Liam Titcomb

Liam Titcomb | Love Don’t Let Me Down

Director Jesse Yules www.jesseyules.com

Rejected May 25th, 2012. What they ended up making… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dPb2Zn6puU

Concept

A summer walk through an unconventional cemetery, with portraits of the dead carved into trees.

Mood

Warm and sublime.

Approach

We will shoot at magic hour at the Scarborough Bluffs in Toronto.

Using carved foam and special effects painting, we will dress tree trunks in a rural area to appear as if portraits have been carved into them. Some of the portraits will look freshly carved, others will seem weathered, as if they were carved a decade ago.

We follow Liam as he wanders through the park visiting each of the unique portraits.

One of the carved faces has a dark mouth that opens into a hollow in the tree. It has been filled with bird seed. Birds and squirrels crawl in and out of the ancient wooden-head.

As the video ends, Liam begins carving a tree.

We see that Liam has carved the portraits of two figures facing one another.

Cut to black.

Delivery

Aprox. 4 weeks after receipt of the production funds.

Metz

METZ | Wet Blanket Listen Here
Director Jesse Yules www.jesseyules.com

Rejected June 10th 2012

Concept

Werewolf groupies murder the band.

Mood

Let the Right One In vs Teen Wolf

Summery

The video will be one continuous shot, played in reverse, as if the audience is rewinding a security tape.

We will open with a shot of three female werewolves partying and drinking blood from beer steins. In the background, three bodies are suspended from the ceiling, wrapped in plastic. Plastic tubing has been inserted into the bundled victims to allow their blood to drain. The plastic tubing leads to a dispensing nozzle (similar to the hose on a beer keg at a frat party).

The tape winds back further. We see woman wrapping the band members in plastic like human spiders, and hoisting up their cocooned bodies to hang from the ceiling.

The tape winds back further. One by one, we see the band members murdered by the werewolves.

The tape winds back further. We see woman transforming in front of the camera.

The tape winds back further. The groupies look like regular young women, hanging out with the band.

We close with a traditional shot of the band posing with the girls. In an homage to the ending of Micheal Jackson’s Thriller, we freeze frame and zoom in. One of the girls has demonic eyes.

Cut to black 

Technical 

The werewolf girls will have prosthetic fangs. Hair will be applied to their chests to obscure their breasts. Two LED lights on thin wire will float in front of the actresses eyes, creating an animal “glowing eyes” effect in camera. 

The footage will be grainy and desaturated. Similar to a security video, or a snuff film. 

The Rituals

Rituals | Mesmerize

Director: Jesse Ewles www.jesseewles.com

Rejected by MuchFact May 30th, 2012

Concept 

The band reanimates a mummified corpse using a car battery.

Mood 

Dark, ambient. Moments of humour.

Direction

A) We open with a shot of a blackened, mummified human driving a pick-up truck at night.

B) Flashback: Three men arrive at a swampy lake in Northern Ontario in a pick up truck.

C) The men locate a tree stump near the lake with rusted chains wrapped around it. They unwrap the chains and begin pulling them. Bubbles erupt from the lake. The men pull a coffin from the lake wrapped in plastic drop cloth. 

D) Using a box cutter, the men cut away the plastic. They pry open the casket with a crowbar. Inside is a blackened muffed corpse. 

E) One of the men pops the hood of the pick up truck and attaches jumper cables to the vehicle’s battery. Using alligator clips the corpse is wired to the battery. The truck is started. The corpse sits up with a jolt of electricity. 

One of the men reveals a remote control, similar to one used on remote control cars or aeroplanes. The man pushes the nobs on the remote control. The corpse stands up robotically in response. 

F) The man with the remote control sends the mummy after his companions as a joke. Startled, the two companions rush away. One of the frightened men stumbles. The mummy jumps on his chest. The man with the remote control struggles with it’s switches and buttons. The mummy is no longer obeying him. 

G) The mummy begins strangling the companion violently. The first man drops his remote control and tries to pull the mummy off his companion. The mummy is too strong. The first man grabs at the copper wires still connecting the mummy to the car battery and yanks them away from the mummies body. The mummy is continues to attack.

F) The third man returns with a large thick tree branch. He strikes the mummy in the chest and frees the man who was being strangled. The mummy staggers back, bracing it’s self on the hood of the truck. The three men rush away from the scene into the woods, with the creature in pursuit.

