Ben Blevins: October 2011

TREATMENT

My story is that of a rock and roll band that performs a show for aliens. They are on a worldwide tour for their latest album when the manager realizes that the next date is in a location he's never heard of. They leave their most recent show and find an aircraft waiting to take them to the next show. Before long they realize they're in a space ship and they are leaving Earth. The alien driver takes them to his planet where a giant stadium is full of fans. The fans are not extremely enthusiastic because the band has drifted into mediocrity and commercialism instead of real artistry. Taking all this in stride, the band plays through their set with the audience increasingly agitated that the band will not play their old material. The show promoter eventually comes onstage and tells the band that the audience has told him telepathically that they want the show to end unless the band plays their classic hits. The band has an internal discussion and decides that they are sell-outs and that they need to rethink their artistic process. They play their old songs and the aliens go crazy and all float in the air and mosh.

This sounds especially ambitious now that I've written it out like this but some things, like the telepathic message, can be shown in a quick shot rather than spoken out loud. The concept is what matters.

I plan to take photos and videos of myself and friends to use as models for this short without really engaging in true rotoscoping. Then I plan to draw the figures in Photoshop as layered projects which I will animate in AfterEffects and then add sound.

The songs are important here, and I will probably end up making some basic tracks in GarageBand myself and importing them. The audience will realize it's not a real band but the reflexivity will add humor.

STORYBOARDS