Trickster Pictures has two interns through the TBAISD Career-Tech Center’s Film and New Media Program – Cameron and Micah. They’ve been learning how to rotoscope using both After Effects and Mocha and will hopefully be able to contribute to DOG’s VFX. They’ve been doing tutorials and practicing on isolated scenes for months without having any idea what the project was about. Last week I tested Version 1.0 2012 for the last time – on them. After documenting their feedback, I’m back in editorial. I realized after the fact that testing with them was vital, because they represent the younger extreme of DOG’s target audience – glorious misfits in the making. Intelligent, open and a bit oblivious in that charming American teenager sort of way.
My notes via iPhone
“What kind of accent is that?”
Cabin door creak over the top, one of them liked a lot.
Is that you, no a guy who looks like me, crazy right?
Cam – she see a CU first? (?)
Come in – laugh
Bird on table, Cameron – Whaaat?!
Why me? Yawns and slightly restless
Divine Invasion, Valis… Cameron – What did he say?
Act II, lots of pauses, perhaps to much fat…
Transciption
D – What do think is going on?
C – (something about low population) everybody will think they are (going to have) god’s child and they’ll have lots of people to repopulate the earth.
D – Great
M – Is that what it is?
D – I will tell you but I want to hear what you think
M – ok so I think the Joe guy isn’t necessarily an angel
C – might be a demon pretending to be an angel
M – but I don’t know what he is
C – he could be an alien.
M – there’s a suspicion that he’s not really an angel
C – why do angels need phones, don’t they have magic inter-planal energies floating around? Or maybe he’s a messed up guy
M – then also that so originally the beginning it was showing some of the end of what was going to happen so the guy went there cause I don’t it just came in with the asian guys and ended with the asian guys and I don’t know what that’s all about
D – fine
M – but with them (G and C?) it was just getting them to make a baby that was called the daughter of god and so yeah that’s basically what I got
D – so you’re a little confused by it, does it leave you with feeling of frustration or curiosity or annoyance, how’s it leave you?
C – it leaves me slightly confused
M – I’m just kind of like… Ooookaaay
C – If he really is going around to different people he should say like hello, this is your uncle bernard, because not everyone has an uncle joe. maybe he’s just warping their minds to make them think that there was an uncle joe.
D – right right, ok cool cool
C – what’s the real
M – I just don’t… I just think… if he is an angel he is not really uncle joe
D – would you like to know what he is?
C – ok
D- I’m asking, if you could as an audience member would you like to know more specifically what the fuck this guy is? this being this thing
M – (excited) yeah especially after the ending with him all over the place
D+M – what?!
D – yep
M – yeah, ok what the heck is going on, why is he standing on a train that’s about to fall off a cliff, he’s standing on the edge of it why? there’s nobody in there obviously.
C – well he’s talking on the phone
D – this is good, this is a really good point. what else? pacing, too fast too slow?
C – I thought it was nice in the beginning but then it kinda got slow in the middle, didn’t seem like there was a whole lot of comedy
D – didn’t really fly for you because the pacing was whatever
C – well the beginning was ok, but if it moved along
D – when you say the beginning when did it really start to drag for you?
C – like after she was undressing, and then there just in there, and there just walking and talking, it seems kinda
M -same thing, as soon as she started talking to the guy in the room
D – the energy level went down
M – then it went down and stayed at the pace, and then it just sort of ended
D – yep, gotcha, ok. um what else. do you like any of the characters more than others
C – well there only three characters
D – that’s right
C – well I have to know what uncle joe is first before i decide
D – any of the characters appeal to you or particularly didn’t appeal to you?