G) As the video ends we see mummy turn around and begin loping towards the idling truck.

H) We return to the open shot of the mummy driving.

Technical

Camera 7D Canon DSLR + Canon EF 24-105mm zoom lenses + shoulder mount. 

Effects The mummy will played by a thin actor performing in heavy body paint, with prosthetics and special effect make up on his face hands and feet. 

We will shoot in daylight at magic hour.

Sparks and smoke during the car battery sequence will be shot practically.

Hooded Fang

Hooded Fang | Tosta Mista

Director Jesse Ewles www.jesseewles.com

Rejected by MuchFact April 30th, 2012

Concept 

Hooded Fang party at a movie theatre walking on top of the seats and other guests as they perform. Behind them, on the big screen weird black and white science fiction footage is projected. By the end of the video, the whole crowd crawling over one another / moshing / dancing.

Art direction / Mood

Rambunctious, art punk party.

Approach

Step1 We will shoot weird black and white science fiction images similar to those in the Weekly World News. Examples may include the Fiji Mermaid, Batboy, cannibal zombies, alien heads, CIA agents, pirate gold, bigfoot ect.

Step2 Hooded Fang will perform at the Toronto Underground theatre. As they sing, the band will climb on top of the theatre seats, walking around on top of the audience members laps and shoulders. The weird black and white footage from step 1 will be projected on the movie screen behind them. By the end of the video, everyone in the theatre is climbing on top of one another, dancing / moshing.

Technical Treatment

Camera 7D Canon DSLR + Canon EF 24-105mm zoom lenses + Steadicam Pilot & Vest Arm Kit. Black and white sci-fi footage will be given a “super 8” look via Magic Bullet Suite.

The Elwins

The Elwins | Sittin’ Pretty

Director Jesse Ewles www.jesseewles.com

Listen to live version here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rw_0bq-1Ic Great video in it’s own right.

Rejected by MuchFact April 30th, 2012

Concept

The Elwins have a medieval joust wearing armor constructed entirely from 

balloons.

Art Direction / Mood

Fun, viral, pop psychedelic, stop motion.

Approach

Step 1 We will construct costumes using 2000 twisting balloons, similar to the those used by magicians to make balloon animals. The characters will include three knights wearing balloon suits of armor, three princesses wearing balloon-crafted dresses. The knights will ride stick ponies with large horse heads completely sculpted from balloons.

Step 2 We will act out a joust in stop-motion. Each time a knight makes contact on another knight with his balloon sword or balloon lance some of his armor will pop, and disappear. Once a knight has all of this armor popped, he will be eliminated from the tournament and run from the jousting area in only his underwear. At the end of the video champion is crowned and he receives the hand of the princess.

Technical Treatment

Camera Stop motion 5K stills. 7D Canon DSLR + Canon EF 24-105mm zoom lenses.

Studio We will be shooting in the large room at Silver Line Studios. 

Pig Magazine

PIG Magazine Interview (Translation)

Italian version here: http://www.pigmag.com/it/2012/06/05/almost-famous-jesse-ewles/ 

1. Hi Jesse, where are you now? What are you doing at the moment?

Hi! At this very moment? I’m eating a piece of spelt-bread toast with humus that my girlfriend Jessica Rae Gordon made me.

2. You’re very young talent. How did you find your passion and when did you start to work?

My enthusiasm for the work gets renewed daily. Mostly because I’m curious and I have a good internet connection…

Originally I was attracted to film because it encumpasses all of the arts I was curious about. Filmmakers curate experiences by combining sounds and visuals in interesting ways. I think the internet is allowing filmmakers (and everyone else) to take that curation several steps further. Urban-noir filmmaker David Lynch for instance doesn’t just make movies anymore. He doesn’t just combine sound and image to give an audience an experience. Lynch’s website offers many different items, some digital some physical,  that can be considered “Lynchian”. He makes ambient music mp3s that will make you feel unsettled, even while strolling around your friendly neighbourhood on a sunny day. He sells dark roast coffee to sip on before a transcendental meditation session. He has a video that teaches you to make his favourite food, Quinoa. It’s the same world-building a great director would do when creating a film, but it’s been made more real. Lynch is helping curate real people’s lives.

