- THE MOVIE-DEMO SCRIPT -

Everything is planned and thought-through, the engines are ready any second, the crew is about to get fully gathered and the story is of satisfactory. To make it easier to work with, I have rewritten/redesigned this script complete with the entire detailed story and everything else that might be of interest.
Before we start working actively we need a couple of more to people to join our crew. I have certain people in mind and will discuss it trough with them very soon. When we're fully satisfied with the crew, everyone will have to choose what section/sections they want to work with. If you want a certain scene, please tell me so. This is very important that we decide so we can start working soon, but we have to discuss it through carefully and not rush it at all.   
An issue left to decide on is our "behavior engine". After the party weekend, the Easter weekend that is, we will have more detailed information about it and can decide then. No complications there though...  
Comments, ideas or complaints are always welcome. At the time being we still have the opportunity to change or alter where it is needed.

Current crew
Morph - directing
Hellfire - code
Digimind - code
720 - 3d modeling
Bluecow - 3d modeling
Tudor - 3d modeling
Krafton - 3d modeling
Ryo-Ohki - music
Lluvia - music
Radix - music
Falcon - music
Traven (?) - music
Lazur (?) - 2d graphics

There are more people involved that I haven't completely decided about yet, especially musicians. I'm currently searching for, or discussing with, top-notch musicians, more modelers and a pixeller. We will have a full crew very soon. If you have suggestions on who I should contact, tell me! Except being extremely good they, most importantly, must like our story and aim and be nice persons. Yeah, pretty unnecessary and lame of me to say that, but it is important...  

History
In the middle of summer -99, me and Digimind decided to make something very different. We were bored of all the monotone demos without point and wanted to see demos with a nice story, preferably together with a great atmosphere, feelings and depth. As I writer (and movie-director wannabe) I was the one to come up with something, and after a long thinking-process I did. I let an old idea evolve a great deal and then wrote it down - "Project emotional" was found. It was kept entirely secret, and luckily it still remains totally unknown. 
The next step was to find more interested people to work with. The great guys 720, Bluecow and Tudor (which I later lost contact with but know have found again) joined the team as 3d-modelers, together with a couple of musicians I didn't send a script too. Their work was far away anyway, I thought. 
The 3d-engine was up to Digimind at first. But after realizing that we badly wanted this as good as possible we figured we had to get another experienced coder. Digimind wasn't a skilled 3d-coder and was to create one from scratch, which felt wrong. I vaguely asked my friend Hellfire if "he had time to work on something big", but he said he was too busy at the moment. I then contacted Odin as I thought his experience with Gods' demos would be great to have with us. I later sent him the script, he loved it and joined. Unfortunately his engine didn't fit us as well as we first thought and we were without another coder again. 
I decided to ask Hellfire again. A great guy and a great coder in one package was stupid not to try again with. I sent him the script and he joined our project. 
After that we took a lot of time to think it all trough. Lots of mails and discussions through IRC lead us to were we are today. While planning everything Digimind have been experimenting and trying to create a "behavior engine". It would make it easier for the modelers, easier to alter and make the demo smaller. As stated above, we yet haven't decided if we're gonna use it or not. 

Our aim
This demo, or movie if you'd like, is something different. We want to touch people emotionally by the same time they enjoy what they see, hear and experience. We want to make something original not seen on the demoscene as often as it should. We will think like movie-directors and not like makers of demo-showoff's. And, of course, we want to have fun while making something we can be proud of and enjoy ourselves. I prefer to see one deeply affected person at the party we release it at to ten thousand votes. Hopefully we can deliver both a very cool, mind-blowing experience as well as something moving and magical.

Introduction and guidelines
All stories like this would be easier to succeed making if they were novels or movies, but if we do our best, we should succeed. I've written the script while imagining a demo, a masterpiece of a demo, hope you'll see that yourself or I haven't done my work very good.
The music will be added as the last thing of them all, that'll give us the best result for perfection. As with a movie, we will let the musicians have a lot of freedom. They will be provided with a scene, given some directions and the time needed to make it perfect. Music is of highest importance. The demo will be sent trough the crew, back and forth, for best ending result. 
The pixelled images will be added as soon as our 2d graphician know how the 3d-guys have made them. They, of course, must resemble each other a lot. 
The 3d-scenes described are not exactly what they should look like, the modelers will be given a lot of freedom. Because of that, they're not described into minor details. Follow the basics carefully but please continue building on them on your own. 
While reading, try to imagine the demo in front of you. The graphics, the music, the characters, the views and places, the feeling and atmosphere - everything. The magic lies within the entirety.