M – the chick was annoying to me
C – her accent was confusing at first
M – it seemed like she was talking like a little kid almost
D – mmmm
C – like she was trying to seduce him with her female high pitched voice
M – at first i was confused maybe i was thinking in my mind ok so is it maybe how long has this been afterwards (the apocalypse) is there a point in which that because people are not able to have education in a sense their age is behind
D – mhmm
M – so maybe that’s what’s happening, but he’s not that much older than her, and he’s doing fine. so that’s kinda confusing on top of that scenario that I was thinking about…
D – that’s great, once the beans are spilled we can never go back, what else do you have to say, was there any particular parts that you thought were good?
M – I like the montage shots a lot, at the beginning and at the end (?), I don’t really understand what the whole asian guys and then… I like how she’s kinda like, let’s do this and he’s like, uh…
C – you don’t even have to go for an R rating because you’re using the f-word in the sexual sense
M – she’s kinda like let’s do this, he’s like you’re joking, blaa we’ll see what happens and it kinda goes on from there
D – meaning what, that you like that she was into it and he was kinda resistant?
M – i like that he was kinda like, at first i was like… the one thing that kinda bothered me was he’s like – come in.
C – I thought he was going to close the door
M – but then so he hasn’t seen a girl, like in forever so it kinda made me understand that, then he was just like, you’re playing a joke on me kinda thing…
D – and then he figures out that she’s actually serious
M – from the books somehow which I don’t understand
D – you totally didn’t get the book thing
M – no
D – got it
M – the only thing I could understand maybe, is that the angel dude came to him first an told him about the book author being a favorite kinda thing and that someone would come to you that also likes the book that you have to do what they say.
D – right
M – maybe… there’s some kind of connection with the book
C – the books covers seemed kinda of 80s-ish so maybe they are old 80s religious books
D – nice, ok. trying to think if there’s anything else, uncle joe, gerry christina… anything else, anything you guys can think of
C – if there was more music, in the beginning and stuff and then at the end there’s not, seems kinda inconsistent. some background-y music
D – during their actual dialogue you mean?
C – yeah, some soft stuff that kinda conveyed the emotional magic you want the audience to experience
D – anything else
M – when I first get into this the only reason i know it’s post apocalyptic is because you talked about it being post apocalyptic
C – yeah, yeah
M – if you listen carefully enough to that (radio broadcasts?) and then I’m still asking myself, ok well it doesn’t seem like it’s that bad, is it supposed to be worse than what I think it is, because to me it sounds like pretty much people went from living in houses to living in boats. they still go off the boats
C – they still have electricity
M – they still have electricity, there’s still these laptops, blaa, blaa, blaa and there’s some phone thing that really isn’t necessarily a phone
C -it’s an iRock
M – if they have like that iRock thing an it’s not just the angels then how do they have something that we don’t have?
C – the truth is, it’s all a dream. you can end any movie that way, oh, it’s all a dream
D – what would you like to have revealed to you first?
C – everything
M – the asians
D – the asians, ok. uncle joe is a spook. when the apocalypse happens the main people of the government go underground and run things as much as they can from secret installations that you don’t know where they are
M – ok
D – uncle joe is a spook and he has a home office where other spooks hang out with him
C – as in ghost or as in CIA spook?
D – spy. you guys hear rumors of this and that technology blaa blaa but already what spooks have is far beyond what we can imagine as far as surveillance stuff goes
M – truthfully or are you talking about in this?
C – truthfully
D – truthfully
M – oh yeah yeah
D – uncle joe is basically an extension of that current trend. how spookiness, spy stuff is getting to be much more integrated into society
C – they probably had all this stuff back in the 90s
D – uncle joe is a regular guy with a little bit of augmentation, technologically. you guys ever hear of men who stare at goats? it’s a story about how the army was trying to develop soldiers with super powers, being able to remote view, walk through walls, blaa blaa blaa, well uncle joe has a little iRock that has technologically enabled super powers. he can surveil anyone who is on his surveillance list
M – and he can also make them think things
C – so even if you don’t have cameras you can
D – they are little nano cameras
C – it can measure the energy disturbance
M – no
D – the technology in this is slightly ahead of this but it’s not way out there, it’s not like portal guns and shit like that. Miniature cameras that are like dust and the people that he’s been interacting with have been on his list for awhile. all these people are part of an ongoing project he’s been working on. so there’s surveillance up the whazoo on these people AND in his office, even his fellow spooks, he’s watching. because it’s all part of this larger project. so when you see the japanese guy and the other guy, they are interacting because joe is just checking back in the office to make sure that things aren’t getting out of hand and the people who are there are following his plan as well.
