Raven Project first steps

It's simple. The poem is the plot. There are two ways to read this poem, the literal reading as if watching your favorite TV show or the sub-dermal themes of love, pain, guilt and memory. What i propose is simple: We focus on the human themes and play-out the physical manifestations of the mental anguish (all under a tortured light). i don't have all or many of the scenes worked out, but i have a vision for how the entire vid will flow. Shoot the music video as a movie of sequences that a held together by the music and narration. The narration dictates the mental activity and physical movement - scene location - decor - gesticulations, while the music expresses emotion.

Synopsis: Music and Video start synchronously, narration starts within 5 seconds, jumps right in, we act out all the literal action sequences, and all metal/emotional thoughts/feelings are video sequences. Thus in the end once narration is complete. There is an understanding of the narrators pain. The narrator and the main actor are one and the same both iterations of the 1st and 3rd person.

Here are a few ideas for telling sequences:
i) in the library room he is reading there are a thousand photocopy images (1000) xerox pages, taped on the walls, completely obsessive, and mad of Lenore. Total rave style old school flyer type images xeroxed and blended, total underground style existence. Think back to our early days, Neurodexter and Flurry in particular, all the xerox photos, so sick. but this time around its obsessing on Lenore.
ii) at a certain point where the narration is insane with the most amount of meaning and character description pull a play out of Evidence's playbook (http://spectreglobal.blogspot.com/2008/12/inspired-by-evidence.html) and have the main character, henceforth referred to as Poe, hold the cards with narration, and flip through them at the rate of narration (location will be important for this one).
iii) Poe finds a crumpled dollar on the ground he opens it up and scrawled on it is "Nevermore", then as part of the sequence, Contra works some CGI magik and we have some stop action photography like in that Saturday Night Live video the Lazy Sunday (http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/chronicles-of-narnia-lazy-sunday/2921/) where we have the dollar blow on the ground, stops, then the letters in sharpie start appearing then the dollar folds itself, and is picked up by Poe bringing it back to the start.
iv) Poe is off in some corner demented with a razor blade craving the name Lenore on one fore-arm and "Nevermore" on the other fore-arm.
v) whenever the raven is mentioned in the narration we film Poe from the vantage view of the Raven, from up upon the perch, down from the door jamb, from outside the windows, etc.
vi) we are going to assume she is dead due to the angels appearing, we will leave it up to the audience to decipher how she die, tragik nevertheless, but we flash in there Poe at the cemetery, here is the tragik twist, Poe is still alive now in the modern era, caught somehow in this holding pattern in a weird purgatory, and his nepenthe are the drugs and drink Poe did, we know he was an addict one of the first, tragik romantic superstars (we research all that he was into and re-enact some of those moments - like when he was found in the gutter, etc).
vii) field of crows and try to catch views of them in flight
viii) the scene where there is a fire in the fireplace, Poe is burning pictures of her we need real black and whilte photographs, and he is burning poems and in a fit of anger and jealousy burning and tearing poems out of a book.

These are but a sample of what we will come up with. i am looking forward to the 2nd of January 2009, were we will dissect stanza by stanza and fill in the blanks.

The timeline is as follows:
a) Pre-production in Portland Jan 16-19
b) Filming in Portland late March
c) Post-production video editing, several studios throughout the world
d) Video Screening Munich Germany, hopefully Octoberfest 2009, in time for Halloween 09
e) Entering Movie in film festivals around the world and promoting the free online distribution.

Optxx to post soon

What up Spectre! Hope you are all having great Holidays and some well deserved time off. I have been having some mad brainstorms lately and the forecast is force 5 hurricane gales up ahead. Look for a monster post this evening, with tons of ideas, some great visuals, and it's sure to motivate and not dissapoint. Peace. Looking forward to sharing my ideas, as the producer i think i have it all worked out that great idea i was waiting for. And under ContraQU's direction this Raven project is sure to impress.

Merry Christmas Spectre Crew!

inspired by Evidence

optxx back back at it. yo - great session friday night, i feel like we made some great progress, have to be brief with this post, but had some ideas and definitely want to solidify some of our or key takeaways from last friday night. having the video unfold or at least the majority from the point of view of the raven i think is brilliant. i think it makes the raven even more important and it gives more ominous bearing on the subject which is the student as we shall refer to the main character. as for Lenore. I think we can talk about this further, but upon reviewing the poem further and thinking about this after friday night's session before going to sleep, i think the poem tells us exactly what to do, there is the student, he loved lenore so much, we don't quite know what happened to her except that she is gone, never to return, and he is addicted to her thoughts perpetually thinking of her, but is so hurt that all he wants is to forget and move on. two lines 1) longing: For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore -  AND 2) moving on: Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!'

