The first scene reveals a close up of a hand on a mouse, an eye darting back and forth between seemingly important events with light reflecting off of it, and then a view from behind the boy in which we see a computer monitor. After moving away from the boy we see that his room is lit with light from the monitor and deep moonlight piercing through the darkness of his room from the window.
He is so into whatever is on the screen that he seems to be oblivious to any events that might be occurring around him. You see a shadow in the window, but the boy does not notice. The shadow is like a smaller version of the brief shadow that an airplane casts when flying between you and the sun. A few moments later, the power cuts out. The moonlight still lights half of the room and the boy's head, but the monitor is black. The power flickers on and off a bit, then dies completely.
The boy slowly gets up to look out the window. He sees a few blue-green sparks shower down from the roof, and runs to grab his flashlight. Next we see him stepping onto the roof from a ladder, flashlight in his mouth to light the way up. After a few sweeps of the flashlight he spots a critter (raccoon) nibbling on the power line to the house. The startled critter looks up with the cable between his jaws, pauses in the beam of the flashlight, then bites down. Almost instantly he is engulfed in arcs of electricity, and soon after the rooftop is starting to become electrified as well.
The next shot is from a birds eye view directly above the house in which we see the house glowing blue, and rapidly getting brighter. After a few seconds there is a bright flash and the screen slowly fades from bright white to the last scene: the boy sitting on a burned patch where his house used to be, with a wide-eyed blank stare on his face. Seconds later, the electrified raccoon falls from the above and lands next to him with a thump. The end.
*** I also wanted to add this ending as a less comedic option:
(The following would occur right after the power went out:)
The boy slowly gets up, and starts to tiptoe down the hall with a flashlight. When he is halfway down the hallway, he is pressed against the ground as if he was in an elevator that was just launched upwards at an unsafe velocity. As he regains his balance, there is a terrified look on his face. He continues towards a window in the hallway.
The bottom of the window sill is just below his eye level when he is on his toes, so he can only see what is directly outside of the window, but it is enough for him to realize what is happening; the house is moving through clouds. It seems very stable, and moving at a constant velocity, but there is no doubt that he is inside a flying house. We see the boy's face looking out the window, bewildered and pleased, and the camera seems to stay in one place as the house floats away and the boy's face gets smaller and smaller.
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One idea about the main character,
ReplyDeleteMaybe we could make the main character an obsessive-compulsive collector of objects. His room could be filled wall-to-wall, floor-to-celling with boxes organizing here various collections(mail, old newspapers, toothpicks). The idea is that hes saves and organizes everything, then puts it onto a spreadsheet on his computer. This would give him a distinct personality and make more an impact when the house blows up at the end and all the boxes are blown into air,destroying his collection. Just an idea I had.
**edited due to spelling mistake
I like raccoon ending, except for the house blowing up part. I think I'd like the see the raccoon have a more meaningful part, and some motivation for chewing through the power line (beside being a mammal that chews things). Perhaps the little critter could be trying to power a "tree-house" rocket that ties in with the alternate ending. (The boy follows the raccoon to the tree, and climbs in just before the raccoon plugs it in and they take off.) Either way, I think the raccoon getting zapped and staggering off is an important part of the story. Perhaps the raccoon could glow after this point to provide some interesting lighting for the rest of the story.
ReplyDeleteSome character backgrounds (not necessarily portrayed in the story) (and credit to nick for the background on the boy, I liked his idea a lot):
ReplyDeleteEver since he can remember, the critter has loved to eat from the neighborhood that he now resides in. It seems to have the best waste bins. But recently his efforts have been thwarted more and more often.
The critter is tired of being caught rummaging for food in the neighborhood. He figures out that the lights on houses are alerting the humans to his presence. He doesn't understand why they can't ignore him, so he strives to find a way to get his fill without human interference.
One night, he chewed on a small rubbery string that was hanging near the empty bins. After biting through the odd object in one chomp he realized that it was not food, but it did something else. The light on the side of the house went out.
Above the now dead light he saw a larger version of the rubbery thing he had just severed, and he knew what must be done...
Over the past week the boy has completely reversed his sleep schedule. He has been on break during this time, and has had no parents around to interfere with his work.
He is categorizing his collection of everything in reverse alphabetical order on his computer for easy access and retrieval at a later date. He does, after all, have every shelf and spare area of his room filled with file boxes for his collection of nonsensical items.
Heaven forbid anything should interrupt his work.
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I agree with Erica about keeping the scene in which the critter gets shocked (no matter which ending we choose). I think it is an important part of what his attitude will be after that point in the story.
I am in favor of the house disappearing for now, only because I don't see a solid ending for the house flying away yet. We could do the tree house rocket as long as it isn't too much to model (on top of the house and everything), but the first ending keeps it relatively simple.
