"And the oldest trees": a scene for Coyote and the soldier

These are storyboards for the movie Go South for Animal Index. We are making a silent movie to the poetry score we made to Stefene Russell's poem of that name.

This scene happens in Track 19 of the score, "And the oldest trees". Click for the mp3 of the song is if you want to listen to what the viewer will see during this scene.

In this scene a soldier, played by Thom Fletcher, seeks out a tramp in the woods, played by Kyla Webb, to trade the tramp some hamburgers for moonshine.

The soldier is station on Lost Almost (Los Alamos), where the atomic bomb is being invented and built. The tramp is just eking out his simple life in the woods.

Actually, I drew these storyboards (while on vacation in Paris) picturing the tramp in the woods by the India Mounds.We since settled on a location in Cuba, Missouri, that will put the tramp alongside a creek rather than a woodsy path.

This will change the physical dynamics of the change, but the basic idea of unlikely fellowship and shared animal appetites will carry over.

The part of the poem scored in the song we are shooting to here is: "And the oldest trees open their appetite in the light that does not fail". To me, this suggests some primal life principle, some ancient appetite that will survive.

It will survive all of our madness and evil and atomic bombs. This concept of the poem, and its American Indian basis, is why I wanted the tramp character. The tramp is Coyote, the ancient archetype of primal appetite and survival skills. (I also really wanted to work with Kyla!)

My writing on these frames is like direction to the actors, the words won't appear in the movie. We make silent movies to poetry scores we have produced based on long poems. The only language is in the poem as expressed in the score, as sung or spoken text.