Project Components

Here it is. So proud of this.

Short film + Postcard

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1gGyBGwhjL28HXEO5hasGOWxY0uqi_tYl?usp=sharing 

Short film YouTube link in case:
https://youtu.be/1trwFIBIvG0?si=eZlyR3HziA_-4g_5

Social Media

https://www.instagram.com/thedivinesynthetic?igsh=MTgxeGNsaTlwNjk0MA== 

Critical Reflection

    The idea of The Divine Synthetic itself was actually born from a lot of the media theory that we learned in class, particularly Jean Baudrillard and his concept of hyperreality and simulacra. Although Baudrillard never explored artificial intelligence in his writings, it could be argued that AI is a perfect representation of these ideas. The purpose of artificial intelligence is to simulate human behavior and intelligence, going so far as to eventually become a representation, rather than a reality of human behavior. To go further into this idea, I decided to look into cases of what I like to call "enlightened robots" in media. I focused on the character AM from the short story I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream and Harlan Ellison's meditation on the existence of an artificially created being. Particularly with the idea that artificial intelligence is an almost Frankenstein-esque invention doomed by its creator. While writing the script, I also knew I wanted to use voice-over recordings to move the piece forward, so I studied Daniel Keyes' epistolary writing style in his short story/novel, Flowers for Algernon. This story was actually a great inspiration for the script since it followed a similar theme of a character who experiences a scientifically induced personality/intelligence development over a set period of time. However, at this point during pre-production, I realized that I had been focusing too much on literary pieces and needed to start tying in that visual aspect. For that, I looked at the way the Love, Death + Robots episode "Zima Blue" blends its audio and visual features. This episode also gave me a gave a good idea of how to pace our short film, especially with the use of voiceover, without boring the audience. 

Graph from Statistica

    In fact, audience engagement is something that was definitely a priority at all points of production. At first, I was a bit reluctant with the subject matter because I felt apprehensive of it not being particularly relevant. However, as I thought about it further, I realized that, with the rise of ChatGPT and other generative AI, artificial intelligence is not only on the forefront of people's minds, but also a great source of worry for many. I think in a way, I wrote this script, and we made this film to represent that fear that a lot of people are feeling. At its most basic form, the thesis of this film is that artificial intelligence cannot replicate the human experience. We targeted this film to young adults (16-24) since we felt it was the generation that could relate most to the artificial intelligence situation, and the young adult demographic are the biggest consumers of science fiction media. To engage this audience, we chose to market the film on Instagram. Aside from YouTube, Instagram is the most used social media platform amongst teenagers and young adults. In fact, it was reported 75% of Generation Z are Instagram users. We also figured that Instagram was the best social media platform for cohesive branding since it allows photo posts, reels, and stories for interaction.   

  

In terms of actual film branding, Megan took charge on that, particularly on social media and general creative direction. We wanted to capture that science fiction aesthetic through social media, so we went with a very robotic color scheme of black, gray, and dark blue. While we wanted that stereotypical science fiction look to an extent, we also didn’t want it to look too cartoonish, we wanted a more, at the risk of sounding pretentious, sophisticated look. To be completely honest, I think we had a little trouble balancing that in the beginning of the process. I feel like, looking through our posts, I can tell that we weren’t completely sure on the fonts and color scheme that we wanted, but it definitely improved as the posts went on. With the postcard, we were struggling on finding a still from the short film to capture its essence enough to put it essentially as the face of the piece, so we decided it would be best to use a drawing instead. Megan ended designing an incredible logo that we used on both the postcard and all through social media. Additionally, we kept the same font on the postcard as the font used for the title and credits in the actual film and any social media teasers to keep that cohesive brand. The back I designed on Canva, it's a still modified enough to make our main character look very robotic. Like with the social media, the color scheme of the piece was that very robotic, almost cold, moody look. There was one scene in particular that we shot, but during editing, I realized that the color, outfits, and part of the room that we shot in just didn’t fit the rest of the look. I ended up replacing that scene. While there were some things we could have caught branding wise earlier with more planning, I’m pretty satisfied with how we branded and marketed this film and feel confident that it represents our vision. 