Scene #1
Crew - Hellfire, a musician, a graphician if needed. 

To get it over with, I think the smartest way to start our masterpiece is to show the credits and all that follows it. This part is not of great importance and will be done as the last part of them all. How to make it is up to Hellfire, he's a master of demo-coolness and will cook up something (right?).  
The introduction will end with a certain pixel that I have in mind, and will be perfect as a start of our story. Our character watching a picture of a girl in his wallet, looking uncomfortable with the situation. Over his head floats a "thinking bubble" with the text;

"Should I risk everything? Maybe I should tell her how I feel, how much I really love her?". 

The wallet will include a small - but visible - ID brick so that our viewers later can see that he was working for NASA earlier than they saw it the first time (as we will tell them that later when he flies away in the spaceship, you'll notice). That will give our viewers a good point of watching the demo again and enjoying the story the second time as well, not just cause of the cool effects that will happen later on and the wonderful music and atmosphere. 
 
Scene #2
Crew - tell me! 

Music starts the whole thing (but will be added afterwards as you know), an atmospheric beginning while the first image (3d) starts fading in, not too slow, but smooth. The music should be very soft and extremely synchronized with the atmosphere we want to share with our viewers. Our talented crew of musicians will have to "catch the feeling", which I hope won't be too difficult. The first 3d image will now show our main character in front of his computer, looking sad and quite miserable, leaning his hand towards his monitor. The viewers should also understand that he is looking at something on the monitor. When six seconds (or the more suitable time) of watching the image has passed (after it was done fading that is), some text fades in. We'll start by talking a bit about love, how it sure sucks sometimes, to give the viewer a feeling of compassion for our character. Each sentence shows itself for a readable time, then fades out and a new sentence replaces it. At every second sentence a nice matching and atmospheric instrument is heard, and another lovely instrument every fourth, yet another every eighth. The rhythm can of course be changed, I presume the musicians can handle it better than I can. So please don't take my words as anything but advise here... The sentences should just take one "turn" each.  

"Love... what's worse than being in love, alone, hiding it", "totally unable to tell her how you feel without risking your entire life?"
"You are so deeply in love with the girl that you don't know what to do", "what to feel, how to act, how to think and how to live".
"Your mind starts running away to other worlds, worlds without her, to hide from your inner pain", "or worlds with nothing but her, worlds where you can express your feelings without restrictions".  

The image now gets "alive". Our main character moves his hand down while grinning because of the situation. It's really important for us to make our viewers feel the way our character feels in this section, but with good music and beautiful animation that hopefully won't be a problem.
However, while the character is moving humanlike, the camera should start moving slow but smoothly in the room towards the monitor, and onto the screen that is showing his love, then the image "dies". Another important thing is that this girl is very beautiful/cute, so that the viewers understand why he really loves her. Without the viewer's empathy and compassion towards our main character this movie/demo will just be a showoff, not something splendid that steals a place inside every viewer's heart. Not something special, which is our goal. After about four seconds (or in another rhythm), text starts to fade in like in the previous image.     

"You want to share everything with her, laugh with her, cry with her", "just tell her how much you love her the rest of your days".
"She's the girl of your dreams, the perfect one", "the one of a kind, that you must have, or you have no meaning of your life".
"You're stuck in a dead end, your feelings is locked inside your heart",  "all that you're able to do is to fantasize and dream about her, to dream that she was yours". 

Now everything fades out nicely, and the second part of part one begins. The music starts by changing a bit, and the story continues. A new image is shown, describing our guy lying in bed thinking while once again looking sad and miserable. Text fades in as usual after, as before, about four seconds showing of the in-faded image.     