As a side note, i love this video, by Evidence from Dilated Peoples, and i think from time to time we can use some of these sign tactics, take a look and ID what you think.

The Far Left - by Evidence

Till next session, I believe we settled on the eve of Jan 2nd, starting off the year right. lates.

optxx in at 2300

What up Spectre, optxx here, stoked to see everyone on live to night, looking forward to throwing some ideas around regarding the "raven" project. don't have many ideas yet, but that's the point of brainstorming. if anything looking forward to to hashing out some basics. like length. tonight one of us should read the poem all the way through and get a grip on the time length, also try to break the poem down into sections, there are obvious breaks and these can serve as markers as well. another issue we should try to identify tonight is how many characters do we think can fit into the scope. either way, its going to be a great session. looking forward to it all day. peace.

I'll be there

Hey Spectre.  Looking forward to tonight.  2100.  

Who's that caw caw cawing at my doorstep...

Hello my friends,
It appears I am now able to post to the site again =D Good to hear that you are working on some website magik over in the Deautschland Neuro! This Friday has potential for meeting up. I am pretty sure I can set aside a few hours for some chat / brainstorming. I will try to brew up some ideals before then so I may have some thoughts to spread and germinate in the furroughs of your gray matter. Well I'm off to pay some bills and cook up some bird for dinner!

Sorry G's

Ok Fridays, may work now that I think I am getting updates. The past few weekends I have worked on a website international consulting africa so Its been tough to either wake up early (my saturday) for a Friday meeting or just stay up the whole way. I do apologize for this. Just getting all the browser issues squared up on this site has killed my time. Now it also looks like we are only launching in January so the deadline is not looming so closely over my head.

On a brighter note, I think we will have the Raven Files soon from my old HD that crashed. I was told that now we might be able to get these. I will immediatley post these to the FTP. I will have copies of the AIFF's and can turn into MP3 copies with Audacity for those not using Cubase.

Lets please set up a week in advance the time to meet. It looks like I can do a monumental meeting this FRIDAY the 19th of DECEMBER. I would really like to. I would wake up at 6 am, just to chat for like 3 hours. THis essentially means I would be on at 9pm your time. Please let me know if this works, I will also send an email out. I hope by then I may have the files and will break them down so we can all review them.


MEETING: FRI 19th, 9pm PST> please escribir your confirmation.

......Yassas Spectre

2352 12-12-08

Friday isn't working.  What day works?

See email forwarded to your inbox.

LET'S GET THIS SHIT GOING!!!!

Raven Update

Had a great chat with neuro last night concerning Raven storyline and production.  

Perhaps the 1st person is sitting in a prison cell...the tapping is his melodic, maybe unconscioustapping on the jail bars (logistically difficult, but if we could pull it off...would be great).  His Lenore is his dead lover who he incessantly daydreams of...maybe he murdered her in a very calculated way....this is the story that we can follow... with intermittent prison scenes (lighting of a dark prison cell would be amazing).

If we cannot arrange for a prison cell...he could be locked in his home haunted by memories of killing his lover.  He can be bound by his guilt.

Today is December 6th.  I'm concerned that time is passing and we have not yet had a jumpstart to the project.  Here is a plan of action:

1.  Please subscribe to website notification if you have not already.  If you are not sure, please contact optxx regarding assistance in doing so.  This is vital to continued communication via site posts. I think that subscribing to the RSS feed is also very helpful.  Once again...great job on the site Optxx. 

2.  Spectre Session Friday December 12 at 2230 (Neuro...I think we will have to make it for your morning. We will attempt future session times that are more convenient for you..sorry) Please respond with a posting to the site to confirm that this time works for you.  If it does not work for everybody...we will change it.

3.  Please continue to read the poem and post to the site. I think this is what creates energy among us.  The exchange of ideas and excitement of the project itself. We have to get this jumpstarted or I fear it will not happen.

4.  Preproduction weekend to occur January 16-19th.  Please respond via post to confirm if this works for you.  During the busy holiday season, this may be too much travel and time for all to attend, but it would be very helpful to the cause if one or two members can start scouting, producing music ideas, story flow, etc before filming in March.  Of course...the more that show up the more  minds we have to pull from.  

This has the potential to be the greatest project we have worked on.  Lets try to go forward with full force.  

Following preproduction and filming we will have to devote time to postproduction as well.  This will have to occur in San Diego/Sacramento.  

I am envisioning showcasing the video in Munich for an amazing Spectre gathering.

Lets get this going