    We sought to represent humanity in this piece. Which is a very, very general statement. With the memory montage and The Engineer character, we wanted a physical representation of humankind in a piece that centers something very non-human. I think our representation of humanity might be a *bit* too optimistic as there's a whole lot of bad aspects that humans have, but I feel like, with the subject matter we are tackling, it was kind of a necessary reminder of a lot of the beauty of humanity. I think we live in a time where we need to be reminded that more often. Also, we wanted to stray away from those common robot stories where the robots go evil and decide to take over the world. I was hoping to add more nuance to artificial intelligence and to also acknowledge that humans themselves are the root cause for its existence. We also wanted to stray away from a romance, which was the original idea, to tackle the belief that AI can "feel things" or experience emotions.

    There were so many setbacks and problems that happened in the production of this piece, which makes me all the prouder of the final result. I made so many mistakes and learned so much from this experience, particularly with it being my first time directing a full short film (and obviously would not have been possible without my amazing co-director Megan). I hope you all enjoy it.

Goodbye

Welll. I just clicked export on my project. I guess this is it. It feels so bittersweet because on one hand, I'm so happy and relieved to be done with this project, but on the other, I'm gonna miss this experience so much. I'm so proud of the final result which came out of many sleepless nights, hours of stressing. and so many setbacks. I'm also so grateful to have gotten to work with Megan on this and for her to putting up with my insane ideas (I'm so sorry). This is my first short film, which is so something I've been wanting to say since I could remember, and I really hope I'll be making more in the future (hey maybe I'll even start a blog to document that). I'll miss posting my breakdowns into the endless void of the internet. I can't believe it's over. Can't wait for you to watch.

I'll miss this

God I Can't Wait to Sleep

So, I think this is my last post before my final two posts which is????? I can't believe how fast these last two months have gone. This whole experience has been so fun and fulfilling etc etc but to be completely honest, I can't wait to have a nice full night's rest once this is over. Between writing the script, blogging, social media, and filming I feel so exhausted. Case in point, we had our final filming session today. I got to Megan's house at 8:30 ish slightly sleep deprived and carrying about 100 lbs of equipment. While we waited for Mariano to arrive, we figured out the audio which was really stressful because the mic needed a microSD card but when I put mine in, it said it was the wrong format so I reformatted it and it still said it was the wrong format, so we just ended up using a wireless lav which luckily for us was fine since we only needed one scene with audio. Apparently, Mariano overslept so we basically had to drive to his house to drag him out of bed because we literally cannot film any other day. Then we drove to Dunkin to eat which was great cause I had only had a yogurt before and was already hungry.

We started filming probably somewhere around 11/12. Honestly, I was surprised at how smooth everything went. Like we finished a couple hours before I was expecting to which made me soooo happy. After we figured out the little audio problem, we didn't have any other equipment problems. Only thing was that we had to film on a different camera than last session so instead of the 33mm lens, we had a 50 and a zoom, so it was a little annoying having to switch between the two since the 50 wasn't as wide, but it wasn't that big a deal. We had to reshoot the opening because we didn't finish it last time, and we had to shoot the routine montage which was honestly kinda fun because we got to watch movie trailers for the scene. And then we had to get the final shot of the film which was honestly a little stressful because I really wanted to get an impacting final shot. But yeah, everything went really well!! When I got home, I immediately crashed and didn't wake up until recently. Now to edit until I forget what the sun looks like.

Photo Dump

Tripod dog!

Finalizing Social Media

Feels so insane to say but April 9th is so much closer than I thought. Like oh my god it's next Wednesday already. That's just insane. Luckily, I feel like we're pretty on schedule with everything, the only thing I'm worried about is getting the best possible edit done with just a couple days to work on it. But on the plus side, we've been good on updating our social media so far, so that's one less worry as our due date approaches. These last couple days especially we've been trying to get more posts on there and follower interaction. 

On Tuesday, we posted the finished logo inspired by da Vinci's Vitruvian Man drawing to represent that intersection between man and machine. Megan did such a good job on it and it looks so cool. 

