CARTHAGE Script/Shotlist/Everything

WHAT ACTUALLY GOES DOWN:

-Open, sky shot, title.
-Shots of forest, slow, long, stoic, meditative.
-Water.
-Dido is a tree, juxtapose forest v. ocean, land v. water, represent xenia/travel, foreshadow arrival.
-Aeneas steps in puddle.
-Enter forest, physically.
-Highlight Aeneas.
-Embrace between Aeneas & Dido: motion, natural colors, perhaps cut by sunset perhaps not.
-Sunset.
-Perhaps Latin text
-Something to represent otium, leisure, the time wasted, and the lack of progress made towards Aeneas' future (and of Dido's Carthage as well?).
-Aeneas wakes on forest floor, waves hand before sun (premonition, cymbals)
-Aeneas gets up and begins walking, perhaps layered with lighter image of the sun to represent divinity, something to represent Mercury (percussion: maracas, rim shots, etc.)
-Aeneas is led to his hammer, the penates, and hears the drums as his fingers make contact, crashing and drums everywhere around him (I'll not only use my drum kit, but probably trash cans, glass, slamming shit, etc.) with fast cuts and motion of Aeneas, whirling above his head, etc.
- AENEAS TRYING TO ESCAPE
-AENEAS GETTING CALLED OUT BY DIDO
-AENEAS BEGINS TO LEAVE, DIDO BEGINS TO PERISH
-Layers of cymbals overwhelm the realm of audio, as Aeneas rests with his head in water, only face exposed, until submerging completely. (At this point, I may cut/'drown out' the audio, end the film altogether, or cut to Dido's suicide. I may also layer the two scenes on top of each other, maybe also with the image of the tree fading until Aeneas is submerged.
-The end, credits to Joe, Lenora, Camilo, Dimitri, Kathryn, ICA, Mentor Program, copyright.

Plot Summary: Introduce Dido. Aeneas arrives. Embrace. Aeneas wakes up, has internal conflict due to gods. Aeneas tries to leave, called out by Dido, he admits his destiny, and leaves. Dido dies, Aeneas fades into the sea. (This is basically what happens in the concrete story.)

Imagery: I really want the imagery and audio to tell the story, and since the plot is so subtle, I've decided to take a more experimental approach to illustrating my message.

-Sound: Nature Sounds v. Drums (representing the heaviness, intense, consuming feel of INDUSTRY, being both synthetically natural and barbaric sounding)

-Themes: Stoicism, Xenia, duty, different interpretations of right and wrong, nature, civilization, sacrifice, the greater good, fate. The relationship between the TREE and MAN can be compared to that of Aeneas and Dido of Vergil's Aeneid, in Book IV: Aeneas wastes his time in leisure with the foreign queen, but is forced to leave her in order to complete his duty, unaware of Dido's fate, who kills herself. MAN kills TREE because he does not understand the reality of what he is doing and its possible consequences, just as Aeneas may as well have killed Dido, although without intention. INDUSTRY, the third main character, as well as being a major theme, is parallel to the supernatural forces of the Aeneid that influence its characters, especially Aeneas. The Gods/fate(INDUSTRY) compel Aeneas(MAN) to leave Dido(TREE), regardless of what may become of her, in order to complete his duty.

-Location: My thoughts are to find a tree in the forest near Forest Hills. An important aspect of MAN's encounter with TREE is the crossing of a boundary, as Aeneas did when he crash landed in Carthage, so I am going to have man stumble upon TREE.

-Speeches:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOQwa73KXbs&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQjAR7mOvgc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bufHojkoGtw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWiIYW_fBfY&feature=related

-This film is a Homeric metaphor of sorts, using nature to represent the aspect of human nature that causes one to believe so strongly in whatever they believe to be right, their duty, that reality escapes their scope of comprehension and they lose sight of what they were intending to do in the first place.

-Characters:
MAN is Aeneas, with whom Dido falls in love, but is compelled by INDUSTRY to seek out his future.
TREE is Dido, who sacrifices for the sake of INDUSTRY.
INDUSTRY represents not only the Gods, and Divine Intervention, but also the future of Rome.

SYMBOLS:
-The forest is Carthage.
-In the beginning, the sky is gray because a storm has just passed.
-Dido is without leaves, and the forest floor is covered, as if winter has just come and gone, because she is in a weakened state after the death of her husband and the treachery of her brother Pygmalion.
-The crow call in the beginning is Iarbas, a suitor of Dido, representing the opportunity that Dido had to have a natural relationship, rather than getting involved with a foreigner.
-The puddle next to Dido is the Mediterranean Sea.