot you because I hate you, that’s like so totally impoverished. I shoot you because I burnt my toast this morning AND you’re a brutal serial rapist AND you remind me of my older brother who I loved but was killed in the war then my parents kept his room like a shrine AND my girlfriend want’s to get married though I don’t really love her AND I dreamt of red roses last night AND…
It’s the layers of motivation that give the story depth. They can be completely separate tracks, none alone sufficient to prompt action, but together – viola!
What the hell is xroll? What if it’s not a gimmick, but a central organizing principle? It’s thoughts and experience, something like the memories of Spotless Mind and the dream sequences of Brazil. There’s symbolism and layers of meaning, but xroll doesn’t have to resolve in the sense that everything is sewed up nice and neat, it just has to evoke. Resolution is an evocation, everything comes together and wham, there’s an emotion there. The typical Hollywood resolution is “Yippee, we won!” Think about Casablanca, that resolution was bitter sweet comradely cynicism between Rick and the french cop. Dude, layers of emotion, complexity.
A turbocharged vignette that serves up an emotional cocktail to nuance the next moment, flows from xroll. After Effects verite, magical realism in motion.
A plot is the structure that sequences events, yes/no? No – a plot exists however the events are sequenced. Humans have a strong temporal sensibility, even if the events are out of order, we’ll put them back in sequence. On second thought, yes – maybe a plot is a structure that sequences events, maybe what we call plots are just applications of temporal sensibility. This scene leads to this scene which leads to this scene… we’ll find a plot given enough chunks.
If we think of xroll as the spine of the narrative, then perhaps the actual traveling and scenes of same are extensions of it. Xroll contrasts to b-roll in that it’s central as opposed to peripheral. It’s what we keep returning to, the continuity. In ALM, are the sailing moments Xroll? The best part of the trip certainly, the core of the adventure. Why not?
Looks like a script is about to happen, the old index card shtick.
Holographic scenes… moments which taste of eternity, fragments that contain the whole. Xroll… the threads between the scenes, revelations of the underlying fabric of reality.
I’m skating the edge of confusion and rapture here. If the above sounds like blather, there’s a 50% chance it is.