"After a while, your feelings can no longer be controlled", "you have to make her love you, no matter what the outcome may be".
"Life isn't fun anymore, life has no meaning without her", "you decide that you have to make things change drastically, and to do it now!"
"But how can you make her love you?", "how can you make her want to be together with you the rest of her life?"

As earlier the image now gets alive. He rise from his bed while looking happier and happier, and walks quite slowly towards the door. When being in front of the door and has just grabbed the handle, he turns his head around and smiles towards the camera (not too obvious/exaggerated) as like a very good idea just struck him. Then he opens the door and walks out. The image dies as before, and in rhythm new text fades in. 

"You realize what to do to make everything perfect", "how to make her to be with you from now on until forever".

We have to be careful not to get monotone at some part, so at this point it probably would be smart to change the rhythm of everything for a short period of time. 
Because of the change the image should disappear in a different way, blur away or whatever effect that fits while synchronized music is heard.

Scene #3
Crew - tell me! 

With the same effect as section two closed, this section begins reversed (or at least with a similar one if it looks nice and matching). We will now show another pixel, describing our precious girl looking at a picture of our guy, but from another angle so it doesn't look too much like the old image. She has the same kind of "thinking bubble" over her head as the last image did, showing "should I share my inner feelings with him? Should I risk everything by telling him how much I love him? No, he is a too good friend to lose". In rhythm the same effect closes the picture and once again we enter our old rhythm. 

Scene #4
Crew - tell me! 

Probably the most difficult (together with the next part) and most time-consuming part for our modelers. This part must be made by a modeler (and musician) that feels he can succeed making it as we want it.
The music changes again and another 3d image fades in as earlier. The image will show our character standing outside the NASA building. He will then start walking towards a spaceship (looking very futuristic and have a big kind of weapon that looks really awesome), open the door, walk inside, start the engine and finally fly away. This time we have no text at the beginning as you've probably noticed, the image gets living directly and then ends by fading in the regular manner but while the spaceship is flying away.   
Now the cool part begin. The viewers are now used to our quite short periods of full-animated 3d and a bit depressive feeling, so it's time to change that, to give the story variety, impress our audience and get their attention in another way. As the next scene will be very long, I think we need some loading time at the moment. Another pixel is shown describing our guy entering our girl's room at night, so that everyone understands that he is taking her with him. It will describe the guy in the girl's room, just have opened the window to it while she is asleep, and thinking "you are going with me my love" or similar. He should also have something in his hands that make her unconscious, some drug or medicine. After the loading is finished, the image fades out by the same cool effect/blur is we used before.          

Scene #5
Crew - tell me! 

Time to impress our crowd and get to the main part of our story! At first, we use our normal rhythm though. The image should show the front of the spaceship, and then just space, planets, stars, the sun and everything that attracts. But before we fly away for some wonderful sightseeing, some text is shown in the usual manner. 

"Working for NASA definitely had its advantages", "you knew that they'd just finished the preparations for a colonization on another planet".
"You feel wonderful, your plan is totally superb", "starting a new civilization on different planet with your one true and eternal love is the perfect answer". 
"But why leave earth as it is, what's the point of its existence?", "the only good thing in it now belongs to you". 

As usual the image now starts living, but now cooler than ever. Fly nicely around in space for a while, take a closer look at some well-known planets, fly around the moon and some stars, and then finally blow Tellus to pieces! This will have to be awesome, extremely cool to say the least. First we see a shot coming out from the weapon on the spaceship, looking really dangerous and powerful, moving towards earth. The when it hits, we see close ups on earth while exploding like never seen before. Kind of like in Deep Impact or Armageddon, or perhaps a bit like in the demo Relic by Nerve Axis. Work hard on it, because it is probably our most important effect, and the one that hopefully make everyone enjoy our demo, including people who doesn't like neither love-stories nor science fiction.
When the mindblowing effects are over, the spaceship flies away and lands on a planet looking like Mars. It should contain futuristic houses and look very cool. They land on a platform and our guy walks out with his girl in his arms and into a big and impressive building. The image dies.   

Scene #6
Crew - tell me! 

