Major Project: Some Script Improvements

  With a script I feel is on the right track I decided to streamline some of it so that the text flows better and the actions sound like directions. The two pages above have the most major alternations to them as I also wanted to keep in mind the possibility that I would leave out human characters for the final presentation.

  I also made some modifications to the scene where David hears the news about having his funding being cut back. I believe this scene could be better conveyed with David's voice getting increasingly hostile rather than shouting "no no no!" repeatedly like a maniac. This more muted, tone-focused approach is a feature in when the third stage of the creature hatches from the cocoon. Like in the office, I'm inclined towards moving away from "no-no-no" type reactions.

Character Bio: Alfonse

Name: Dr. Edward Alfonse
Age: Early thirties
Occupation: Junior biotechnician, Outpost Wessex-Choris
Marital status: Single

A junior scientist for Wessex Biowonders and one of David's assistant scientists at Wessex-Choris, Edward Alfonse is a graduate of the Mars academy of organic sciences. But unlike David, Edward signed up to the Wessex-Choris posting out of enthusiasm for the pursuit of science. He is young, enthusiastic, hardworking but forever irritated by David's abrasive and work-centric attitude.

Edward is quietly resented by David. Relatively fresh out of university, Edward impressed his lecturers with his talent in bacterial genetic engineering and gene vectors. Edward's work won him the posting after developing a bacterial strain that could make alien atmospheres more breathable, which impressed visiting representatives of Wessex Biowonders. Despite this breakthrough, Edward's career on the outpost has been to run errands or act as an assistant for David; setting up testing apparatus and maintaining communication with the outpost's engineering team much to Edward's irritation while David focuses on his own projects.

In-between David's errands, Edward has made headway in finding other uses for the planet's local microbe life that he quietly passes to the outpost administrator. As much as Edward resents David bossing him around, Edward keeps his head down and avoids actively trying to irritate David. The only exceptions have been when Edward is called to perform a task while he's engrossed in his research.

Major Project Script: Draft Three Version Two

Major Project Draft Three Version Two by Mark Stamp on Scribd

  After discussing development with Phil and developing the key characters (Alfonse's bio is under construction), I might have with me a more cohesive and gripping script. It's longer if we go by a rule of thumb that one page lasts a minute, but the true length will come from a measured recording. I'd like to aim for three or possibly four minutes of animation. This seems like an apt amount of time for the story as it is a fairly long-term project and series of events.

I'm tempted to make an alternative where only the voices of the human characters are heard. But the creature still walks and wanders the halls. Much of the dialogue would remain, acting more as ghosts. Any interaction with objects (the thrown mug, the computers) could be  done by invisible people (e.g. we see the mug hitting the wall, we don't see anyone throwing it). And this version could act as a guide for tone.

@Phil Major Project Logline Synopsis and First Draft Script

On a distant research outpost, a tired scientist rediscovers his drive as he nurtures an alien specimen brought to his lab. 

  The story begins as the scientist in an audio diary introduces himself and the project. Begins by talking about how he got the initial sample. He is however, bored with the sample: a moss the lab managed to splice to breathe Earth air. After a month and a half the specimen starts getting interesting, emerging from the soil as a group and later forming a cocoon. As things get exciting however, the executives at the company get impatient as research drags on and it becomes difficult to find practical applications for the creature. Scattered around the lab however are clues that the story the scientist paints in the audio diary is only half the picture. His fate, his life and the company are much more sinister than what he makes out.

CAA Major Project Draft One by Mark Stamp on Scribd

All the names - the company, the creature and the project - are still a work in progress. Placeholders essentially. The animation itself might be around the 3m 40s - 4m mark.

Major Project: Ideas For The Alien

  I might be close to the starting point for a script. Something that might come to fruition in early September. For now I had been thinking of the content, as the concept of the scientist is at a fairly solid state at the moment. The logs and the world will contain scientific notes, so there is a benefit to nailing the creature's form early for the benefit of the script.