This opportunity to do real life world-building is exciting. My world view is that of a tinkerer. I like to take things apart and put them back together again, leaving out a few screws to see if the thing will still run. Sometimes stuff doesn’t work (I have a whole blog about stuff that didn’t work) but that’s what experimenting is all about.

3. What is the gap between the first feeling you have when you start to work on something, and the feelings you have when your project is completed? Does your work fit perfectly with your idea / imagination?

No project arrives into the world exactly as conceived… and that can be a very good thing. Filmmaking is collaborative medium for most directors and you’re hope is that the great people you’re working with will be able to elevate your ideas. You hope they can take the direction they are given, and create compositions that are much better than what the filmmaker could have done on their own.

I think filmmaking can be approached like gardening. You have a seed, that is the idea. You place that seed into comfortable conditions — comfortable conditions vary depending on the idea. Action sequences for instance, seem to “want” to be shot in circumstances that are somewhat precarious for the crew. A scene when a character is ruminating on this future is best shot in a quiet place with a locked down camera.
As the seed sprouts and grows, the gardeners job is to train the plant up a lattice, gently steering, while letting it grow in natural directions. By harvest time, you probably don’t have exactly the plant you were imagining, but you’re still happy as long as it’s healthy and bears fruit.

4. I often see animals in your videos. How do animals inspire your virtual worlds and concepts?

People have always had a fascination with animals, especially those of us who live urbanized lives and see animals rarely. You tend for instance, to find more die-hard vegans in urban areas as opposed to on rural farms. The situation reminds me of Philip K. Dick’s book Do Androids Dream Electric Sheep. In the book as the natural world hovers on extinction humans keep both real and synthetic animals as status symbols. The pets are badges of empathy and demonstrate that the owner is still capable of love and compassion.

For my part, I find animals interesting for the same reasons ancient people did. They’re good tools for storytelling. If you look at old fables, animals were often used as stand ins for humans, so the story would not be held up by the details of the protagonists background. If a wolf is central character, most people in the audience have an idea of what a wolf is and how it acts, the storyteller doesn’t need to explain where the wolf is from, or its philosophy.

5. I think every kind of project in life is like a pregnancy: what is your favourite phase, and why? (I mean: when you start and finish a project in your life -not only professional stuff- what is your favourite moment according to the metaphor I gave you)

Hmm. Well… much like pregnancy, conceiving is the fun part. Labouring to bring the idea into the world takes the most effort. Watching how your children make their way in the world after their born is the most scary and rewarding part.

Some other thoughts I like…

There is no sharpness without friction.

And…

Seek out difficult challenges. Things that are hard to do are rare (and therefore valuable) because they are difficult for people to copy.

6. In your work, how much is “handmade” and how much is “digital manipulation”?

It’s 50/50. My images are almost always real objects or paintings I have photographed and animated in the computer. There are very few 100 % computer generated images.

Svankmajer is cool. I was really into his work when I came out of college because it was so tactile, and I had just spent a year making an cold CGI student film. You could see Svankmajer’s fingerprints in the clay, and can imagine Svankmajer, this mad filmmaker, down on all fours strangling the clay into place.

Lately my heroes are people I think of as fearless. Kurt Vonnegut or Alan Moore or Seth Godin or Richard Branson or Margaret Atwood.

8. What’s the difference between making a video for a band, and making a video for every other kind of client?

There’s no real difference I can see, apart from the fact that musicians usually have a taste for fringe work and business people generally like more commercial stuff. As far as the ease of the process goes, the personalities of the clients make more of difference than their backgrounds. Dream clients are typically patient, curious and brave. They take their time selecting a director who they really love, and then dive into the project. They generally don’t stress about deadlines because they know if they don’t have time to do a project right, they probably don’t have time to do it over.

9. When I appreciate an artist, I like to know something personal about him, like how his standard day is, what he reads in the toilet or the safety valve he uses to vent his anger. Would you tell me three things about you personally? (not necessarily the same as I suggested)

This might give you an idea of my personality… I was in an open-mic storytelling show last winter. My story was about porn. NSFW https://vimeo.com/23015659

My personal life is pretty quiet. I’ve tried to build a simple life, so that I can take risks and attempt to do hard things in my work. I have unique group of crazy, irreverent friends that are my only valuable asset. Everything else I own could go up in a fire and I wouldn’t really miss it.

If you’re looking for more specific details… I cut my own hair and I like to make Gordon Ramsay’s F word recipes.

