A Lost and Found Box of Human Sensation

a lost and found bow of Human sensation

page A lost and found box of human sensation, Martin Wallner and Stefan Leuchtenberg, 007

A young mans father dies because of pancreatic cancer and the boy has to cope with the loss. The film begins with the funeral and shows how feelings change throughout the years. It ends with the question: Is the-re a due date for grief...?

A lost and found box of human sensa-tion is an animated short film of about 10 minutes, based on a poem by Martin Wallner.

page A lost and found box of human sensation, Martin Wallner and Stefan Leuchtenberg, 007

cancer.

No cancer!

No cancer

!

There are two narrators in the movie: A poem builds the framework for the story-line and is recited by an omniscient nar-rator. Additionally from time to time this struc-ture is interrupted by thoughts and expe-

riences of the boy himself in certain situ-ations. He talks to himself basically and thereby gives the viewer an insight into a very per-sonal point of view.

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Whereas the language generally is very honest and straightforward the visu-al language of the film is rather meta-phorical and picturesque, representing the inner perception of the protago-

nist and his world of thoughts, a mix-ture between reality and imagination. The intention of this is not to dramatize but to emphasize certain emotions and sensations and to make them more com-prehensible.

The prevailing mood of the movie is not grief and melancholy but moreso an odd unstableness, sad and quiet passages take turns with anger, but also humor and self irony.

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The film is realized as a mixture of d- and d-animation. The light setting is high in contrast, emphasizing lights and sha-dows. Typographical elements are used for some scenes and as title screens for the different acts.

The music is part of the events and nar-rowly connected with the story. Some sounds for example are used as rhythm for a piece which then spans over a couple of scenes and changes slightly meanwhile.

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The d-scenes will be rendered with a sketch/toon like shader to stress contours and planeness. Still we dont aim for a cle-an cg design as known from many movies but moreso for a unique look as seen in the sketches. The color range is reduced to greyscale basically, using a couple of contrast colors for backgrounds and light shadows.

The characters generally are overdrawn and burlesque. Still, the main character has very realistic facial expressions and gesture, without overacting or exagge-ration. His emotions, after all, are honest and real.

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PROLOGUE

Scene 1: Black screen. Definition cancer Oxford Dictionary. Fade out.1 a disease caused by an uncontrolled division of abnormal cells in a part of the body. a malignant growth or tumor resulting from such a division of cells. something evil or destructive that is hard to contain or eradicate

Scene : Black screen. Title. A white square in the left top corner becomes bigger and bigger.

BOY: feet. Just feet. A small car. 10 pencils. 1. centimeters. A fucking lightyear.

The square becomes an opening where we can see the outline of somebody staring down at the camera.

Scene : A cemetery in backlight. The boy and some other people stand in front of a grave. But the grave is not a normal hole but more a deep and narrow shaft that goes deep into the earth.

NARRATOR: The boy stands at his fathers funeral and tries to comprehend why the sun still shines, it should be raining and how a stable and rock-solid world can fall apart and (simply) end without a decent warning

The camera pans down and follows the shaft, the cemetery disappears.

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Scene : Title screen is faded in and out: CHAPTER 1: The devil in the details

Scene : The shaft turns into the outline of the gullet, stomach and finally the pancre-as. Some medical details are given with typo and colors.

NARRATOR: It started with a sore throat that wouldnt go away The stomach cramps came after two months of delay They learned a lot of new words like abdominal CT like contrast agent, tumor marker or endoscopy endocrine and exocrine and many many more they learned about the pancreas and what you need it for

Scene : Pancreas is eaten by tiny black monsters (outlines, black shapes) until the whole screen is just black

Scene 7: A doctor, looking a lot like a mad scientist/evil genius mixture is plucking petals from a daisy, singing musical style as in the carmina burana: it is cancer, it is not. Meanwhile there is typo on the screen that shows notes to self of the boy:

NOTES TO SELF 1. kilos are the borderline to invisibility . people with liver diseases turn yellow, even their eyes . sometimes there are things that doctors do not know . pancreatic cancer has a fatality rate of approximately % . if you never give up hope it leaves no room for saying goodbye properly

Scene : The doctor uses a slot machine with three cylinders to determine the treat-ment. It shows -chemo- -chemo- (-lemon-) -chemo-

Scene : The outlines of the screen form the word CHEMO as seen on the cylinder. We see drops of liquid, infusions and the oscillation of a heartbeat that finally stops at zero line. The letters whither and disappear slowly.

