Hilton Concept

COMFORT & EASE.

Synopsis: Clients of the hotel are taken care of by the animate objects of the common area, allowing them to be as comfortable as possible.

Details: This piece will function using a stop motion technique, animating the objects so that they appear to have a mind of their own. In terms of movement, I want the foot stool to shift back and forth with movement, the pillows to have crab-like movement (side to side), and the cord to be a bit snake like. All shots will be filmed on location in the set up common area and will require around 4 actors total (2 male, 2 female). 

My overall concept is that the hotel is already accommodating in terms of comfort, and you do not have to make it comfortable yourself. Additionally I was thinking about Disney's anthropomorphic objects, like stools and brooms in the Sword and the Stone, that do the work for you so that you don't have to. I was also just inspired by the furniture of the common area itself and how each piece was unique to suit people's unique needs/likes.

Hilton Video (Revised)

Hilton Video

Word: Comfort

Concept: I was thinking a lot about the different chairs in the common area and how they are more like chairs found in peoples' homes in terms of style and comfort. What if these chairs also offered sort of a service to make you more comfortable? In this idea, the chairs pull up the stool for you and fluff its own pillows, all using a stop motion/pixelation technique to achieve this.

Plot Summary

My Love and the Sea

By Jessie Kotis, Tiffany Baker, and Robert Siskin

OPENING: THE CLIFF

A young woman, Elizabeth, stands at the edge of a cliff, her lover onboard a ship that is sailing away. He is a sailor and must go off to war, and she is very sad to see him go. He waves to her as his ship sets off, sending her his love. A heart breaks above her head.

Days and nights pass. She decides that she is going to go after him. She runs down the face of the cliff towards a small rowboat anchored on shore. Unfortunately for her, a giant, dog-like sea monster lies between her and the boat; it jumps ashore. Thinking quick, she picks up a nearby stick and throws it into the ocean, far past her boat. The dog sea monster leaps after it, allowing her to reach her boat.

She sets off to find her lover’s boat.

THE VOYAGE

Not far away from the mainland she encounters a fearsome seahorse. It swims up to the boat and begins to buck as violently as a mustang. In order to placate it, she uses an apple to persuade the seahorse to calm down. The sea horse eats the apple and then happily swims away.

As she is sailing along, a mermaid appears on a rock fanning herself. Elizabeth looks intrigued, and rushes over to the side of the boat to catch a better look at the mermaid. The mermaid swishes her tail at the boat and nearly capsizes it. The boat bobs back and the mermaid slides off the rock and under the boat. As she is swimming by Elizabeth seizes the opportunity to cut the mermaid’s hair, its pride and glory, with an oversize pair of scissors. The mermaid relents and sulks away, and the young woman continues to steer the ship.

A few more days pass.

In the distance, Elizabeth can finally see what looks like her lover’s boat. To her horror, she soon realized that the ship is badly damaged and in pieces. Before she even has time to mourn her lost lover, a gargantuan octopus arises from the ocean. As the sea parts, she can see her lover hanging on to dear life on a piece of driftwood, alive.

She fends off the octopus by throwing her boot at him, which just made the octopus madder. Fearing the end is near, she throws a tophat to the octopus, who appreciates her sweet style and adds a monocle of his own. With the octopus happy and out of the way, she rescues her lover.

Props as People, People as Props Pitch

Synopsis: A young woman and her lover, a sailor, are parted when the lover must ship out to sea. After seeing him off at the docks, she is convinced that she must follow him and save him from going off to war. With her determination, she sets off to find him, no matter what perils lie with the sea.

Aesthetic: This will all be acted out through cutout figures and backgrounds that cast shadows onto a blank canvas. Hands maybe also be used as secondary props/or as traditional shadow puppets in some parts. The shadows themselves are going to be filmed. There will be no dialogue, but music and some sounds will be vital to the immersion of the project.

The look of the piece will mimic Victorian paper crafts, that is, intricate cut paper silhouettes. I will make the paper crafts myself, with some help from my team in cutting them out.

Inspirations:  Lotte Reiniger's Prince Achmed. It's amazing cutout animation totally speaks to me for this project.

Richard Bradshaw's Shadow Puppet Sketches--these have it all. Not only is it definitely puppeting, not animation, it's cutout paper shadow puppets! What more could you ask for?

Also this super awesome music video using a similar technique. I really like how the let the puppeting mechanisms show, and also that some of the movement is made just by gently curling the paper.

Lior - "I'll Forget You" (feat. Sia) from liormusic on Vimeo.

Todd Hayne's "Superstar"

The use of both live actors and Barbie was something really unexpected and truly desired, and meshed very seamlessly. I was also thinking about how the dolls, despite having no change of facial emotions, seemed to convey real personality and emotion; I think this is mostly achieved by good voice-acting and the human need to add human characteristics to things that have faces. None of the puppetry was very complex, and I found that most of the work was with the camera, and also the voiceover. I guess my real question is why were the dolls so compelling? I think maybe also the idea of using a Barbie really cinches that idea that Karen is really struggling with her weight and trying to achieve perfection, which can arguably be seen in Barbie, who has impossible measurements. Very interesting and entertaining film.