Zeds Dead

Zeds Dead | Living Dead
Director Jesse Yules www.jesseyules.com

Rejected May 17th, 2012 | What they made instead.

Concept

Post-apocalyptic beach party.

Approach

Intro 0:00 - 1:00 Using a series of slow motion tableaus, we show a group of horribly disfigured, zombie-like people posing in 50s style beach-party scenes. Behind the zombies, a rear projection screen plays looping footage of an idyllic beach with waves breaking on the shore line. The beach scenes will be lit with a moody red lighting, as if to suggest the events are taking place under a giant heat-lamp. The scenes will feel “staged” as if the beach set has been constructed in a bomb shelter miles bellow the surface.

Middle 1:00 - 3:35 As the pace of the track speeds up, we will cut more quickly to various other beach activities shot in slow motion. Activities include volleyball, hula hooping, crushing sand castles and fake water skiing in front of the projection screen.

Exit 3:35 - 4:30 We cut to face of a dreary-looking lab tech(s) with a thousand-mile stare. The lab tech is sitting in front of a large monitoring station lined with hundreds of colourful lights. A monitor in font of the lab tech displays the beach scenes. Looking bored, the lab tech turns a dial marked “ambient radiation”.

We cut to an image of the sun projected on the rear-projection screen. It glows noticeably brighter. The beach zombies gaze at the burning sun reverently. They lean their heads back as if enjoying the added heat. Slowly their skin begins to melt from their bodies.

We see the lab tech once more, looking desensitized. He turns up the heat further.

To close, we repeat the slow motion tableau pans from the opening of the video. The zombies are still posing enthusiastically, but by now, they have been fried to skeletons by the heat of the room.

Cut to black

Band Involvement

Depending on Zack and Dylan’s comfort level, they can participate in the zombie sequences or simply act as the lab techs.

Completion

Aprx. 4 weeks from the date the productions funds are received.

We Have Band

We Have Band | Love What You’re Doing Listen Here

Director: Jesse Ewles | www.jesseewles.com

Rejected September 3rd 2010

Concept

A video featuring three ancient Tai Chi masters shot in slow motion. The eyes of the masters will flash red and blue to the beat of the song. The movements of the masters will be inter-cut energetically with pop psychedelic animations of Chinese dragons. The band will not appear in the video. The art direction for the dragons will be similar to this:

Technical Treatment

The video will be inter-cut between two scenarios.  Scenario one will feature three Tai Chi masters performing on a set of ruined over grown steps.  The Tai Chi routines will be performed and filmed at twice normal speed, then converted to slow motion in post.  This will give the movement of the performance added intensity and make the footage ominously beautiful.

Scenario two will be an animation based on a Chinese dragon.  The dragon will be an elaborate stop-motion puppet decorated with jewels, metallic textiles and silky fibers.  The animation will feature the dragon snaking through a natural environment with fantasy / pop-psychelic elements (ie rivers of jewels ect)  The dragon peruses the tail of a second dragon.  Eventually he catches it, and in the final shot we see that there are dozens of identical dragons all connected together mouth to tail into a giant psychedelic chain.

????? | ????

Rejected May 14, 2012

Concept

An animation following a stunt bike, as it drives through various colourful L.A backyards.

Approach

The video will be one continuous tracking shot of the stunt rider driving through a variety of Los Angeles backyards. The characters in the backyards will be looping animations.

Mood

The vibe will be similar to the NES classic PaperBoy, except the images will all be hand painted in the style of David Hockney, and the images will move from left to right instead of diagonally. The overall mood of the video will be warm, relaxing and cheeky. The video equivalent of melting neapolitan ice cream.

Shot List

A) An Evel Knievel-style stunt man stands on top of a dirt hill surrounded by colourful streamers, palm trees and a few photographers. The stuntman drives down the ramp picking up speed and charges into a huge loop to loop. He then hits a second ramp and flies over some wrecked cars. The stunt man completes the jump but fails to stop at the victory circle. The bike flies off the course and breaks through a safety barrier into the neighbouring backyards.

B) The motorcycle crashes through multiple backyards inhabited by the following…

A sexy pool party. People are sunbathing and diving. The motorcycle goes over the diving board, lands on the other side of the pool.

The motorcycle passes a steel drum band.

It passes a man scuba diving in his pool.

