Kaos a.k.a. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Hell
Artist name:
August Black and Federico Bonelli
Statement:
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Kaos a.k.a. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Hell
a 9' free-film made along the border between order and disorder
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a Proposal by August Black and Federico Bonelli for PIKSEL 2007
"Torstein Frode narrates about a city, contended between Norway and Sweden. The two kings decided to throw dices to decide who would have the city. The King of Sweden got two six. He said then that was not the case that the king Olav of Norway throw the dices. But Olav, shaking the dices in his fist, said that two six are still inside the dices, and with the help of god he would have them out. He throws and two sixes come out. The king of Sweden throws again and another two sixes appear. Olav throws again and one dice gives six, but the other brakes in two, giving one half six and the other one. Thus the city became Norwegian".
(Snorri Sturlson, Saga of S. Olao)
STATEMENT:
We would like to join our forces and make a film under the time constraints of a single week and within the so-called "limited" availability of free software. At the end of the week, we expect to have completed a full 9 minute narrative film that will be shown to an audience. This film, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Hell" will also be released under a free content license such as Creative Commons.
We want this film to be a first step towards automatic and procedural filming. The film takes elements from Ivar Ekeland, Snorri Sturlson, Luigi Pirandello, Louis Bunuel, Henry Poincare, Italo Calvino, and atmospheres from Jim Jarmush and David Lynch.
The main character are taken from a play by Tom Stoppard, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead" which later was filmed in 1990 (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Rosencrantz_&_Guildenstern_Are_Dead).
The characters spend the entire film coming to terms with their existence. Shakespeare didn't provide any detailed character development of either Rosencrantz or Guildenstern, and as such, they are left confused as to the purpose of their own existence. In a similar fashion, but with different aesthetics, our film will investigate the dramatic relevance of meaning in the age of kaos, that is a language that draws between order and disorder, determinism and free will, like life.
Synopsis:
Guildenstern and Rosencrantz are dead and the play (hamlet) has ended. But this is not the end. They are still trapped into a narrative, this time slightly different, that has been placed on them from above. The story portrayed into the movie is a quest to liberate themselves from the control of the "author".
The film start with them in the woods walking uphill. The two characters walk but in the soundtrack we hear the sound of two horses as if they are riding. Rosencrantz tosses the coin and the coin always lands on "heads". It is the first scene of the play and of the film in Stoppard's version. In the next scene they are confronted by a black woman. The woman stops them and tell them to go down back into the woods and reach the city because from the city is their exit from that place. They do so unwillingly. We see them now in the city, at night. In the city wherever they go is night, rainy and dark. When they enter a place it immediately turns out that is day outside. As they get out becomes night again, even if, at the border of the city the city is in the dark but the sky is a day sky (like in a Magritte painting). In front of a church they are informed by a gorgeous woman with the voice of a man that they have reached Hell. After a few attempts to get information from empty places they decide to orient themselves using the coin. At each junction, they toss the coin. If the it lands on "heads", they turn right. If "tails", they turn left.
Of course, it always lands on "heads". Despite going in a circle, they reach a series of interesting places. In the first one they meet a man hanging upside down. The man talks to them in a language that only Rosencrantz seems to understand. Their understanding in the film does not correspond to what the subtitles say. Rosencrantz translates to Guildenstern wrong. He tells Guildenstern that the upside-down gentleman has directed them to go "up". Actually, he tells them to pay attention to world politics and the monetary situation of the World Bank.
The two main characters are confused as to which way is "up", and keep wandering through a nightmarish Bergen town. One of the most scary things they meet is a blob. They get to know from him that he is a placeholder, intended to reserver a spot there in hell for G.W. Bush.
Things get even weirder when they are confronted by a couple, drinking wine they fish from an upside down umbrella one from the hands of the other. The weird couple indicates a night shop. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are met in the shop by a strange duo of shopkeepers, a tall, massive one and a very short one. They also don't speak words. But they point to a public phone. Guildenstern at last obtains the coin from Rosencrantz and puts it in. We hear the dial tones and a modem answers. The perplexed heroes are then hectically forced by the short shopkeeper into a small cabinet were they disappear. They find themselves in a dark tunnel, were some light seems to glow at the far end, as they crawl towards the light...