On Thursday, we posted another behind the scene look of Megan and Mariano practicing lines together before shooting the final scene (fun fact: we shot that scene about a million time, and the angle we were shooting it at couldn't fit a tripod so I had to go handheld and basically had to hold my breath for the entirety of the scene, almost two minutes, so the camera wouldn't shake). You can see how much of a mess the room was in this picture lmaoo.

Yesterday was also SAT testing day for juniors and since I'm a senior, I got to miss class. And instead of going to the beach with all the other senior, I stayed home and edited...yay! I went a little more into that process in my last post, but during that long editing period, I did work on a little social media teaser. It was honestly a pain to make because color grading took way long than I was expecting, it was hard to find a riser/flutter that I liked, and Adobe After Effects is my greatest enemy. Seriously you have no clue how long it took me to figure out how to make those basic title graphics.

Finally, today we posted like that Instagram grid thing with multiple posts to spell out the title. She looks a little chopped but its fine. Sunday is our last day of filming so we'll probably do another bts post then or on Monday then we'll maybe do an out tomorrow post on Tuesday and then the official release post on Wednesday.

 Color Grading Ain't For Me

Actually, let me rephrase that: editing ain't for me. 

Today was SAT day at school so instead of like idk going out with my friends since I'm a senior, I decided to stay home and edit. Honestly, I'm complaining now, but I won't be next Wednesday, so I think it's a fair trade. I can hang out with my friends once this project is over. Either way, I tried to get as much editing done as possible today which honestly wasn't a whole lot because I'm a slow editor but it's fine. I worked on leveling the audio and making a more dynamic edit than the original line edit with inserts and voiceover. I feel like the first minute ish is better and a little more interesting. I tried to work on sound design but it was so unpleasant. I think I used about a hundred different risers and none of them matched what I wanted. So frustrating. And don't get me started on music. Everything involved in the post production process is just so stressful and frustrating. But anyway, this blog post is supposed to be primarily about color grading since it was what I worked on the most. 

Enjoy this stupid minion meme that I found on the beautiful thing known as the internet

When we first started pre-production, we had intended to have this very hospital, cold look to the piece. But when we started shooting, we realized that it made the actors look very washed out and the color just looked ugly. I realized it was better to go with a darker, black, white, and gray color scheme. Once I started editing the footage, I realized it looked a little to bright (?) and I wanted a bit of a more moody look. 

For example, the still below is from the final scene of the film. This scene is definitely more depressing, and I felt like the color just doesn't capture that look. I decided to bring the exposure down a little bit while raising the contrast and whites. The highlights in the whites were a little too strong so I brought the highlights down a little. Then I played a little with the temperature and tint to get that color that I wanted. And I think it came out pretty cool. Final result:

It's quite subtle and not very stylistic, but I think it captures the tone of the scene so much better. 

Then I moved to color grading the opening which was a PAIN in the you know what. We shot the scene with this red light that looked good in practice but the second I opened up premiere, I realized it looked absolutely horrendous. 

UGLYYYYY

I realized pretty early on that fixing it wouldn't be possible. So, I decided to embrace that red and just work my best to white balance it as much as possible just to make that red a little more subtle and a little less of an eyesore. I started off with the automatic white balance tool on premiere which is usually pretty reliable. Only problem was that there was nothing actually white in the shot so I had to go with the metallic thing on the clipboard. Luckily, it did actually fix the color a lot. I brought down that exposure a little for that moody look and brought up the contrast for stronger shadows. I also brought up the greens a little to contrast the reds, which I don't fully love the greens but I think it balances out those reds a lot. Either way, I think it looks SO much better now and I can look at it without wanting to vomit on my computer. Final result: 

Little fun story time. When I was at STN, I had a free day and decided to attend a workshop. But on the way there, I got distracted talking to some college representatives of a school that I got accepted into and was considering. When we finished talking, I realized that the workshop was supposed to start in two minutes so I ran over to the room and it was completely full like not a single seat empty. Since I had nothing better to do, I ended up walking into a random other workshop without knowing what it was. I accidentally had walked into Color Correction on Final Cut Pro. Mind you, I've never opened Final Cut Pro in my life. But I decided to stay. Mostly cause I felt bad leaving mid workshop. And to be completely honest, it taught me a lot. I feel like my color grading skills still aren't incredible, but they're so much better than last year. Yeah, I'm pretty proud of these final results.