Girls in a hottub.

A vacant house filled with stray cats.

A homeless man with a barbecue built into a shopping cart, cooking weiners. A flock of seagulls take.

Two 70’s wrestlers, wrestling on a trampoline.

A movie crew filming muppets.

A collection of colourful billboards.

A pornography shoot.

70’s bodybuilders weightlifting.

A group of people rollerskating with a dog.

A ferris wheel.

A fry truck.

Classic cars.

An LA gang, harvesting marijuana.

A graffiti artist painting a mural.

A robot dinosaur eating cars.

A garage band.

A helicopter taking off.

A group of cheerleaders stacked into a human pyramid.

Two Dogtown skateboarders, skating in an empty pool.

C) The motorcycle drives down into the empty pool with the skate kids. The bike flies up the opposite side of the pool into the air. We see the motorbike fly out of the backyards and zoom off of a cliff face towards the ocean. We watch the motorbike fall. A rainbow parachute pops out from the stuntman’s back. He glides slowly into the Pacific, being cheered on by some surfers and some curious dolphins.

Fade to black.

*image by David Hockney

Kathryn Calder | Who Are You (Making Of)

*This is a successful music video post. I’m collapsing the now deduct HiddenItems.org into this blog. My failed projects will now be occasionally interrupted by a successful project, along with insights on what ideas worked and what ideas did not. Enjoy!* JE

Successfully Completed July 24th 2011

In case missed this video, and have little time to watch it in it’s entirety, here is a gif image that acts as a summery.

For those of you with time to kill, you can watch the full version here, and read a review of some of the tricks we used to pull it off below. 

May - July 2011

In the summer of 2011 Cameron Tomsett, Dean Tzenos and I began throwing around concepts for our friend Kathryn Calder’s new track “Who Are You?”. She had requested a “weird, fun dance video”. We threw around several ideas: Belly dancing video? Break dancing C3P0? A Sesame Street parody… Finally we decided on a stream of animated, colourful shapes with sexy lady legs, similar to the “lets go out to the lobby” cartoons at old movie theatres. 

We came up with rough ideas for the costumes. We knew we wanted the designs to evolve and become more complex as the song progressed.

Eventually we decided it would be interesting to focus on animal evolution. We would start from basic shapes and as we added more geometry to the costumes, we would move up the evolutionary tree — Worm, fish, octopus, crab, gator, dinosaur, bird, pony, monkey and finally a human which would be played by Kathryn Calder herself.

Our friend, painter and designer Lee Stringle helped us design the “evolving” costumes. Each costume in the sequence has one or more extra geometric planes, or polygons, than the design that proceeded it. 

Once we had the designs, we had to think about how to best build the costumes. We crafted a 1 meter diameter buckyball out of paper mache as a test, but the prototype was both too heavy and too rough-looking to work for the concept. 

After consulting local builder Melissa Fisher, we decided to build the costumes from large sheets of foamcore. To create the blue prints for the costumes, we built 3D CGI versions of the animal designs in Maya. Using a program called pepakura we “unwrapped” the CGI models and converted them into 2d blue prints.

We then projected the patterns onto 48 x 72 inch foamcore boards and traced the images with pencil. Afterwords, we used box cutters to trim the designs and duct tape to assemble the pieces into the final costumes.

During our construction marathon, I managed to slice the pad off of my index finger with a box cutter. It was 12:30 at night on a Tuesday, and all the stores were closed. Cameron, along with my roommate Brendan, ran around the neighbourhood looking for bandages while I sat pinching my finger in the fetal position. I figured I could fuse the severed skin back onto my body if I applied enough pressure. I had a rotten sleep that night. For some reason, because I have never had a pain in my finger before, I thought finger pain would be mild and easily ignored. It was not.

16 hrs and a few Tylenol liquid jells later, we were back at full capacity. Incidentally, a couple weeks later, the whole end of my injured finger turned brown and hard and eventually peeled off like a leather thimble. Underneath was a brand new finger, soft and pink like a baby’s… 

On shoot day, our friend Chris Chapman set us up in a beautiful room at this awesome photography space Silverline Studios which basically took the project to a whole new level. It came with a small refrigerator full of coca-cola, which I think, Cameron and the dancer Peng Cherry are still dreaming of. 