As for the critter character, I was attempting some ZBrush modeling this weekend and came up with this:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3630/3417527616_1e60f89767.jpg?v=0
Some character background:
ReplyDeleteBoy - is an obsessed scientist who is always working on the computer and on his experiments. Any distraction from his work or any disorder within the vicinity of his home angers him greatly. He is a young prodigy and wants to win Nobel Prize in science and will do anything to win. He is very obsessive compulsive and needs to have everything he owns in a certain order.
Raccoon/Critter: Relatively peaceful critter who likes to forage through the garbage for food and sleep in his tree stump. However, sometimes he collects items from the garbage and makes a lot of noise dragging it back to his home. The critter likes to lounge around his tree stump and usually keeps to himself unless his home is violated.
Revised part of story/ending:
Perhaps the raccoon/critter character he is motivated to chew on the wires because he is wanting revenge with the boy in the house. I also wanted to find a way to try and explain the flying house at the end of the story with this.
The boy is so obsessed with his work on the computer and other science projects that he evacuated the raccoon or critter's home in the backyard. The boy couldn't stand hearing noises from the raccoon collecting food and garbage back into the tree stump near his window.
As a result, the raccoon observes the boy and notices that electronics in the house turn off when the power cords are pulled out from the outlet. During one night the raccoon finds the main power cord for the electricity in the house and tries to pull it out unsuccessfully. He then bites on it and the electricity goes out of control as he is shocked and the house loses power.
The electric critter glows in the dark and is stumbling around and falls into the basement. He ends up emitting lots of electricity which causes sparks to go off and small fires to start. However, by accident his electric sparks ignite into a giant rocket the boy worked on as a past experiment. The raccoon/critter panics and runs outside back into the backyard.
Before the boy knows it suddenly his house is launched into the sky and is traveling at a high velocity away from the ground. The boy flies away in the distance and the raccoon is in awe. The raccoon then goes back to his beloved tree stump and happily watches the boy fly through the sky like a shooting star.
After reading Nick's post about the possibility of the main character having OCD, I came up with an idea to give the story some depth.
ReplyDeleteSo it starts off showing the house, then it zooms in to show the man finishing up some dishes, after he is done with his work, he takes a quick look at how unbelievably spotless his kitchen is, he then turns off the light, goes up the stairs and into his room with a bed, desk, and monster computer. The computer sits in the corner of the room perpendicular to the window. We see him sit down and start typing away at the computer.
**optional (depends if we want to introduce the animal before the rooftop scene or not)**
Then, through the window we zoom to a tree, which shows the animal looking at the house intently, it then climbs down the tree and darts its way across the lawn, up a vine fence and through the chimney. The camera then goes back into the person.
**end of optional part**
A few moments later you hear a bunch of crashing noises, food hitting floor, metal hitting metal etc. Out of reaction the person stands up, frightened, and quickly fetches his bat and proceeds to run out of the room.
We then have a camera angle of the dark kitchen. there we see our character running down the staircase and to the light switch and we then see the lights go on to see his beautiful spotless kitchen just destroyed.
After despairing a bit the main character hears a raccoon-running-up-a-rain catcher-drain noise and runs outside to see the tail of an animal hanging from the roof for a quick second, after looking around outside for a second or two he sees a ladder off screen, we see him return with a ladder that he leans onto the side of the house. After seeing the top of the roof he immediately finds the rodent, and after a quick zoom in we see him about to bite down on a piece of electrical wire. There is a one second pause then the rodent bites down on the wire and the house explodes.
It could also be that the "critter" is annoyed with the boy, as it's home is in the tree not far outside the window, and the light from the tv while playing the game shines right into its home. On top of that, the music is loud and obnoxious. For these reasons the critter decides to cut the power.
ReplyDeleteI like Beau's suggestion of the critter discovering that these cables effect the power, so basically we could introduce it via a flashback situation in which the critter thinks about how it can solve its problem; alternatively, we could introduce the critter one or two houses down using this method to acquire food, and then is drawn to the house due to the lights coming from the room.
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ReplyDeleteParker, the human character, is CDO (like OCD, but alphabetized), and very devoted to cooking. As such, he has a very elaborate kitchen, filled with utensils. It is in this room that we find him, finishing up his organization after cleaning up. His creation, a mousse dessert, is left sitting out on the counter when we see the raccoon looking in through the window, very stealthily I may add.
Despite the intent look directed towards the food, our raccoon covets a whisk, which is laying out in the sink's drying rack beyond. *this point I see emphasis on camera focus, either by zoom, or camera effects*. Parker leaves to his room to categorize his new cooking books, and watch the cooking network programs.
The raccoon has discovered the electric cord as a way to stop the lights from working, to then sneak in through the window.
This could then turn into the explosive scene, or then become a battle as Parker comes back downstairs with a flashlight and catches the thief in the act...