I made a rough reel of what we've got so far.




The first shot would be a slow tracking up from the forest floor all the way to the canopy, where we see the plane up in the sky. I think we could cut the opening drone in half for brevity, but we can see how it looks once the whole thing is fleshed out more.

I like the plane stuff in the beginning, now that it's synced up. If he started on the plane and ended up back in the plane that would be a nice bookend. If it starts with Tom wandering in the jungle, we have all these questions like "who is this guy, where's he going, is he some hippie indiana jones". With the plane, the audience is comfortable, "ok its some dude on vacation" and from the common ground of riding in an airplane, we can take the journey WITH Tom, rather than just watching him.

I really really like the idea of Tom starting to drink and looking up and seeing the other shamen with the masks on. I think it ties the masks together in a coherent way, which is important. We should definitely go in that direction. If each one had a dominant color to set them apart, make them recognizable later. One of them could have a green bird mask for Quetzalcoatl. One could have a foreboding mask that doesn't fit stylistically with the others, making it a bit unsettling.

So he drinks, we zoom in, he falls in front of the giant mask, and it starts attacking him. I think there's some great camera angles we could insert, Tom looking up, backing away, starting to run, etc. The question is, whats the location he's running around in. I think if the jungle looked realistic when he was with the shamen, and then mythical and psychedelic after he drinks, it'd be a nice contrast.

So he's running around this crazy jungle, he loses the first mask, but is quickly intercepted by a second mask, which eats him and makes him go salvia crazy.

I'm totally solid on the sequence of salvia --- snakes --- spirits, tearing, replacing organs with crystals. I think it'd be a lot of fun to draw, and it's gotten a big reaction from everyone else so far.

After they make crystal Tom, I was thinking he could go through some sort of trials in this ethereal realm, something like what you have with the fire path in the void and the cave of wonders bit, getting the crystal. Like the spirits built his new body, but he has to use it and prove himself worthy, maybe he picks up a final jewel to put into a conspicuous socket in his forehead, third eye. I like the idea of the entrance back to the world being guarded by huge dudes. We could get reference for how mayan warriors looked and run with that. They have those crazy sword/cricket bat things, which are badass.

I love the idea of Tom being reborn, and then actually hatching out of a quetzalcoatl egg on this huge cliff. The Quetz would have a shaman mask-like head, and could carry him into the sky, and let him go, first flying lesson. Tom is stoked that he can fly, but he's quickly attacked by a mask again. He floats in mid-air, superman style, and does the dread-bow-arrow trick, and blasts the mask, causing it to explode. The explosion is unexpectedly violent and fucking huge, and he gets engulfed in it, and it splits him in two, to do your roto idea.

So the roto bit happens, and I'd love to have the waveform turn into a snake, and transition to the snake slithering in the jungle, and then morphing into Tom. He's a bit dazed, and wanders back to the same fire circle to find himself sitting alone at a dead, smoldering campfire. Astral Tom merges back with real Tom, and he shakes himself off, stands up, and then this fucking shaman out of nowhere is standing in front of him. He should have a mask that stands out from the rest. I'm reminded of the end of Majora's Mask when you're like holy shit look at that hill/tree this is nuts.

Tom freaks out a bit, but then the shaman points off into the distance. Tom looks, and the pov shows that there's a mayan pyramid peeking up through the trees. Tom runs to the pyramid, runs up the steps, and Brendan and Dan's heads roll down the stairs past him, hitting the stairs on the beats. At the top of the pyramid is the mayan rocket. Tom gets in and takes off. I was thinking it could just be a zooming out from the jungle to the continent to the planet, stars, galaxies, etc. Like in Contact. But we could fade from Tom in the rocket to Tom in his seat on the plane, waking up. I like the masks chasing the plane at the end.

I'll do some more drawings. I think we're in a good spot, but we should definitely meet soon cuz I feel like we're on the cusp of finalizing the sequence. After we nail down the sequence, we should talk about how to divide scenes up, stylistic choices, and then from there we'll re-board the whole thing in a more polished form. Maybe the next reel could be in all flash, so we can get some camera moves and stuff going.

I think a big strength for this whole video could be in the syncing. We don't want to bend over backwards to have every blink and finger movement sync up with a musical cue, but we shouldn't hold ourselves back from it.

Let me know what you think, brotha