Later, Cameron and I rented a moving van and drove the fully constructed costumes to the shoot space in the dead of night to avoid Toronto traffic. We blasted Classic Rock Q107 all the way there, since there was no iPod jack in the van’s stereo. Here is one of the songs… 

Here is a video from our dress rehearsal starring Peng Cherry and Cameron Tomsett.

The shoot day was a long 12 hour slog. The wonderfully talented Greg Bliskep worked as our DP. We shot one costume at a time, and used a HD video projector to add colourful animations by Toronto Designer Emma O’Neil, on to the while costumes. 

The day after the shoot, faced with the fact that we had no place to store the huge costumes, Dean, Cameron and I ninja kicked them to pieces. Failing to capture video of this event, is probably the greatest regret of my career….

JJE

Of Montreal

Of Montreal | Spiteful Intervention (version 1)

Director Jesse Ewles 

Rejected January 15, 2012

Concept

A 3D, morphing, animated collage. The images will be similar to the work of artist Jeff Koons, combined with more realistic versions of characters from the Of Montreal album art. The collaged images will be converted into 3D using the post-3D technique popular in IMAX films.

Step 1

We will construct animated collages featuring kitsch images (toys, candy), paint blobs and magazine collage featuring sexy lips, fingers with colourful nail polish and photos of wild animals. 

The lip-stick mouths featured in the animation will sing along to the track as they float through the compositions. The singing mouths will be similar to the giant mouth at the beginning of Rock Horror Picture Show. 

Step 2

The photo collaged images will be imported into the 3D suite Maya and converted into CG.

Step 3

We will paint a nude model all in white with white body make-up. We will paint the model’s hair white with spray-on hair colour. We will project the collage animation from step 1 on the model’s body. The model will be seated against a black velvet curtain to absorb the projectors reflected light.

Technical

The collage elements will be shot and scanned at 4K and animated in After Effects and Maya 3D. 

The final video will be delivered as a 1080p .mov quicktime.

Sum 41

Sum 41 | What am I to Say (treatment #3) Listen Here

Director Jesse Ewles

Rejected May 31st 2011

Premise: The last guest at a formal party smashes up the place in slow motion.

Look: Warm, hazy lighting, similar to Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut. The camera will move around the scene on a track shooting at 120 fps.

Synopsis: We see a garden at night, set up for a formal party. The area is deserted. Overhead is a canopy of glass light bulbs. There are two long banquet tables with a 15 foot stretch of grass in between. A ceramic lawn jockey in the shape of a dog stands beside two water bowls. At one end of the party is a “guest of honour table” with a cake and presents. It has a giant portrait of a young woman hanging above it, similar to the giant portrait of the Queen that used to hang in the Winnipeg Jets arena. 

Beside the table is a coat rack, overflowing with coats. Some of the coats are piled on the ground. It seems the guests left in a hurry. At the other end of the party is a small bandstand with a microphone, a couple of amps, and some stools. 

Deryck slouches in a beat up armchair, on the lawn in the centre party. He looks out of place. He seems to have dragged the chair there. He is wearing a soiled black suit with his tie undone. It looks as if he was punched in the jaw. He is not wearing any shoes or socks.

In slow motion we begin a long track shot as Deryck stands up and begins touring the scene. 

Empty seats, glassware, and plates of unfinished food pass in the foreground as Deryck walks. Deryck passes an open air grill looking bored and passive aggressive.

Deryck passes a large pile of unopened presents. He shakes one of the boxes at his ear and throws it over his shoulder. He scoops up the rest of the presents and tosses them into the air. Deryck picks up a piece of cake off a plate and eats with his bare hands as he walks. 

Deryck passes by the coat rack. He shoves the rest of the cake in mouth to free up his hands.  Deryck begins turning the pockets of the coats inside out looking for change. He finds none. Disappointed, his mouth still full of cake, Deryck gathers the coats in his arms and falls forward. The coat rack collapses under him.

Deryck stands up, munching on cake. He wipes his mouth with one of the jackets. 

Deryck walks back towards the banquet table closest to the camera. Deryck climbs up on top of the table and begins strolling across it. We see Deryck from the waist down as he moves. He kicks glasses onto the grass. He steps on a large cake. At the end of the table 

Deryck pulls up the tablecloth and steps onto the bare plastic of the banquet table. Deryck pulls the end of the table cloth around his shoulders, as if it were a cape. Glasses, plates, and food fall everywhere. Deryck jumps of the table like Batman. The tablecloth and everything on it is dragged to the ground.

