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[Screen text: "The orange open movie project presents"]
[Introductory titles are showing on the background of a water pool with fishes swimming and mechanical objects lying on a stone floor.]
[Screen text: "Elephant's Dream"]
Proog: At the left we can see... At the right we can see the... the head-snarlers. Everything is safe. Perfectly safe. Emo? Emo!
Proog: Watch out!
[The old man, Proog, shoves the younger and less experienced Emo on the ground to save him from being mowed down by a barrage of jack plugs that whir back and forth between the two massive switch-board-like walls.]
[Two people stand on a small bridge.]
[The plugs are oblivious of the two, endlessly channeling streams of bizarre sounds and data.]
Proog: Are you hurt?
[Emo sits on the bridge and checks his limbs.]
Emo: I don't think so. You?
Proog: I'm Ok.
Proog: Get up. Emo, it's not safe here. Let's go.
Emo: What's next?
Proog: You'll see!
[After the squealing plugs move on, Proog makes sure that Emo is unharmed and urges him onwards through a crack in one of the plug-walls.]
Proog: Emo. This way.
[They walk through the narrow hall into a massive room that fades away into blackness on all sides. Only one path is visible, suspended in mid-air that runs between thousands of dangling electric cables on which sit crowds of robin-like robotic birds.]
Proog: Follow me!
[As Proog and Emo enter the room, the birds begin to wake up and notice them. Realizing the danger, Proog grabs Emo by the arm. They run along the increasingly bizarre path as the birds begin to swarm. All sound is blocked out by the birds which are making the same noises as the jack-plugs, garbled screaming and obscure sentences and static.]
Proog: Hurry Emo!
[The path dead-ends, stopping in the middle of no-where above the infinite drop. Proog turns around as the birds reach them and begin to dive-bomb at them. At the last moment, Proog takes out an old candlestick phone and the birds dive into the speaker piece. The screen cuts to black.]
[In the next scene, Proog stands at one end of a room, suspiciously watching what is probably the same candlestick phone, which is ringing. Emo watches from the other side of the room. The phone continues to ring. After a while Emo approaches it to answer it, but Proog slaps his hand away.]
Proog: You're not paying attention!
Emo: I just want to answer the...phone.
Proog: Emo, look, I mean listen. You have to learn to listen. This is not some game. You, I mean we, we could easily die out here.
[Proog takes the ear-piece off the hook.]
Proog: Listen, listen to the sounds of the machine.
[The phone speaker reveals a mass of clawed, fleshy polyps which scream and gibber obscenely.]
Proog: Listen to your breathing.
[There is a solemn silence as Emo looks around the room and the technical objects therein. Emo laughs disbelievingly and Proog walks away.]
[In the next scene, the two enter another massive black room. There is no path, the entry platform is the only structure that seems to be there except for another exit, lit distantly at the far side. Proog takes a step forward into the void, and his feet are suddenly caught by giant typewriter arms that rocket up out of the blackness to catch his feet as he dances across mid-air. Emo follows Proog with somewhat less enthusiasm as the older man leads the way.]
Emo: Well, don't you ever get tired of this?
Proog: Tired?!? Emo, the machine is like clockwork. One move out of place and you're ground to a pulp.
Emo: But isn't it -
Proog: Pulp, Emo! Is that what you want, pulp? Emo, your goal in life...pulp?
[They reach the end of the room and go through a hall into a small compartment. Proog presses a button, and the door shuts. It is an elevator. The elevator lurches suddenly as it is grabbed by a giant mechanical arm and thrown upwards, rushing up through an ever-widening tunnel. When it begins to slow down, another arm grabs the capsule and throws it even further up. As it moves up, the walls unlock and fall away, leaving only the floor with the two on it, rushing higher and higher.]
Proog: Emo, close your eyes.
Emo: Why?
Proog: - Now!
Emo: Ok.
Proog: Good.
[They exit the tunnel into a black sky and the platform reaches the peak of its arc.]
Proog: What do you see at your left side, Emo?
Emo: Nothing.
Proog: - Really?
Emo: No, nothing at all.
Proog: Really? And at your right, what do you see at your right side, Emo?
Emo: The same Proog, exactly the same ...nothing!
Proog: - Great.
[The elevator begins to drop down another shaft, coming to rest as it slams into the floor of another room and bringing the two to a level stop. A camera flashes. They are in a large, dingy room filled with strange, generator-like devices and dotted with boxy holographic projectors. One of them is projecting a portion of wall with a door in it right beside them. The door seems harmless enough.]
Emo: Listen Proog! Do you hear that!
[From behind the door comes light music.]
Emo: Can we go here?
Proog: There? It isn't safe, Emo.
Emo: But...
Proog: - Trust me, it's not.
Emo: Maybe I could...
Proog: No... NO!
[Proog presses a button on his cane, which changes the holograph to another wall.]
Proog: Any further questions, Emo?
Emo: No.
[Proog finishes the wall, and boxes them into a Safe Room, out of the view of anything outside.]
Proog: Emo?
Proog: Emo, why...Emo......why can't you see the beauty of this place? The way it works. How perfect it is.
Emo: No, Proog, I don't see. I don't see because there's nothing there. And why should I trust my life to something that isn't there? Well can you tell me that? Answer me!
[Proog slaps him, trying to bring him to his senses.]
Emo: Proog......you're a sick man! Stay away from me!
[Emo storms away down the length of the room towards a wall he apparently cannot see and the wall begins to move, extending the length of the room.]
Proog: No! Emo! It's a trap!
Emo: Hah, it's a trap. At the left side you can see the hanging gardens of Babylon!
[The walls begin to discolour and mechanical roots start tearing through the walls to his left.]
Emo: How's that for a trap?
Proog: No, Emo.
[The roots move forwards toward Proog.]
Emo: At the right side you can see...well guess what...the colossus of Rhodes!
Proog: No!
Emo: The colossus of Rhodes and it is here just for you Proog.
[The rest of the safety wall crumples away as a pair of massive hands heave out of the ground and begin to attack. Proog is knocked down by the shockwave, while Emo turns and begins to walk away, waving his finger around his temple in the 'crazy' sign. In a last effort, Proog extricates himself from the tentacle roots, and cracks Emo over the back of the head with his cane. As Emo collapses, everything falls away, and Proog and Emo are left in one tiny patch of light in the middle of blackness.]
Proog: It is there...I'm telling you, Emo...it is.
[The scene fades to black while panning over a pile of tentacle roots lying on the ground.]
[Credits begin:]
[Orange Open Movie Team
Director: Bassum Kurdali
Art Director: Andreas Goralczyk
Music and Sound Design: Jan Morgenstern
Emo: Cas Jansen
Proog: Tygo Gernandt
Screenplay: Pepijn Zwanenberg
Original Concept & Scenario: Andreas Goralczyk, Bassam Kurdali, Ton Roosendaal
]
[More people for:
Additional Artwork and Animation
Texture Photography
Software Development
3D Modelling, Animation, Rendering, Compiling Software
Special Thanks to Open Source Projects
Rendering Services Provided
Hardware Sponsored
Casting
Sound FX, Foley, Dialogue Editing, Audio Mix and Post
Voice Recording
HDCam conversion
Netherlands Media Art Institute Staff
Blender Foundation Staff
]
[Many Thanks to our Donation and DVD sponsors]
[Elephants Dream has been realised with financial support from
* The Netherlands Film Fund
* Mondriaan Foundation
* VSBfonds
* Uni-Verse / EU Sixth Framework Programme
]
[Produced By:
Ton Roosendaal
Copyright 2006
Netherlands Media Art Institute / Montevideo
Blender Foundation
]