Mr Peg has a bad day
Concept
A short animated film, inspired by William Kentridge, Tim Butron and animated shorts such as "Alice" and "The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb", both dark and twisted stop-motion productions. I'd love to do this as stop motion animation with hand-made junk metal puppets. Problem is, I know zip, zero, zilch about animation, let alone stop motion!! Oh well. Here's the concept anyway...
Storyline Mr Peg is an anal, uptight grump, a bit of a dag, an old fuddy duddy. He is intolerant of most things and dislikes everything else with a passion. The one thing he does like is order and peace and quiet. Which is ironic because he lives in the middle of a noisy, smelly, chaotic, industrial city.
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One day, the city is even noisier and more chaotic than usual and Mr Peg is trying to have an afternoon nap. The noise of the city is incredible; it seems to be squeezing into and scraping the inside of his head. The level of cacophony increases in intensity until Mr Peg, who is tossing and turning in bed, sits bolt upright and screams as an ambulance tears past his window, "AAAAAAAAARGH!!"
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Grumbling and muttering, he wanders into the kitchen to have a cup of tea, only to find a conga line of boot scootin' ants (in silver tassled cowboy boots) making off with the contents of his kitchen. They're doing a simple 1-2-3-kick dance in perfect unison and singing as they go. "OOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Mr Peg is infuriated and stumps out the door to go buy some more tea and sugar.
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The pavement is crowded with identical bird people, all bobbling along in the opposite direction, completely vacuous and not paying any attention to anything other than themselves. Mr Peg is badly jossled. He almost loses his bowler hat and starts to develop an eye tick.
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He sits down on a bench seat to mop his brow and catch his breath and is immediately accosted by a mechanical chicken begging for food. It repeatedly pecks at his toes, becoming increasingly aggressive as Mr Peg becomes increasingly irritated. "What tha…?" It refuses to give up and forces Mr Peg, now livid with rage, to move on. He finally reaches the corner store and with a sigh of relief, pushes open the door, only to be knocked flat by a punk, skateboarding dog. The dog circles him a few times, giving him lip and jeering while Mr Peg tries to get up. He grabs for the dog, intending to teach him a lesson, but the dog laughs, flicks him the finger and scoots off.
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| Mr Peg, trembling with rage, shakes his fist at the dog's back and threatens to call the police. The dog's faint laughter drifts back to Mr Peg as he looks around and spots a policeman on the other side of the road. "RIGHT!", he fixes his hat, adjust his bowtie and determinedly steps off the pavement towards the policeman, straight into the path of an oncoming bus. SMACK SPLAT. Darkness. And the sound of an ambulance siren, which slowly fades out to silence. | |
Visual style
Dark and gritty, industrial, rough and scratchy, heavy shadows.
(Not my image - to indicate style only)
Motion for the puppets is simplistic and mechanical. Mr Peg is primarily expressed through facial gestures and limited dialogue, which is not so much speech as vocalisations. Motion in the backgrounds to be very subtle and fairly slow, reminiscent of the wind. Detail is important.
I'd like the opening scene to be reminiscent of a chaotic cityscape as seen from above, with objects moving around on the ground down below (subtly), representative of an organic, living organism. The movement should also imply restless sleep.
(Not my image - to indicate style only)
Beginning as a close-up of a street/city block, the camera slowly pans out to reveal more and more of the cityscape, until it resolves as Mr Peg's quilt cover. A lot of city noise, ending in the ambulance siren.
(Not my image - to indicate style only)
Bea Pierce, 2003