dark poet treatment

little dark poet - treatment

A six-minute stop-motion animated film with no dialogue, Little Dark Poet is intended as a companion piece to The Saint Inspector, and may be the second part of a trilogy of films in the same style. In this installment we intend to combine live action footage with model animation in a way that has not previously been seen. It. is hoped that the same team that created The Saint Inspector will collaborate on this project and ensure a film of equal if not superior quality.

The film opens in a dark, wet, undefined space splashed with blues and purples; the POET character and the writing desk that he is part of is the focus of our attention. Sound effects would be sparse and would echo around the confines of his cell. From this beginning the action moves into a bright, sunlit garden in which two human actors play out a scene of merry seduction.

The live action sequences would be filmed in black and white 35mm prior to the beginning of the animation shoot. This footage would then be hand painted and projected onto the model animation set one frame at a time, allowing the images to run in time with the action of the puppet. The contrast between the dark interior of the set and the brightly tinted real exterior should make for a visually striking film. At times the projected footage will be scratched and deteriorated, and jarring high-speed cutting will heighten the sense of anxiety and danger described by the on screen story. We will also be able to experiment with the speed of the projection, at times freezing the image into successions of still snapshots or creating high-speed montages according to the mood of the narrative. At times the live action images may be projected onto the puppet to further blur the boundaries between reality and imagination.

The costumes, make up and photography of the live action part of the story will evoke memories of the silent movie era of the early 1900s, and the acting style will be similarly theatrical, which should help bind these images successfully with the style of the animation. The animation itself will involve standard puppet and plasticene techniques.

The live action exteriors could be shot in two days, with another day in the studio at a later date. Sets and props for the animated sequences would take four weeks to build, and the animation itself could be achieved in six weeks, ending up with a film of between five and seven minutes in length.

We would expect Little Dark Poet to capitalise on the success of The Saint Inspector at film and animation festivals around the world, and hopefully provoke interest in the production of the final part of the trilogy, which is as yet unwritten.

But it's getting there...

3rd draft: 1st December 1997