The last couple of weeks have been a little sparse post-wise, largely due to the fact that there isn't much to post--yet. I've got about five projects on my plate at the moment, four of which should be done by the end of the term.
The glamorous HVX-200 has taken up residence on campus and has so far proved itself to be well worth it's tapeless quirks. I'm so happy with the images I've seen, in fact, that I think I might be able to use it to pull off my first serious dramatic short.
One of my favorite songs is a Kenyan Folk song called "Wana Baraka" Which I sang with my choir at Armstrong High School. A Swahili spiritual, it starts extremely soft, with a haunting, melancholy melody, then builds the voice parts one by one until the sound becomes hopeful. By the end, everybody's chanting Hallelujah at the top of their lungs and the world couldn't be better. It's a remarkable progression--and as I'd sing, I'd often find myself trying to visualize its awesomeness.
My favorite image became that of a mother who has lost her child in a nearby forest. Search and rescue personnel and vehicles litter her yard, all unable to find the missing boy. Everything seems hopeless. But then we move to the forest itself, with the beautiful Wana Baraka suddenly silencing the hustle and bustle of the rescue operation. It's a quiet, gentle forest that now seems to be alive with the spirit of the music. As the voices mingle, a farmer working his field looks up to see the figure of a boy stumbling out of the woods. We end with the boy on the farmer's shoulders as he's carried past the awestruck rescue workers and placed right in front of the broken mother, who hugs the child on the last chord.
Needless to say, I don't have fifty extras, a little boy, and search and rescue vehicles hanging around my dorm room. Since that is the case, I've tried to think of different ways I could squeeze it down to a smaller scale, while still keeping the gravitas of what the original looked like in my head. My solution, at this point, is to have a group of friends suffer a mountain climbing accident that leaves one of them completely separated from the others. The film begins with the two uninjured friends desperately trying to start a broken car and make calls on a serviceless cell phone. They are powerless to help their fallen friend, who might be dead for all they know. But hope returns with the whispers of Wana Baraka.
"The Gift" Storyboard from Alexander Cooney on Vimeo.
I apologize for the stick figures. Hopefully you still get the idea. Short and simple.
Some more movies should be coming up this week.
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