 Fonts

Kinda don't have anything to update on right now so I decided to do a little font research for funsies. 

When I was starting off, I imagined the font being very mechanical and robotic because of the subject matter kinda like this.

Archetype Van

Mokoto Glitch

I really like these fonts but now that we've shot a good 75% of the film, I feel like neither one really captures the aesthetic or concept. Also they feel a little more like cyberpunk than I was imagining. I decided to look for something a little more serious and ended up finding a font that I really loved called cinzel.

It's much more serious and looks like it would be used on a poster of that makes any sense. Of course, it's subject to change, but I would like to use this font either for promotional material on instagram, the post card, or the actual title drop in the film. Later next week, I'll work on making a graphic to post on insta with this font once I get a laptop. 

First Edit

Luckily, yesterday Megan was able to quickly edit all the footage that we have together to make a really rough first draft of the scenes we have so far. It's funny cause I remember a couple years ago seeing an interview with a director, I think it was Martin Scorsese, say that your first draft should make you want to vomit, and I think I finally get what he meant. It's kinda like when you have to act in something and then you have to edit it and it's like genuinely painful because just having to see yourself act makes you cringe sooo much. I'm not saying that its bad or anything, like I think so far for the first draft its pretty decent, but like to have to watch it, especially as the writer, was pretty hard. Like idk maybe I'm just super self-conscious. Anyway, I kinda jotted down some things that need improvement in editing while watching:

• - It feels a little boring. Going into it, I was aware that it would be quiet, but I feel like overall it feels a little boring. I think color grading will help a lot to make it visually more interesting, and sound will be super important. Also, we're still missing some voiceovers that'll help it feel more dynamic. 
• - Pacing. Generally, pacing feels okay. My biggest fear is that we're already at over four minutes and we still have a couple of scenes that we need to build that tension so I'm not really sure how we're gonna fit that 5 minute time without ruining the pacing.
• - Continuity. This was one of my biggest fears going into editing because I was very aware of this while creating the shot list and during shooting. Luckily, I do think that generally the continuity is good. There's one scene that looks a little bit awkward, but we also filmed it at different angle that hasn't been put in the edit yet so I'm hoping that that angle will make the shot look less awkward.

These are the three main things that I noticed while watching the line edit. Honestly, I'm kinda excited to work with the audio and color in the next two weeks to enhance everything. There's also some scenes that we're missing that are really crucial to practically all of these problems so I think we'll be fine. 

This World is Cruel and Unforgiving

My laptop is officially broken. No fix. It's so over. I've literally just sat around in bed twiddling my thumbs doing absolutely NOTHING these last two days cause I can't edit or anything. Luckily Megan has been able to work on a line edit and some social media posts but I'm lowkey pissed cause I feel like I'm dead weight. But anyway! We were able to get some social media posts done, so I feel like we're pretty on track for social media. 

So far, these past days, we've posted a quick meet the actors post, a first look with like 5 stills from filming, and a bloopers reel (we had to take a LOT of takes for certain scenes). We also posted the bloopers reel on stories to get a more interactive post.

Going forward, I think it would be good to do a countdown. Like maybe starting April 4th, we can post a still saying 5 more days, etc. Additionally, once I get a new laptop, I'll sort through the footage to see if I can find a good scene for a poster and possibly the print aspect. Additionally, I was thinking of maybe making a teaser closer to the deadline once the film is fully done (we're getting there). That's the plan social media-wise in the next week or so.

I forgot how to do an update

#tbh it's been a hot minute since I've done a production update on here and I don't remember what I'm supposed to say so I guess I'll just summarize. 