NARRATOR: At the end his father could barely stand on his feet weightless, fragile, transparent, unwilling to eat and seeing him slowly wither and fade away broke something inside of the boy as well

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Scene 10: The cemetery again. The boy shakes the hands of robots that pass him by like on assembly line. All robots move in exactly the same way: Shake hand, move aside. Shovel some earth on a grave mound. Throw a rose. Very rhythmic, mechani-cal and apathetic. The camera zooms out so that we can see the whole scenery. The grave mound has a very burtonesque and surreal shape, roses sticking out every-where.

NARRATOR: Paralyzed the boy stands at his fathers funeral and shakes a lot of icy hands just like a wind-up doll and for the first time in his life he truly understands that in the real world there is no guarantee for happy endings

Scene 11: Title screen: CHAPTER : The secret art of repression

Scene 1: An interview sequence in a living room. Boy sitting on a table, no micro-phones or cameras visible. Boy glances at the camera sometimes, but talks mostly to himself. There may be some description masks popping up from time to time, as used in talk shows to introduce the guests, such as Just a whiny twenty-something?

BOY: What really wears me out is normality. I expect him to come through the door any moment. As if nothing happened... The world turns, but Im not turning with it. Im floating an inch above the ground, disconnected, while everything else is moving.

Scene 1: Typo, appearing in the background, the lalala getting bigger and bigger until it fills the screen

DontthinkaboutitdontthinkaboutitdontdontdontdontDONTTHINKABOUTIT!!LALALAAAA.... Think of something nice...

Scene 1: Nice thoughts. Such as pink elephants, or the shape of a girl with nice breasts and butt, just scribbled like matchstick men. They appear around the boy. Then there are black flashes and the thoughts disappearScene 1: Interview again

BOY: I wish I could turn off my head... It is like one of those nightmares where someone invisible is haunting you and you know that if you stop or if you even take the time to turn it will catch you. Thats my head.So dont stop, stay in motion, and do not slow down. Never EVER stop... It helps to get angry sometimes

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Scene 1: Bird view: We see the boy walking through a city. His shadow turns into different shapes and attacks other people, but they dont notice. It kicks things and pees against a wall. Whatever.

NARRATOR: He gets angry at global warming, gaining weight and passing cars at flat beer, comforters, TV talk, bacteria Gets angry at everything and nothing in particular Angry at the frickin kids in Africa who stole his right to feel sorry for himself since of course they are so far worse off than anybody else

Scene 17: Still walking through town, there are flashes where parts of the city appear to be something else, like injections, pills, morphine, coffins

And how the hell can it be that every single instant of the last night is replayed in his head like a silent movie flick while at other times the simplest things dont stick like names or PINs or birthdays or global politics

Scene 1: Bird view: The boy lies in bed, embryo-like. Sleeping. Dreams appear as sim-ple matchstick-people that entirely overact, like in silent movies. Big fake emotions, happiness, laughter.

BOY: The dreams are the worst. Hes there, every night, healthy and full of life as he has always been. I know that something is wrong, but it feels so real. I try to hug him, grab him, to assure myself that hes substantial, that he is really there

Scene 1: Still the boy, unmoving, curled up. The camera zooms out so that we can see that the boy lies in a huge bed. Huge as in kilometers wide to emphasize the fact that he is too weak to get up, to reach the edge of his bed.

NARRATOR: Every single morning with the breaking of dawn no matter how hard he tries to hold on the dream fades away and all that remains is reality in its brutal emptiness and some pillow stains

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Scene 0: different scenes: Eats, drinks, works, fucks, each with a specific sound effect. Fast cuts

NARRATOR: and he eats to distract him from this sensation and he fucks to get a different sensation and he drinks to, well, kill the sensation and he works to distract him from this sensation he works quite a lot and sometimes it works. And sometimes he cries in awkward situations and he cant even tell why it hurts

Scene 1: Boy sits in a cinema, the screen light is reflected on his face.Movie: Commando Puny guy: Hey, you promised to kill me last Schwarzenegger: I lied. The boy starts to cry.

Scene : Eats, drinks, works, fucks scenes, faster and fasterand he eats, and he drinks, and he works, and he fucks, and he eats, and he drinks, and he works, and he fucks, and he eats, and he drinks, and he works, and he fucks, and suddenly a year is gone.

