That's a bit of pointless preamble, but anyway — it got me toying around with a bit of an idea that I decided to very quickly storyboard as practice. It's unsophisticated, unrefined and just generally quite crap — but it's more an exercise in habit-making. I need to start jotting down everything and developing stuff. I tend to fool myself into thinking I have no ideas, when I do — it's just that I haven't learned to recognise them as such. I'm rambling again.
At any rate, here are my terrible thumbnails (my sketchbook is tiny and there was no space for annotations, so forgive me as I type my ramblings. Do yer best to follow along)
Scene opens with a figure waiting at the bus stop. The bus pulls in and scene cuts to inside, showing a side-view of the seats. The figure, a woman carrying a purse, settles herself into a window seat. She glances idly around — out at the aisle and up at the ceiling.
Cut to a front view and she opens her handbag, reaching inside.
She pulls out a small tin of mints/packet of gum and pops a piece into her mouth, chewing.
Cut to side view. Still chewing, others begin to make their way onto the bus. She casts a wary glance at each one as they pass but appears ultimately at ease.
Cut to first-person view, looking towards the front of the bus. There is a pause and a strange clunking sound. An old man with a walking frame (making the clunking noise) hobbles into view and purchases his ticket. He turns and begins to hobble, very slowly, towards her, his walking frame clunking rhythmically with each step.
Cut to side view again and she shifts in her seat slightly as the old man shuffles past. He comes to a halt next to her and, reflexively, she tightens her grip on her handbag. There is a pause, and she slowly turns her head very slightly to glance at him. Cut to first person view.
We see a comically graphic close-up of the old man's incredibly wizened, wrinkled face as he turns his head to smile broadly, ancient skin stretched taut and revealing a large number of missing or discoloured teeth.
Cut back to regular view and the lady recoils slightly, eyes wide. The old man turns and settles himself into the seat next to her and she hurridly looks away, sitting slightly straighter. Cut to front view as the bus rumbles into life and begins to pull away.
There is a moment of slightly awkward quiet between the two, the only sounds are of the bus's engine and the chatter of fellow passengers. The old man is smiling good-naturedly to himself and the lady continues to stare straight ahead, drumming her fingers slightly on her handbag.
The old man turns his head and smiles sweetly at her. She returns it, weakly. Delighted, the old man begins to chatter away,
Cut to side-view. She glances desperately over the old man's shoulder as he waffles away. There are a few cuts to other areas of the bus — ordinary conversation, but gradually everything begins to change very slightly. People leave faint motion blurs behind as they move and the conversations become slightly muted.
Cut to side view, from the opposite side (looking out into the aisle). The lady leans forward slightly, turning her head towards the window, fingers on her temples. The old man is seemingly unconcerned and continues chatting away.
Front view. The old man is laughing and talking and the lady rubs her temples, casting a sideways glance at the old man.
First-person view of the old man. He, too, is leaving motion blurs and appears very bright, almost over exposed or with a "bloom" effect — and something about his face is off. His mouth is moving out-of-sync to the rest of his face, slightly delayed as he turns and moves his head so it slides across his face to catch up with the rest. His voice is muted too, a faint ringing/humming sound begins to creep up.
The next series of shots are choppy, cutting between random snatches of conversation, the old man and various other parts of the bus (the ticket machine printing etc.) These random shots are repeated, getting faster and shorter and louder, interspersed with the lady gradually leaning further and further forward, hands clutching her head, the ringing noise growing louder and the motion blurs increasing as people move. Her vision becomes clouded and colours get distorted — eventually reaching an almost thermal-vision-like effect. It grows more and more rapidly intense until —
cut to black, and silence.
There is a pause, and we hear the squeak and rumble of a bus. We see the side of the bus as it begins to pull away, revealing the lady standing behind it.
She is outside her house again, and all is still. There is a faint wind, birds are tweeting. She pauses for a moment, takes a deep breath, then turns, adjusting her handbag over her shoulder. She walks up her garden path, fumbles with the lock, pushes it open, and steps inside. She closes the door behind her.
As I said it's not at all a sophisticated or clever idea and I'm concerned that it would appear as a shallow or needless representation of this kind of thing — I dunno? I can see the whole thing very clearly in my head and I wish I'd put a little more into representing it visually, but like I said, this was just an exercise in catching an idea and getting it onto paper quickly before it escapes.
A lot of the visual/sound ideas I'd pictured came from an experience I had in primary school — I still don't really know what happened, I just had a really funny turn and everything got extremely bright, I couldn't hear and everything looked like I was seeing it in thermal vision. Not exactly a broad representation of the entire spectrum of such panic/anxiety/etc attacks but, I dunno.
I sort of knew what I wanted to say to wrap this up but unfortunately it escapes me. Best just leave it here.
