This week brought about many changes to the overall direction of the project. During our weekly adviser meeting on Monday, we had a long chat about the outlined story. Overall, the consensus was that the nature of the experience was such that it couldn’t really be scoped down without losing its essence. In addition, the idea had digressed too far away from the peaceful beautiful world that we had originally envisaged.
So we returned to the drawing board and tried to revisit the core of our experience. What we discovered that to be really the power and meaning of story itself. Based on this notion, we did a complete story rewrite which gave the player more room to project into the experience :
PHASE 1 : THE CALL (0:30)
Player explores the world and himself. He is represented as an amorphous glow, so when he looks left and right he sees glowing pulsating light. The player is also hovering on the back of a magnificent bird. The bird is hovering on the edge of a waterfall with the ocean stretching out behind him. In front, the player’s view is obfuscated by mist and cloud. In the distance, he can just see the outline of the spring of stories. Suddenly, the sky changes color going from blue to a bright orange, almost like a sunset. The silence is broken by an ethereal female voice, almost like a distant echo yet distinct and calm.
“WANDERING FRAGMENTS, THE SEA AWAITS. YOUR IMMINENT BIRTH THE WORLD EXPECTS. WANDERING FRAGMENTS, THE SEA AWAITS.”
The sky reverts to its original blue. Next moment the bird flaps its wings and takes off into the sky.
PHASE 2 : DESCENT
The bird enters the mist and clouds blocking the user’s vision as it descends down the cliff. The bird breaks through the final clouds as it soars over the sea of stories to reveal the magnificent world stretched out in front. The player’s body glows even brighter and the bird caws with satisfaction majestically. On either side in the distance, the player can see other birds transporting other glowing orbs.
PHASE 3 : PURPOSE
The bird draws to a halt near the spring. The player sees another bird soar into the spring. A few moments later a ball of pulsating light appears inside the spring and then floats downwards from the tip of the spring into the sea. As the ball of light makes contact with the sea, a new stream emerges from the spring into the sea unfurling itself into the ocean.
The goal of this phase is to foreshadow to the player the intended conclusion to his journey, i.e. what is his purpose in the world.
PHASE 4 : DENIAL
As demonstrated in the previous phase, the player’s bird now approaches the spring looking to enter it and conclude the player’s journey. However, the bird is met with a barrier and the entire spring glows red. The bird attempts to break through the barrier but fails. The spring now speaks in the same ethereal female voice:
“YOU, WHO DO NOT UNDERSTAND, MAY NOT YET BE BORN INTO THE SEA. WHAT KEEPS THIS WORLD ALIVE, WHAT KEEPS THIS WORLD BEAUTIFUL, YOU MUST DISCOVER FOR YOURSELF.’
The spring changes back from it’s disturbed red state into its original golden color. The bird flies round the spring and down through the surface into the sea, swimming closer towards the closest spring. The player is dislodged from the back of the bird and drifts into the stream.
PHASE 5 : STREAM (2:00)
The world around fades and changes into abstract space; think inside the Black hole in interstellar. The interior of the stream will have visual representations of what stories bring to the world. These depictions will be overlayed with audio and morph from imagery to imagery.
- The Birth of a Story
VO (in background) :
Child – “Daddy, can you tell me a story?”
Daddy – “Sweetheart, why don’t you try telling me one this time?”
Visual (Fades in once dialog is spoken):
A human brain appears with 12 bars of glowing light around it. The bars create a cube around the brain and lock themselves around the brain. The brain emits a golden orb that shatters the bars. The golden orb morphs and twists into droplets of golden liquid.
2) The Beauty of Story
VO (in background as the orb shatters) :
Child – “Daddy I feel … ”
Daddy – “What do you feel?”
Child – “I feel … alive”
Visual (As the word alive is spoken):
The droplets expand into streams emitting a beautiful golden light. The streams criss cross around around the player encompassing him in a thin translucent golden sphere. The sphere fades away leaving golden orbs hovering around the player.
3) The Purpose of Story
VO (in background once the orbs are created):
Child – “But (daddy) what do they do? What do the stories do?”
Dad – “They bind us … connect us … give us meaning”
Child – “Woooow”
Visual (as the word “bind” is spoken)
The golden orbs grow and start to shimmer and brighten. At the word “connect”, they start to create lines between each other. At the word “meaning”, the lines become definitive shapes.
4) The Destiny of Story
VO (in background once the shapes are created)
Child – “What do we do with them? What happens when we go away”
Dad – “You must share them … So that they may live on forever … And then … so too … will we”
Visual (as the first question is asked)
The shapes disappear and the golden orbs converge in front of the player forming a liquid once more. A pair of hands appear around the liquid. At the word “share”, the hands release the liquid which is passed from sets of hands around the player until the liquid is back to where it started. At the words, “so too will we”, the light coming from the liquid gets brighter and brighter until it eclipses the screen.
PHASE 6 : CONCLUSION
Slowly the world comes back into focus. The player is still flying on the bird’s back, facing the Spring. The Spring speaks :
“DO YOU SEE NOW, YOUR POWER, THE SIGNIFICANCE OF YOUR EXISTENCE? THROUGH YOU, ONLY THROUGH YOU, CAN THE REFUGE OF IMMORTALITY BE SOUGHT. SO GO NOW AND SHINE INTO THIS WORLD, AND EVERYTHING BEYOND”
The player merges into the spring and brightness envelops the screen once more.