Picture this. It's 6:10 am on a Friday. Not just any Friday. But the first day of spring break. And your alarm goes off. Just a grating, ugly sound going off right next to your ear. So you drag yourself out of bed to get ready for a full day of filming. Now, for what it's worth, I usually really enjoy filming. It's so fun most of the time. But once it's gone over 7 hours, then it kinda starts to suck. But anyway back to the story. Megan picks me up at 6:45ish, I had already dropped off the equipment the day before so I was only bringing my mirror for one of the shots and some books (again for a shot). We pick up Mariano and then go to Publix to buy a plant and some breakfast (we just ended up buying a box of croissants). We get to Megan's house at 7 and immediately start working. Megan works on getting the neck contraption on Mariano while I set up the lighting and camera. Apparently the molding makeup thing is not strong enough to put a part of a Playstation on someone's neck, so we had to try other not very pretty methods but eventually we were able to figure it out. 

We shot for a couple hours, I filmed everything, Megan was boom operator. Megan's friend who played the engineer got there at like 10. We had a short lunch break. The room that we were filming in was soooo hot cause there was 3 lights, 4 people, and we had to close all the doors oh my god it was horrible.

 

We were done filming at around 6:30ish I think, full 12 hours. We shot a good 80% of what we need, we're just missing likr two scenes which we're planning to film on Monday since Megan is in Vegas right now. But yeah I think it went really well! I'm usually really scared when I have to shoot stuff cause cameras scare and confuse me, but I got the hang of this one pretty quick. There were a couple problems that happened during production but to be honest it went as smooth as production can go so that's great. 

Photo Dump

 Propspropsprops 

As I said in my previous blog posts (or maybe I didn't I dont remember), it's very hard to find colored contact lenses. Either we would find one, but it would be on a sketchy website and the possibility of the lens damaging our actors vision was very high, or we would find a safe one that would only sell a year supply of really expensive contacts. That sucked so we decided just to throw out the idea of contacts and instead make a neck robotic contraption thing. This was obviously really daunting because 1) it'll obviously be hard to make a pull off not looking stupid, and 2) how would we attach it to his neck. 

Inspo 😍😍

I started the process (my dad helped me too) with looking for just a bunch of wires. Apparently we have a bunch of old wires that don't work anymore laying around in my house. Which is good! Next we took apart our old Playstation. Yeah....it's okay though it didn't work anymore. Eventually we found this piece that looked really cool (I think it's part of the frame). We hot glued together the wires to the Playstation piece. We also guess the contraption to some foam merely to make it easier to attach to skin and blend together with makeup. Anyway I really liked how it turned out.

Final result!

I also ordered the voice recordering device online but I accidentally forgot to take a picture of it. I was actually catfished by Amazon because it looked a lot bigger in pictures than when I got it. Maybe I should have checked the size before ordering but to be honest I think it still works. And the actually recordings come out well na the audio quality is good.

Equipment

I went to Becon today to check out equipment since we're filming tomorrow. Unfortunately, Jim didn't have the camera I wanted (Sony a7iii), but he did have a Sony ZV-10 which I ended up checking out. I wasn't sure about the camera but now that I've got a chance to use it I feel better. It's also similar to the cameras I've worked with before so that makes me feel so much more comfortable. It comes with a 30 mm prime lens and a wider zoom lens which is great since the room is a bit small. 

Apart from the camera, I also checked out a boom mic/pole, RGB light kit, a dolly, tripod, headset, and uhhh I think that was it. Meaning that we're ready to film. Ah I'm nervous. 

The Last Supper

We're planning to start filming next week and I am nervous to say the least. Today, me and Megan got together to finalize any last things that we need. We went to Panera (my favorite place in the world btw), and we spent about two hours there planning things out. 

The first thing we did was finish the shot list, this isn't the first time we've worked together, and I feel like that time we learned the importance of actually planning our shots beforehand. So, we almost finalized the shot list aside from some scenes that we are missing in the script. It's pretty simple, I'm hoping that between now and when we film we come up with some more creative shots just so its not too visually boring. Also, I'll make a post on equipment later, but that's still a work in progress. After we finished the shot list, we brainstormed what other scene to put in between as rising action. To be honest, we really didn't come up with anything, but I usually get my ideas at 2 AM, so hopefully it'll come to me later, and that leaves tomorrow in class to finalize the shot list. 