Scene : Title screen: CHAPTER : Paradigm change

Scene : Interview again. At the end the boy rises and leaves the screenBOY: God, I feel so old. Like about 00 years old. At least. I grew up within days and didnt slow down, did my best not to. But now Im tired and exhausted and old. Im out of breath. Deflated. And I need to get out of here

Scene : Abandoned places from the scenes in chapter . Maybe a tumbleweed? Maybe not.

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Scene : A worldmap where the traveling route is displayed in Indiana Jones styleHe cuts all the strings and leaves everything and everyone behind he puts some thousand miles between himself and his life distance physically and distance in mind

Scene 7: Boy sitting on the beach, staring out to sea. Hes lying down, sun on his face. Close up on his face. Zoom out again: There are three other people next to him.

the ocean and sunshine and time to breath and strangely funny people he meets funny in a good sense and somehow they connect they start to share their problems in a way neither of them did expect and he talks about his father in past tense for the first time

Scene : Party sequence. Maybe a campfire and black shapes. Maybe some graphs or diagrams. Maybe a scale with two pans that are in balance.

And they drink and they talk and they party and they smoke and they see dancing squirrels in the clouds theres still nothing better to cheer you up than a couple of beers with friends in a pub

Scene : IN- and OUT-lists: In tabloid-paper style (as in BILD or MediaMarkt commercial)

OUT: 1.Sudden attacks of hypochondrism .Sudden attacks of heavy self-pity .Sudden flashes of anger .Other sudden emotional outbursts (mostly in connection with tears)IN: 1.Meeting people .deep breathing .sleeping save and sound .Going on a road trip .vociferous singing in the car with all windows open

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Scene 0: Road trip. Boy is driving through the great wide open. Different angles and a lot of horizon.

BOY: Driving is like collecting bonus miles for your head. Every mile on the road coun-terbalances a tiny part of the weight. It is still there but feels lighter, like floating in water. It gives you time to regroup. Time to gather strength.

Scene 1: Car stops. Boy gets out. Close up on his face, sun. A smile.And suddenly you stop. You turn and let things catch up on you...

Scene : Boy gets back into the car and drives towards the horizon. As in a horribly tacky Hollywood ending. Fade out. A decent gap for the audience to think that this was the ending of the film.

After two years he establishes a balance in his mind all memories bottled and emotionally resigned leaving just an itchy scar to scratch from time to time and apart from phantom pains hes feeling just sweet nothing which is absolutely fine

Scene : Title screen: CHAPTER : A dea ex machina

Scene : Interview again. Boy sits in a chair. Then he looks down at tiny people, play-ing around his ankles.

BOY: I became arrogant without even noticing. I figured that I had moved on men-tally, had experienced real life. When meeting new people of my age I quite often had trouble to take them seriously, because I felt so much older and wiser. The happier they seemed the more I despised them. I needed this to see at least a little sense in what had happened.On the other hand I envied them for their innocence, their youth and their ability to just enjoy themselves. But still I was content.

Scene : A flash that bathes him in light (as of a nuclear explosion we dont see). At first hes dazzled, but then he closes his eyes and enjoys the feeling.

And then I met her. Lighthearted, full of life, happy, jesting, so warm. And me: tired, old, insecure, distant, cynical, cold. She revived my center of emotions, a device I had thought to be busted and broken, and it immediately tried to make up for its downtime: It flooded me with desire, dry and hot and asexual and desperate and entirely unanswered. And just like that, without even noticing, she gave me back my ability to feel.And it felt fantastic. Like springtime

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Scene : Then shockwave blows him away and down an abyss. Hes falling, spinning. All is white except for him. Meanwhile hes tortured by shadows, stabbed, bitten by monsters, Then he crashes into the ground with a dull, short sound. The ground is like a huge snow plane. Where he crashes there is a outline of his body, but thats the only visible contrast.

Of course she is a carnivore that preys on his insides of course shes smart and beautiful and kills him when she smiles of course his knees start trembling and wont do as he intends of course shes got spirit and of course shes got a boyfriend But even though it feels like crashing straight into a wall Its so much better to feel this than to feel nothing at all

Scene 7: He gets up, cleans the snow from his cloths and we see, that his landing cleansed the snow from that particular spot. Underneath there is a meadow and flowers.

THE END.