  I had some inspiration after some food I discarded a while ago attracted flies. Days after disposing of it, the food bin sustained a colony of maggots but that is when the inspiration hit me: It seems quite common in the bug world for insects to begin life as an ugly grub, a mass of flesh that exists only to eat and fatten up, before engaging in a metamorphosis into a new kind of creature. I don't like flies, and this inspiration could help me avoid that cliche that an ugly grub turns into a beautiful butterfly - the creature could emerge as an adolescent, but instead of being graceful, it's the monstrous fish-creature I was experimenting with the other day. A possible maturation cycle could be as so:

• The initial sample will be in an egg or maybe a fluid state. Maybe this creature starts life as a kind of moss. It'll be dull, but that'll spur the resentment the scientist has for the project.
• As the moss matures, it develops a pupa underneath itself. This pupa will then emerge once it is large enough.
• The pupa develops, before creating some crystalline substance that it covers itself in in order to metamorphose into the adolescent form.
• The adolescent phase will be a juvenile form of the adult creature, it could develop features that would help it find a mate in the wild.

  As for a timescale, perhaps something somewhat brief like 5-12 years. Short enough that a mature scientist can watch it develop at a speedy pace, but long enough that his bosses will question the cost-time effectiveness of studying a creature from birth to adulthood.

  I will have to consider that the more life-phases I have, the more models I will need to build. The adolescent and adult will be fairly similar, and the moss form could be a surface that uses hair to give the impression of foliage. So in a sense the older this thing gets, the more complex the model. Two or three feels like a magic number. Or perhaps the adolescent grows into the adult.phase by way of extra bones or blendshapes.

@Phil Year Three Brainstorming Part Two

  I got into thinking a little more on the scientist. A hurdle that currently exists is that I risk falling int stereotypes: A monster that represents a line not to be crossed, a scientist who puts results over the significance of the moral or ethical questions, a scientist who puts work above all else. To make a story stick, it is good to be impressionable but not so good the content is practically box-ticking.

  Maybe the scientist was a charming man in his youth with a few achievements under his belt, that are being outshone by the achievements of younger scientists. Maybe he started off missing his family when the company asked him to work late more and more, and obligation became preference. Perhaps this could be a warning to the compulsion of putting work ahead of family - a problem that is hurting modern Japanese culture, where young men are just not bothering with looking for a girlfriend, nor are they interested in raising a family because work demands so much of their time.

The company itself might be an influence. The architecture of the lab will help sell what kind of place it is, as the design needs of a lab dictates what kind of facilities it requires. A biology lab is like a hospital: It needs to be kept sterile to avoid contaminating staff or subjects with unwanted dirt or microbes. A chemistry lab, also a place of cleanliness, does not need to be so squeaky-clean. These considerations stem from what the company wants with the alien. Why are they studying it? What do they hope to get out of it?

The core of the story, as mentioned previously, is that management gets impatient. It is taking too much time to get results and rather than wait further (at a cost), they're pulling the plug. What could they gain form this specimen? An attack animal for the military? Military applications for its unique biology? Regenerative properties? An exotic pet? Their intent will convey to the viewer who they are (think how Weyland-Yutani wanted to make a weapon out of the Xenomorph, their decision to install Ash on the Nostromo, its "shake-and-bake" approach to colonisation or how many 'failed samples' they went though to get a stable clone of Ripley the Queen. These details tell us what kind of company YT is.)

Working out these motives might also tell us what its field is. Weyland-Yutani appears to deal with pretty much everything. But while it makes sense for a company funding an ambitious alien study, does the story need a provides-everything megacorp? Probably not. There could be a few branches; billionaire Elon Musk, real life's closest equivalent to Tony Stark, is a leading figure behind SpaceX, Tesla and PayPal, all of which he holds a leading position in. Richard Branson's Virgin group offers airlines, train fares, telecoms, and space tours among other things. So while the company the scientist works for could be part of a larger conglomerate, it could be he only receives notices from the executives of his branch. Or maybe it's only a few ventures.

I might stick with the idea this is a branch of a business group, specifically some biotech firm as this sort of science more closely ties with studying a creature as it matures. Still early days but it's good to make progress.