SCENE ONE
The dialogue is taken from Tom Stoppard's film
WOODS EXT DAY
[Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are walking horses up a path - we ear the sound of horses but they walk- as they pause also the horse noise stops] Rosencrantz: [to Guildenstern]? Umm, uh... [Guildenstern rides away, and Rosencrantz follows. Rosencrantz spots a gold coin on the ground] Rosencrantz: [to horse]? Whoa - whoa, whoa. [Gets off horse and starts flipping the coin]? Rosencrantz: Hmmm. Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads. [Guildenstern grabs the coin, checks both sides, then tosses it back to Rosencrantz] Rosencrantz: Heads. [Guildenstern pulls a coin out of his own pocket and flips it]? [...]? Rosencrantz: [flips coin which lands as 'heads']? 78 in a row. A new record, I imagine. Guildenstern: Is that what you imagine? A new record? Rosencrantz: Well ... Guildenstern: No questions? Not a flicker of doubt? Rosencrantz: I could be wrong. [Rosencrantz has been flipping coins, and all of them are coming down heads] Guildenstern: Consider: One, probability is a factor which operates within natural forces. Two, probability is not operating as a factor. Three, we are now held within un-, sub- or super-natural forces. Discuss. Rosencrantz: What?
[...]?
Why Kaos?
Chaos a creative and all eating drive. Chaos is the element below order and disorder as well. We spell it Kaos like from greek, and following a tradition that wants "Chi" greek letter transliterated with K. Chaos is the phenomena that emerges in deterministic nonlinear models making them unpredictable, so to say untreatable by either stochastic or deterministic models that aim to predictability. As for the dices in Olaf's saga.
The Challenge:
August and Federico will share the making of the film, from production design to casting. The film will be made in parts that will be "directed" in cooperation by the two artists. The secondary aim of the film is to start a collaboration project towards dynamically re-editable software driven film objects that will re-invent film language using nonlinearity of the visual media and yet retaining elements of story telling and visual narrative.
Our films will be in the future re-edited by software in realtime, using procedural controls written specifically by the maker working his story at a higher level of abstraction. To elaborate this technique we want to start from shooting a film "about the need to escape the frames of a story". The story here has been thought as a "closed system". An approach we consider obsolete and no more justifiable by limits of the media used. The new cinema re- elaborates his story along lines that can be unforeseeable and using a higher level of abstraction; is therefore the equivalent of a dissipative system.
Some Definitions:
Atom: An atom is any media archived for a particular scene, marked as "good" and put aside to be edited Bin: all the atoms produced for a scene collected in a directory Dance: the equivalent of scene in a script, but is composed by a sequence of atoms that run according to a meta structure Movement: A Movement is a unit of time in witch one or more dances happen
Some of the Atoms that we want to prepare for this productions:
- Time lapse of clouds moving over Bergen
- Shots of rain dripping on every possible corner of the city and possible fashion
- Hot caramel left dripping into cold water. Filmed with polarized filters. (structures emerges from crystallizing hot matter. Cold/Hot)
- Diffusion film of drips of milk in a pot of coffee. Same thing repeated with a pot of milk and drops of blood
- A man and a woman drink red wine with their hands from a upside down umbrella. They offer one to the other and drink in each other palms.
- A young girl walks "invisibly" into the street. She blows in the face of passers by, that feel sick and die. (Pirandello) Other atoms might be added during the production
HOW WE CAN DO IT:
- - - We ask BEK for a space to use as a small place to be used as a studio. Two lights (battery powered if possible), a reflector a black drop and some basic tripod for lights.
- -- External shots will be light using LED lights
- -- We will spread the world around to arrange a casting event the first day of the production
- -- Shooting should be done in the first 4 days
- - - The software we need will be prepared beforehand, all the experience with this software will be documented for next production. All the documentation made available with free licences.
- -- We will bring necessary camera and sound equipment ourselves. The scope is also to show how to do film with very basic, almost improvised, means.
Software:
free video editing software