Deryck heads to the bandstand. He picks up the microphone stand and begins to attack the other equipment. Sparks fly. Deryck heads into the courtyard where the ceramic dog sits. Deryck shatters the dog statue with mic stand. 

Deryck pulls up the layer of sod. He throws the heap of grass and soil at the over-sized portrait.

Deryck pauses a moment, surveying the scene for other areas to attack. Our camera trucks left until the gasoline for the open air barbecue comes into the foreground. Deryck rushes for the can. Merrily, he spins with the can slinging gas all over the tables and chairs. 

Deryck climbs up on the far table. He reaches up and pulls down one of the strings of lights hanging above the area. He gathers the light string up into a ball. Deryck swings the ball of lights and crashes them down on the table. They explode in slow motion. Deryck climbs up and grabs a second string. He repeats the same action, but this time as the lights break, the gasoline on the table sets fire. 

We close with a shot of the fire spreading across the long banquet table. Deryck returns to the centre of the area.  He collapses back into his easy chair to watch the fire.

JE

Technical treatment: We will use practical lighting. The party area will be sprayed lightly with a fog machine to add atmosphere. 

We will shoot at 2k, 120 fps. The camera will be on a track.

Of Montreal

Of Montreal ~ Sex Karma

Director / Animator: Jesse Ewles

Rejected October 5th, 2010

Approach

Mixed Media Freak-out 70’s Animation

Concept

We will make a bizarre, loose, 70’s, underground comic, psychedelic montage. The animations will be inspired by the art of R. Crumb. The colour work on the piece will be highly saturated and feature Of Montreal-esque decoration and colour pallets such as sparkles, feathers, loose paint and metallic textiles and saturated colours. The video will be a mix of claymation, cgi and photography. The video will contain nudity and adult subject matter. It will not be suitable for MTV (without blurring) but will have good viral potential on the Internet.

Sequences

Hump sequence: Amorous men and woman ride on buxom, strong-thighed woman.In the background, 70’s rainbow bursts and colour bars whiz around. Girls being ridden include: Fire girl, roller girl, ski girl and ski dive girl. I’m also open to other suggestions… The R. Crumb drawings will be the starting point, but the characters will take on an original flare once converted to claymation.

Make-out sequence: A looping animation of various animated heads, tongue kissing with one another. Some of the heads will be earnest. Some will be weird. Some surreal. Make out couples include catman + catgirl (Fritz the Cat), a mariachi in a sombrero + a tourist lady in a sun hat, an old Lady + a lemon meringue pie-face, two sea urchins kissing, a black crow pimp + a pig police officer, a nerd + his 8 bit computer screen girlfriend, a man with alopecia + a lady sasquatch with big tits, two horses, a skull head + a pile of worms and two perfectly round twins.

Breast sequence: A montage of breasts from different female creatures [white breasts, black breasts, freckled breasts, old breasts, hairy breasts, spiked breasts, lizard breasts, skeleton non-breasts] As the chests appear on the screen, they are embellished with glitter and sequins.

Eye Sequence: Close-ups of giant cartoon dilating eyes, insinuating orgasm.

CHORUS

Other weird image loops appear during the songs choruses. A dominatrix steps on the crotch of a masochistic bald man. The man digs in his pockets for money to keep the woman torturing him. He pulls out wades of lint, dry clean tags and corroded coins.

Two homeless men spoon on subway grate while being sprinkled with Christmas snow. 

A girl rides a seesaw with a boy lying underneath it. The girl kicks herself up into the air and crashing the seesaw down between the boys legs repeatedly, crushing his junk. He loves it.

Approximate Production time: 8 weeks

Scarlet Fever

Scarlet Fever ~ Crash and burn Listen Here

Director Jesse Ewles

Theme: Punk fable.

Synopsis:  After sleeping for one hundred years, a clumsy character sets off on a quest for flight.

Story:  We open with a shot of an ancient character who’s been napping against the tree for a hundred years. A flowerbed has grown up around her blanketing her body. She wears a giant wooden head, overgrown with weeds and berries. Finches and other songbirds crawl in and out of her eye sockets and mouth. The scene is bathed in orange light from an afternoon sun.