M – see i would never get the whole underground government thing
D – that’s ok because we haven’t gotten the story completely told yet. we can take that part of the story and just lop it off and let uncle joe be whoever you want him to be. Talking about essentials, what’s essential to this project. The whole part where you see the guy with the Irock in the tunnel, who is that?
M – it’s the uncle joe guy
D – exactly, it’s uncle joe. he’s in some installation defunct or otherwise. that whole chunk where you see uncle joe gets on the bicycle blaa blaa, we can lop that off the movie and just throw it away. it’s back story. it’s sets up things but it doesn’t have to even be there. we can start the movie from…
C – I think if you want to do the CIA thing take out the japanese guys and find some other way of conveying that cause it’s just like oh random japanese guys, have something that means that your not sure if he’s actually an angel or if he’s a…
D – he turns this on and here’s these guys. the whole point of the home office…here’s their banter what’s their banter? did you read this… nice suit but your penis is small, oh you want to compare penis? typical office banter. that’s all you get out of that. there’s these two guys, there in an office someplace, what’s that about?
(a framed picture of uncle joe on the wall? – like in government offices, Joseph Basmati: Uncle, Operations Supervisor)
D – looking forward in the future, were going to meet this character, we’re going to meet this character, he’s just doing his surveillance stuff, ok I’m done with my surveillance and he puts it away but leaves the radio on, cause he’s listening to the radio. what we set up here is this thing in the beginning with this place, it has nothing yet to really make it jump out but this is a nuclear waste storage site, that’s what the sign says… and look there are skeletons out in front of it, would you want to go there? No.
C – Maybe you could…
D -Hang on. The point of this facility is that it’s a huge facade. it’s a fake. it’s not really a nuclear storage facility, those skeletons, maybe they are made out of styrofoam. the point is this looks really like carnage and bad shit happened here.
C – don’t come
D – yeah, don’t come near this place, nuclear waste what could be worse than that big skull and crossbones and inside is this guy hanging out. inside you might see signs, as you are going up the tunnel secure facility have a nice day whatever just to give people more of an idea that he’s actually in a place that’s actually a hidey hole for these spooky people. how we relate this story is not all that important because we can loose this whole chunk of the story.
C – can you explain why he’s going to… is it just her or more people and why he is telling them he is going to have the daughter of god?
D – how traditionally religious are you guys
M – i’m christian
D – you go to church, strong believer, open minded?
M – i’m somewhat open minded
D – this is a very challenging movie for people who are christian. i’m having fun with christianity, having fun with taoism
M – I don’t even know what that is
D – it’s a chinese philosophy, I was raised a catholic so i’m having fun with my own upbringing, playing around that. The question was why is he going out to those other places? You had a good point those places were obviously empty the cabin, the cave and the caboose at the end – that is a problem an after effects fix. there needs to be a clothesline with clothes, there needs to be a lamp burning in the window of the cabin, there needs to be some signs of life around these places because these are other places that people are living.
M – yeah see we don’t…
D – we don’t know that and that has to be fixed. if that stays in there, we have to see that those are places that people actually live. we know people live in boats. the answer is… he is going to these other places because there are other people as part of this project. maybe christina is going to bring the daughter of god back onto the planet, maybe that what she IS going to do. even though he’s a spook, maybe there is some kind of strange supernatural hookup that he actually has, he’s still a man, maybe there’s something involved that he’s doing…
M- you could even get to the point…
C – maybe god has the actual cellular device network with all his angels and he tried to tell them something and he accidentally contacted him and instead of killing him with a bolt of lightning he just said ok….