The last section of our story, and the last time we use our usual routine of rhythm. Now when our characters for the first time will speak to each other, in full-animated 3d , we'll change the style of the text.
The dead image should describe our girl lying in a bed. The room will have to look very futuristic and match the earlier buildings. The guy sits in a chair beside the bed, having his hand in her hair, caressing it while looking anxious. When the image "awaken", the woman slowly open her eyes and our guy starts speaking. Make them as human, living humans, as you can. The things I describe are just the most important ones, the rest is up to you - the modeler.  

Man: "You okey?"
He watch her affectionate and calmly removes his hand from her hair. She look around a bit, then puzzled she asks;
Woman: "Yeah... what happened? What's this place?"
The man changes position in his chair, looks down on the floor and answers.
Man: "Well... it will sound kinda strange, but, I had to take you here. Suddenly meteors hit the earth and killed a lot of people, so I stole a spaceship at work, ran to your house where I found you unconscious and brought you here..."
Our guy take his eyes off the floor and upon his love. She looks shocked and frightened at first, turns into anxious and sad, asking;
Woman: "What about our friends? Our families? Michael? Liz? Jon? ... dead?"
The girlie looks very sad and a tear is visible in her left eye. The guy looks down again, saying;
Man: "Yeah... probably..."
He looks as said as her and tries to cheer up the girl by hugging her tenderly. She wipes off a tear and continue speaking;
Woman: "... thanks for saving me though, I'll always love you for that." 
The guy looks a bit happier, both of them smiles at each other in their sadness. After some second the girl changes position in bed, looking a bit nervous and about to tell something.
Woman: "You know how important you are in my life..."
The guy nods calmly, interested.
Woman: "you're always there for me, you always care, you've always been my best friend..."
He nods again, in a different even more calm way.
Woman: "That's why I'm very afraid to tell you this..."
Some silence...
Man: "... what?"
Woman: "Well... I've been in love with you for a long time... I've been close to telling you a lot of times but been to afraid of the consequences. I didn't want to lose you as a friend, you're to wonderful for that... But I guess I have to now, I'm sorry..."   
She look away, blushing. The guy looks surprised, but happy. He puts his hand on her shoulder, moving it to the cheek. 
Man: "I must confess something too... I've been so badly in love with you that I've forgot what life is about. You are my life. Day after day I've struggled, never brave enough to tell you my true feelings. I sincerely love you..."
They hug each other, kisses, caresses - everything. Our demo will show love. When they've calmed a bit they guy makes the impression that he is about to say something.
Man: "You can't imagine how difficult it was, I thought about you all the time, couldn't enjoy anything at all without you."
She looks happy but yet still full of empathy towards her loved one.        
Man: "I must confess another thing..."
Woman: "...go on..." 
Man: "Confused as I was I did all this... I took you here..."
The lady looks very puzzled. The gentleman looks sad, full of remorse.  
Man: "I set the whole thing up... ... there... was no meteors... I... I killed all our friends..." 
She looks totally surprised, angry. 
Woman: "Why... how... could..."
He take his eyes upon her, looking as she will forgive him with his following sentence.
Man: "I didn't know what to do... I loved you too much!"
She rises from the bed, looking furious, starting to push/punch him. 
Woman: "You killed all my friends, my family! You destroyed mankind because of your cowardliness! I haaate you!!"
When "haaate" is being said she pushes him so hard he falls. His head hits a table and he falls to the ground, looking dead.

The first zoom the dead guy in a suitable way. The image then slowly dies as in the old rhythm. It then fades away with synchronized music, ending our story. The conversation above is not completely settled. I might change it a bit to make it better, I guess I still have some time left to do that.  

Scene #7
Crew - everyone!

The design changes and should now look quite demo-like as in the introduction. Not too fast and disturbing (as it will contain text) though. Here we tell everyone about the project, how long it took to make, who made it, on what party it attended, greet groups we know and all that stuff that follows it (suggestions later). Cool effects and cool, very powerful music (I will discuss this tune very detailed with one of the musicians) for some time while the texts is scrolling down, then the demo ends perfect, and we are finished and hopefully happier then ever before :)...  

--

[written 2000]
http://www.elenziah.com/morph
nme@elenziah.com