Milling raw uranium into fissionable material was, in reality, a massive industrial process that required the construction of a facility the size of an entire town in Tennessee. We are making a silent movie on no budget in the style of a fable, so we are taking matters into our own hands, or into the hands of our zombie uranium millers.
My concept is to take something granular that looks like it were chipped from a mine and then turn that into something that looks like cornbread (yellowcake uranium), which would then be turned into something that looks like plum pulp (because Richard Rhodes writes that the plutonium that went into the first nuclear bombs was about the size and color of a plum).
For this, I figured, we need a nice-sized kitchen that would accommodate four to eight zombie uranium millers. We will basically supply them with foodstuffs that could result in something that looks like cornbread and something that looks like plum pulp, and let them have something of an experimental zombie food fight.
We have now found that kitchen -- and in proprietor Ron Buchuele, we may even have another zombie uranium miller.
We can get a nice long shot from this angle, and only need to move the fan and the clock. Zombies tell no time and need no fan-blown breezes.
A longer shot. The stuff under the table needs to go, too.
We can shoot in from another angle as well. Trashcan comes out.
This angle nicely permits a glimpse into a jail cell (Mad Art is a renovated police station). I say we staff the uranium mill with some solidiers and have them hang out in the cell when they aren't watching the undead do their thing.
Let's take a look around the space. There are windows we'd need to mask from the outside so the changing light doesn't mess with our shoot.
We are stuck with the dry erase board, but can draw some nuclear physics on there, which will help tie the uranium mill to the bomb shop at Lost Almost (Los Alamos).
Logo on the vent needs to be masked with "debased cogs" logo. Our movie is based on a poem by the same name by Stefene Russell; "debased cogs" is her phrase for uranium workers.
Love the green paint, almost as much as the silver freezers.
Love the grimy working stoves.
"Vulcan" is so primal I say we leave the logo.
I talked Ron through my concept for the shoot, and he said for the granular thing the zombies bring in as if from the uranium mine, we should use couscous (rather than corn meal, my idea) because it will be easier to mold into shapes. So we got out some couscous. I like the way it looks. More granular than corn meal.
I see zombies playing with couscous in my mind's eye now. Now where do I get a whole bunch of cheap (or free) couscous?
*
* Zombie. Why zombies?
For the first poetry scores movie, Blind Cat Black, lead editor Aaron AuBuchon suggested we use zombies when I was looking for a visual element to evoke the Surrealist style of Ece Ayhan's poem (and Murat Nemet-Nejat's English translation). I liked the idea. When I put it into practice, I noticed a huge change. It used to be, when I told people I was making a silent movie, they quietly excused themselves. But when I started telling people I was making a silent zombie movie, they bought a round of beers and we talked for five hours. There was no turning back.
Also, the more I thought about the poems we had scored or were scoring, which would be the basis for our silent movies, I could easily imagine a set of zombie characters in every one. Let's face it. In every story ever told, there is a character or a set of characters that is the living dead, understood in one way or another. Though I have come to make a distinction -- we don't make silent zombie movies, we make silent movies with zombies. Zombies are just one of many elements we use, like poetry, music, the narrative structure and technique of the fable, and St. Louis.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment