Floating

... ideas at the moment. Exciting things are afoot with the music/soundtrack, of which more soon.

Meanwhile, I'm trying out different ideas, images and storylines. Once I've got something roughed out, I'll be starting on storyboards, which will be very exciting.

Heritage

'The king stared at the figure in astonishment. It walked with rapid strides, moving its head up and down, so that anyone would have taken it for a live human being. The artificer touched its chin, and it began singing, perfectly in tune. He touched its hand, and it began posturing, keeping perfect time...As the performance was drawing to an end, the robot winked its eye and made advances to the ladies in attendance, whereupon the king became incensed and would have had Yen Shih [Yan Shi] executed on the spot had not the latter, in mortal fear, instantly taken the robot to pieces to let him see what it really was. And, indeed, it turned out to be only a construction of leather, wood, glue and lacquer, variously coloured white, black, red and blue. Examining it closely, the king found all the internal organs complete—liver, gall, heart, lungs, spleen, kidneys, stomach and intestines; and over these again, muscles, bones and limbs with their joints, skin, teeth and hair, all of them artificial...The king tried the effect of taking away the heart, and found that the mouth could no longer speak; he took away the liver and the eyes could no longer see; he took away the kidneys and the legs lost their power of locomotion. The king was delighted.^[4]

Lie Zi text, written in the 3rd century BC. Encounter between King Mu of Zhou (1023-957 BC) and a mechanical engineer known as Yan Shi, an 'artificer'. The latter proudly presented the king with a life-size, human-shaped figure of his mechanical handiwork.

The Maguffin

Where there is love, there is heartache. The infinitely retellable love story.

I need a central image for the film, something to follow, lose and rediscover.The first one that sprang to mind was a clockwork or winged heart. It may work. I'll run with it for now.

Here's a lovely shadow play, based on Philip Pullman's Clockwork.

"Men are grown mechanical in head and in heart, as well as in hand"

The ever-miserable Thomas Carlyle