After Production Notes
From Zanecorpwiki
Authors: John Bachir, Zane Rockenbaugh
First we focus on a vignette/short story targeting 45 minutes or so. There's an obvious second chapter, which is the journey itself, which could be combined with the first part as a film, or better yet, do the journey as a stand alone movie and release the first part as a prequel for marketing purposes.
Contents |
Storyline
Story divided into three acts:
- setup: follow protagonist through daily routine, at end of act he learns of the enclave
- preparation: protagonist prepares for the journey ahead, gathers supplies; meets the the other survivor
- leaving: protagonist shuts down home
There is a running theme of a calendar in the film. This is part of the protagonist's connection to civilization--as well as a vital survival tool. It's also important to establish action and motivation in the second act.
Setup
The setup arc moves the viewer through an increasingly macabre/bizarre tour of the future, expanding both the scope and severity of the fall.
Day One
Begin with a domestic scene in the protagonist's inner sanctum. This is a very homely scene, looks like a small loft or dorm room. Basic dusting. He's humming and/or singing to self. Fades into progressively more rigorous cleaning routines. Wearing booties and bleaching floor of outer area, then into full bunny suit with garden sprayer hosing down plastic walls in the transition zone. Maybe put this as background to opening credits? 3-4 minutes.
As we move out from the inner sanctum and towards less sterile environments, it's dimming. Evening comes and he starts pulling hard drives out from a duffel bag and plugging into cables running through the section dividers.
We catch back up with him inside. Microwave dings, pulls out mac and cheese and sets down to pulling data off hard drives; we see him typing, copying, etc. Motivation is he's pulling out personal pictures and stuff and rebuilding data from before the fall. Pulling bits of wikipedia from browser caches, etc. He has a list he keeps going to for each hard drive, his protocol for pulling data. None of this is or need be apparent to the viewer.
At the end of the first day, he sends a message to the enclave. We see the addressing protocol, which is a request to forward through various cities/areas. See ham radio protocol.
Day Two
Tending garden, top level of parking garage. Checks computer, no message.
Day Three
Macabre shopping trip. Protagonist is in full bunny suit, raiding a supermarket for supplies.
On the supply run, the protagonist passes by a parking lot with a big white tent. The camera tracks into the after he walks by and we see orderly rows of beds, many of which have corpses/skeletons (5 years, what does a body look like?). A horrible image, but then contrasts as we pick up with the protagonist as he enters the super market. Here, we see a number of corpses that obviously died violently in food riots, not killed by the diseas at all.
At end of day three, checks computer and finds response from enclave. For cinematic reasons, this will be an audio recording with attached instructions explaining the rules of approaching the enclave. This gives us a chance to inform the audience about some of the key ideas/restrictions of the world in which the protagonist lives.
Preparation
The climax of the act and story is the meeting with the other survivor. It is this meeting which ultimately pushes the protagonist to decide to head towards the enclave.
The Plan
We begin with a scene of the protagonist in front of a white board with his plan and spreadsheets tacked up. The scene consists entirely of the protagonist staring at the board, we see a large 25% circled in the board, '9 months' is underlined with 'winter' and an exclamation behind it. The scene is painfully long. 30 seconds. Camera movement? The protagonist doesn't move except for his eyes scanning the board.
The idea is to communicate the uncertainty of the trip. May need a big question mark on the board somewhere.
Off Plan
Begins with the protagonist adding final supplies to his sledge and marking off a list on a clipboard to communicate that preparations are complete. Afterwards, he turns off the light after staring at the sledge. Do a slow fade down and fade up to give the feel of time. Here we see the calendar and it's a week or so past the date written on the white board in the previous scene. We also get the sense that the protagonist is off his game. Things are a bit dustier, his diet isn't as good, etc.
The Traveler
While on top of building, scouting the city through high powered binoculars, the protagonist spots a traveler. He moves to intercept at a point across her guessed path. We have a tense scene where he's waiting at the crossroads until the traveler appears. Once he spots her again, he gets her attention (he can now see she's female). We go through scenes of seeing him through her binoculars, but never see her except through his. He has a brace of communication devices, walkie talkies, etc. which he picks up and mimes to her. However, when he looks back, she motions no and moves on.
We pick up with the protagonist some time later, into the evening sitting near where we last saw him staring off in the direction of where the traveler left. He gets up and moves off camera.
This is the kind of scene that has played out before. The audience understands why there is such extreme trepidation because of the audio intro to the enclave packet that we heard earlier.
Leaving
Pick up with the traveler with the sledge. He's putting a notebook in front of the door to his quarters, sealing the door, flips the breaker and starts off.
Scene/Prop Notes
Inner Sanctum: Since Protagonist has access to every house to loot, we see a very well appointed area. Huge flat panel, surround sound, X-box, playstation 3, etc. First impression is that this is a dream bachelor bad.
Rules of the Apocalypse
Production guide for the effect/rules of the apocalypse.
The fall results from a shit storm of multiple effects. Global warming and geo-political bullshit triggers global food shortages, which in turn heighten political tensions and make it difficult for nations to work together. A flu pandemic develops. There's a rush to cure it and so regular protocols are sidestepped. The cure attempts to genetically modify the virus to be innocuous, but ends up creating a super-strain that is highly contagious and very lethal. The population is decimated and the governments, off kilter from the other stuff going on, are unable to control it.
Because of the change in the nature of the disease and the die off rate, it's not certain how long the bug survives outside the host, whether it survives in animals or not, etc. In open air settings, our protagonist wears forearm length gloves and waders, but only wears a face mask. In enclosed areas (which often have corpses), he dons a bunny suit.
There are animals and such, which are not directly effected by the plague, but which have to be treated with caution. One, because they are feral, and two because if they've had contact with (or been eating) corpses, they will carry the disease on their fur, mouth, etc.
Random Ideas
- Use pigs to determine whether plague has died out in an area or not; pig farmers raise pigs from healthy stock and release into open. The pigs are tracked and then the keeper watches to see if they die or not.
