CITY is a conceptual miniseries that centers on the matter-of-fact details that populate every city.
The core concept is the personification of these details through one character - a person whose sole job and purpose is to create and fabricate the urban detritus of a City (pennies on the ground, gum under tables, distant honking, etc.).
Each episode will explore various themes on order/chaos, death, modernism, purpose, free will, and our attitude toward life's bedlams and inevitabilities - most notably through humor.
The 6 (maybe more) episodes will be as follows:
1 - Noise: Explores the menagerie of noises dominating cities more than anything else. This episode explores the rhythm and habitual nature of modernism.
2 - Play: Spiritually this episode offers a look into how there's much to do and enjoy within cities. In a more literal sense, this episode will convey these ideas at beaches, parks, bars, etc.
3 - Money: On the surface, this will display much of the monetary detritus in cities, but underneath it's more about our misaligned purpose - connecting to an overall theme of disconnection with the subconscious.
4 - Food: Our survival needs have snowballed into over-consumption. Food waste, I think, is the most dominant detritus within cities - wrappers, bottles, gum, packaging, etc.
5 - Death: The sum of all parts of a city - what is really going on when we encase ourselves behind our structures? At the end of it all, it is our fear of death, as well as our longing for creation.
6 - Suit: The final takeaway is a hope to look inward at our inner itches within the subconscious, and take that self-awareness into something above our instincts.
ROUGHS/WORKS-IN-PROGRESS
A tentative Episode 1 for CITY - Noise - this piece was produced as my final thesis film for my degree in Media Arts + Practice, which conveys the general idea of Episode 1. However, the concept has since evolved and found clearer footing, so parts of this episode will be reshot and re-edited.
Here is an animated pre-visualization of the opening scene of the aforementioned episode, pulling straight from storyboard to motion.
Here is a proof-of-concept version of CITY, produced way back in 2021. It plays around with various bits and scenarios that would inevitably encompass the story.
This is an early concept short film version of the intended miniseries. It was made off the cuff, armed only with the concept and main idea.