After that, we texted our actor to see what clothes he owns. I wasn't a big fan of the result at first, but he has these black pants and black shirt that could be the introduction outfit. Then as time goes on, he starts to choose his own outfits. It adds a wide variety of outfits without having to buy new clothes, and also adds a bit of personality to him. Still not really sure what I want to do with his hair.

The last thing we did was plan out our next social media post. This one is just a quick meet the director's post where we introduce ourselves. The next one we were hoping to do was like a cool title post on After Effects, but then tragedy struck.

Yeah, that's right. Just when I thought things couldn't get worse, they did. I got home, content from spending an afternoon on the best place on earth (have I mentioned how much I like Panera?), and I go to open my laptop. It doesn't turn on. Okay fine, maybe it's just out of battery. I charge it for an hour. It still doesn't turn on. I'm about one more inconvenience away from having a full on crashout. I really need my laptop to edit, not just for this project but in general for my other classes. 

:( 

But. I feel like overall, today was productive, we got a lot done and I feel slightly better for next week, but there's still a TON to do before we are ready to film. 

WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY

From day one, my biggest worry was getting actors. Casting is what holds back production the most since you literally can't shoot something without actors unfortunately. This is exactly why we locked in and started contacting the drama club on the second day. We created a group chat with everyone who said were interested in auditioning. And everything was going well. On February 27, we sent out a text asking if everyone was fine with a Wednesday, March 5th audition date. 

Only four people responded. We decided to move back the date a little to Monday, March 10th. When we asked if anyone was available that day, one person responded. We asked again what day would be best for everyone and got no response, so we decided to just ask everyone to send video auditions with the pieces. We gave them over a week and got crickets. At this point, we're tired of begging them to for literally anything so we had to make changes. WHATEVER.

Mariano, a guy in our media class will play the main character. I don't know how good of an actor he is, but he said he has some experience and he's pretty much down to film whatever day which is great for us. For the engineer character, I am asking a girl in our TV class, and we'll see with what she responds. It kinda sucks, but at least we were able to find replacements. There's no big moment in terms of acting (no crying, or screaming, or anything), so I honestly think we'll be fine with this cast.

Print Portion

 Unfortunately, I am a band kid (could end the sentence here), and I wasn't able to be in class when we had the print component lesson because I have at MPA (we got straight superiors yay but that also means more rehearsals so that's less yay). Luckily, Megan sent me her notes from the lesson which is really helpful.

I actually had no idea prior to starting my portfolio that postcards were like a common practice at film festivals. I kinda understand why though, they're much more practical than a poster or a brochuere. Since I was largely unware of this practice, I decided to do some research into some old projects.

I really like this one that I found, the title of the film is Circus Monkey. I wasn't able to find the film itself since I think its been deleted or privated, but I really like the design of the postcard. Although I don't know how representative the postcard is to the  short film itself, but I like how cohesive thecolors and text is on it. Unlike,most postcards that I've seen, this one has a drawing on the front instead of a still from the production.

I'm not really sure what we're going to do as of now. We're going to start brainstorming for the print component once we film, since that'll give us more shots as ideas for the cover.

Thank you Interstellar (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

So, here's my full disclaimer that I am not a screenwriter and have no intention to ever be a screenwriter. But, someone's gotta write a script so I locked in today, put the Interstellar soundtrack on repeat, and started to write.

The basic structure of the script goes:
- Introduction of main character and situation (through voiceover), minor introduction of engineer character

- Introduction of routine of character and experiences, etc.

- First important encounter with engineer, still impersonal

- SOMETHING THAT I STILL HAVENT FIGURED OUT

- Discussion with engineer discussing humanity

- Realization (climax)

- "Death" and revelation

That's the main points of the plot. I had originally gotten rid of the implemented memories because I didn't love the direction is was taking the narrative in, but I decided to tweak it a little to keep it in because I feel like it adds in another layer of conflict. 