D – who is melchior, he was actually one of the three wisemen who comes to see the baby jesus in the manger in nazareth. what he’s basically saying is I’m an initiator of a process. earth is pretty messed up at this point, maybe it’s part of a plan to make it so messed up and he’s trying to undo that plan. this is a lot to talk about real quick the devil has a plan to isolate the earth from god and create havoc, horrible things on earth. uncle joe could be an agent of god and he’s trying to smuggle god’s daughter back on the planet
M – you could even say why is he spying on kinda thing.
D – ultimately what he is doing is he is smuggling god back on the planet, and this projects been going on for a long time. He’s known Christina since she was a child, the beginning part where I want to read this book uncle joe, that’s a little girl who is blonde who is talking to uncle joe, same guy and she’s like read me this book and the book is philip k dick. the books at the end are philip k dick. the reason you didn’t pick up on the books at the end is because the placeholders at the beginning don’t show you the title Philip… K… Dick…
M – he says philip k dick and I saw the PKD so I got that part
D – uncle joe is introducing the philip K dick…
C – ok
D – …meme to her when she is very young, and then later on when she opens the drawer, cause Gerry is going to be another Philip K Dick fan, she is going to see there’s a connection there, he’s setting up all these weird connections. The reason he’s going to those other cabins and places at the end, is he’s creating decoys. the daughter of god is coming, the bad guys know that they are going to try and find her and kill her so he’s creating these decoy people in different places so that the actual daughter of god can sneak under the radar. makes sense sorta?
C – ok
M – now it makes sense
D – still a lot of confusion, what the fuck is going on. it’s a strange story to tell, it could just be this sequence between this crazy angel guy and this man and this woman it’s a little mysterious but it’s kinda funny and kooky if the pacing can be fixed. i like the back story I’d like to try and tell the whole story if possible and at this point it’s almost all motion graphics. signage, weird little things that are stuck in places… the dead bird did you get what that was about?
C – there was the sign that said don’t… is it some kind of chinese thing maybe?
D – there was a sign that said dead birds carry contagion and he’s got a dead bird. what does that tell you about him?
M – he’s going to die
D – yah. he already knows that he’s going to die, he’s on his way out. what is his deal, there’s a whole story about him
C – maybe do the whole CIA spook thing, maybe you some animals, there is something weird about them, you see some flash of red in their eyes their not animals their actually little robots things used to spy on people
M – is he a robot
D – very good
M – cause there was some electrical noise when he was moving
D – there may be somethings that doesn’t need to go into, is he a robot or is he a person?
M – doesn’t matter
D – doesn’t matter, he’s an agent of the divine.
M – i would never guess that he was an agent of the divine
D – the saying angels come in brown paper wrappings, if I walked down the street and see an angel, that angel might be a bum. a trope of every story, the angels are bums laa laa. Uncle Joe’s kinda smarmy, you not even sur if he is going to seduce the girl in the beginning. What is he?
C – I thought he was going to say, God has sent me…
D – yep exactly, i want people to be a little uncomfortable with him. he supposed to be – eew. He’s really well disguised, he’s an agent of the divine. you have no idea that he is unless you really pay attention and we can tell the story properly
C – off topic, called Mercury falls, rises religious apocalypse, heaven and hell, beaurocracy. picks some fat over weight gamer kid to be the anti-christ etc.
D – we can talk more about the story and which points are the most important to realize
M – agent of the divine
D – I’d like to leave them questioning at the end, we have to get some things across those places have to be occupied, we have to think of him going to other places and contacting other people.
C – this is your uncle joe it implies that all the other people he’s going to
D – he’s uncle joe to all those other people too
C – then is he in multiple places at once, is he going to those people and pretending
D – i can leave that to the imagination of the audience. it’s not actually important whether they think he has super powers or not