    Suddenly, the Ancient awakens, startling the birds. As she wipes the sleep from her eyes, she dimly sees the birds taking flight.  The Ancient finds the sight hypnotic.  Still half asleep, she flaps her arms, attempting to follow the birds into the sky, before toppling over into the flower bed. Undeterred, the ancient wobbles to her feet and sets off on a quest for flight.

    The Ancient passes passes a pond where she meets a Fisher character, struggling with a fishing rod, a tiny woman with a giant bonnet, her face is obscured by the shadow completely, except for large, brightly glowing eyes.  Leveraging the fishing rod with all her might, the Fisher flights to reel-in a large snake-like catch.  Seeking to help, the Ancient leaps into the pond and grabs the snake-fish by the tail. After some struggling, she heaves the fish up onto the shore. The Fisher is overjoyed and bounces around celebrating the catch. Grateful, the Fisher suggests the Ancient join her for dinner. An image of a roasting fish appears in a thought bubble over her head as she speaks. The Ancient declines and points to the sky. We see a clearing in the trees and beyond, a cliff face.  Circling the rocky plateau are a flock of black crows. The Fisher looks on with dread.  Reluctantly, she  scoops the snake-fish up and follows the Ancient towards the cliff.

    At the summit, the Ancient and the Fisher find a dark figure sitting on a bolder, smoking a pipe.  This figure is a skeleton in robes, wearing a headdress of dried fruit and thistles. The Ancient approaches the skeleton and curtsies. The Ancient explains to the Skeleton, that she wishes to fly. She points to the birds in the sky and flaps her arms. The Skeleton smiles and laughs and with a wave of his robes he conjures a hand-glider. Transfixed, the Ancient walks towards the glider before being stopped by the skeleton’s outstretched hand. The Skeleton seeks payment. Eager to help, the Fisher offers the snake-fish.  The Skeleton accepts it but seeks further compensation.  He points to the Ancients large wooden eyes.  The Ancient does not flinch, and with a wave of the Skeleton’s hand, the Ancient’s eyes vanish, leaving two empty holes in her wooden face.  

    As the song’s climax approaches, the Fisher leads the blinded Ancient towards the flying-machine.  Smiling and confident, the Ancient lifts the glider up her shoulders and begins jogging towards the cliff.  The Skeleton looks on confidently, puffing smoke from his pipe.  The Ancient dashes over the cliff.  The glider plummets.  Though she is in free-fall, the blinded Ancient is unaware.  She smiles broadly, laughing, exhilarated by the wind in her face.  She’s in ecstasy.  Her black hair, previously disguised by her mask, breaks free and unravels in air.  As the song ends we see a wide shot of the glider crash into the forest canopy, throwing up a swarm of sparks and debris.

J

What Scarlet Fever Made Instead http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6z27l_KUmw

!!!

!!! | Must be the Moon Listen Here

Director: Jesse Ewles

Rejected 03/30/07

Theme: Drunken party video, referencing the donkey sequence from Pinocchio.

Sinopsis

The scene unfolds at a crazy party held in a run-down 30’s style home. We tour the house with a POV shot, as if we’re seeing through the eyes of one of the eccentric guests.

The house is packed with young people. We work our way through the crowd. We drink from a bottle curiously labeled “!!!” brand moonshine. It has a picture of a donkey on the bottle and the liqour glows a florescent green. As we drink from the bottle, our view becomes progressively hazzier. We see trails, halos around the lights and eventually full on hallucinations.  

Eventually, with a final chug from the liquor, we see the heads of many of the guests morph and change into the heads of braying drunken donkeys. The donkey creatures party even harder than their human counter parts.

The party is divided into several rooms. Each room has a collection of donkey headed guests. In one room the guests are dancing. One male pulls on the exposed underwear of a female donkey with his teeth. A second female donkey comes up behind the male. She pins a tail to his butt.

In the kitchen the donkeys are eating piles of oysters and tacos.

In the bathroom two donkeys are shampooing a great black dog. 

As the video closes, we exit out onto the back porch. Several donkeys are cheering on a blind-folded donkey swinging a bat. Above him bobbles a donkey-shaped pinatta. The bat-weilding donkey bashes the pinatta in half, showering the the floor with with candy and a fluorescent green liquor.

Our final shot is of a donkey with his whole mussel burried in the crushed remains of the donkey pinatta, fiesting on it’s candy innards. 

J