Collective Unconscious

Instead of implementing a specific person's memories, I thought it would be better if the researchers/scientists implement general "memories". I basically got this idea from psychologist Carl Jung, who believed that there is an unconscious part of the brain that is shared by all humans. This unconscious part holds universal shared human experiences that transcend cultures, like memories, symbols, and emotions that eventually shape human behavior. I like how this theory matches the idea that he won't be able to experience "humanity" without the addition of this collective unconscious to his database thing. This also introduces another conflict, which is the character being basically inserted a deeper idea of emotions without actually being able to experience them (this would lead to him becoming overwhelmed, a metaphorical crashout session but mechanical, and the final discussion with the engineer). In the script, I actually wrote that the audience will also be able to see these images (they come like dreams to him). which I'm excited about because it'll add visual contrast to the monotony of the room. I think it'll be cool if we shot those scenes similar to the style in The Tree of Life.

Still from The Tree of Life

So yeah, the script's not completely finished yet but I feel good about what we have for now. My main fear is that it'll be too boring, but there's honestly nothing else I can add sooo.

Script (halfway done)

THE DIVINE SYNTHETIC

Screenplay by

Daniela Saffon and Megan Kelly

INT -  Experiment Room

A woman sits in a messy room. She’s surrounded by drawings scattered across the walls. The room itself is dark, like no one has been there in a while. She holds a voice recording device in her hand. Takes a breath and presses play.

Fade to black

We open back up in the same room. This time, however, the room isn't dark or messy. A man, wearing white clothes that perfectly fit his body, faces his back to the camera, a woman tinkers with the back of his neck. The cold lights that shine on his body gives the impression of a sterilized hospital room. From the back, he resembles a human enough. The camera pans to reveal his face. His features all resemble those of humans apart from the metallic contraption protruding from his neck. 

THE SUBJECT (V.O.)

Day Seven. Symptoms are much the same. Yesterday, I received the second implant of memories, building a sort of psych archive in my mind bank, like a bed of human experiences.

The V.O. continues as the woman deftly works.

THE SUBJECT (V.O.)

I get the fragments mostly during my dormant phases. The closest I experience to what your kind call dreams. I do believe that the memory enhancements are speeding up the process.

EXT. PARK

Inserts of the scene he is explaining

THE SUBJECT (V.O. cont.)

This set came with images of two adults and a child. A family. Laughter echoed in the scene, and the sun shone on the horizon. 

We cut back to the room.

INT - EXPERIMENT ROOM

Now, the android is alone. He holds the recording device in his hand. He sighs and ends the recording. 

The android stands up and walks over to the nearby desk. A plant sits on the surface. The vibrant green pops out amongst the grays and whites and blacks. He goes over to water it.

FADE TO BLACK

We see the android go through his daily routine as a new voiceover starts. He watches movies, cares for the plant, cleans the room.

THE SUBJECT (V.O.)

Day 18. The artificial memories come more frequently now. I’ve been fed a myriad of human experiences by now. Food, childhood, traveling, isolation, learning, loss, routine…death. Abstract ideas to me that make up the everyday life of you. I’ve also begun to consume human art. From the classics to the modern age. It really is fascinating how you have been able to reflect ……

The android sits down, going into its dormant phase. 

EXT.

We see some more artificial memories, this time a montage of couples.

INT. EXPERIMENT ROOM

THE SUBJECT

The images come too quickly now. Everything that accompanies them is so…overwhelming. The sensations. It’s like nothing I ever thought I could experience.

ENGINEER

(while writing on notepad)

As you know, you're a first generation prototype. There's still a lot of kinks we have to work out. [BEAT] I can look into your [insert techy terminology that I don't know] to make sure everything is running smoothly. 

The engineer performs an operation similar to the last time they met. This time is different though. The andriod is more perceptive, watching her intently as she works.

ENGINEER 

(finishing)

Alright that should help with the overwhelming data. Let me know if anything else comes up.

BEAT

THE SUBJECT

(genuine)

Thank you