Notes: These scripts were developed to promote Immortalized on AMC for Loyalkaspar, a NYC-based agency.
Overheard
| Video | Audio |
| Two young, edgy-looking guys sitting at a bus stop talk enthusiastically. A young commuter woman waiting for her bus nearby can’t help but overhear. | Zeke: So, he takes the skin, it’s beautiful man, and he stretches it over this crazy-like-model or something.Terry: Yeah?Zeke: An its tight, and he has to stretch and stretch and stretch it. And the eye sockets are like bulging out. Terry: Zeke: Terry: Zeke: Terry: |
| The commuter woman tries to get a look at the strangers without turning her head. | Zeke: I know, right? And he starts adding body parts that have nothing to do with this thing, like wings, and fangs, and horns. And I’m like, this dude is crazy, but that girl is even crazier-‐ she turned hers into a hat. And she’s the winner!Terry: No Guts, All Glory! |
| With that, the commuter woman runs for the bus, dropping her red scarf. Terry picks it up and rushes after the bus, waving the scarf. | Terry: Hey. Hey. Hey Lady! |
| The doors and she is gone. Terry looks after her, confused. He shrugs and carries the red scarf back to where Zeke sits looking equally confused.
Another bus stops and they get on board, with Terry now wearing the red scarf. |
Terry: Weird people… So, what’s it called?Zeke: (pointing at a poster on the bus enclosure) IMMORTALIZED, on AMC. It’s on Thursday, right between Comic Book Men and Freakshow.Terry: (in a heavy metal voice) IM-‐MORT-‐AL-‐IIIZZZEEEDDD!!!! Sweet. |
‐-‐Legs-‐-‐
Zeke and Terry could be a running gag, talking about the show at a variety of ordinary locations including a deli counter, which puts some people off.
This same type of scene could also play out in a fashion boutique with two young ladies-‐ maybe clerks that scare a mom, but her teenage boy is drawn to it. Or at a bar, where the guy hitting on them thinks better of it after overhearing their conversation.
As the show gets rolling the vignettes could be shorter, allowing for a quick one-‐ liner that launches into a montage from the show.
Macabre Toolbox
| Video | GRFX |
| We begin with a homage to the main titles for SE7EN, Dexter, and Six Feet Under, we shoot the taxidermy process in extreme close-‐up and cut it to mood-‐enhancing music. | |
| Boiling of skin to separate it from the bones Sketching fantastic creatures
Cutting of skin with exacto blades |
GRFX: Death is only the beginning… |
| Stretching of skin over forms Hands searching in bins of eyeballs Spreading wings
Squinting eyes Airbrushing details. Arranging elaborate sequins |
GRFX: of Creativity |
| And slowly expand our field of view to include our Immortalizers in action:
Rushing around the workshop trying to find the right tool Struggling to hold an elaborate creation in place while it dries Angry outbursts that sweep clear the workbench Flash cuts of elaborate and exotic finished works |
GRFX: The Immortalizers understand…
No Guts, All Glory. |
| IMMORTALIZED (logo)
AMC (logo) Season 1 begins-‐ February 14th. |
The Gathering
| Video | Audio |
| A young dad and his wife gather up their sleeping toddler from the couch -‐ the TV glows behind them in the family room.
Mom picks up his daughter’s teddy bear and carries follows dad up to her daughter’s room, which is filled with stuffed animals, and tucks her in. |
Wife: Hurry honey, AMC has a new show starting in 5 minutes and I really want to see it.Husband: Yeah, What’s that? |
| Dad places the teddy bear gingerly next to his daughter, turns out her light and heads out of the room. His wife, who was waiting at the door follows him back towards the living room. | Wife: It is about taxidermists that compete against each other and the masters to create immortal works of art!
Husband: Cool. |
| He stops dead in his tracks. His jaw drops. His wife, following close behind bumps into him bring both back into the brightly lit living room. The couch and chairs are all covered with stuffed animals ready to watch the show. The father smiles nervously as the camera pushes into the TV. | |
| A montage of the show-‐ featuring the Immortalizers at work-‐ plays and culminates in a tag: | GRFX: IMMORTALIZED-‐ on AMC. Breathing new life into Reality TV. |
| Cut back to the Husband and Wife, on the couch surrounded by stuffed animals.
The husband reaches for the remote, but the Teddy Bear-‐ guarding it, pulls it slowly out of reach. |
Wife: Fast forward through the commercials. |
-‐-‐-‐Legs-‐-‐-‐
Continuing in the “stuffed animal vein” another spot might be set at a “Build a Bear Workshop” with either a child, one of the chaperone parents, or an Immortalizer, building an exotic creation to the surprise of the kids and the dismay of the shop keeper.
Another vignette set-‐up to a clip spot could be created featuring a mom, doing dishes, who hears her kid come in the back door, with a familiar refrain, “Mom. I found a cat. Can I keep it?” It, of course, turns out to be a road-kill cat.
Death opens up so many possibilities
Our POV skates across the rippling water of a mountain stream. Suddenly, erupting from the rapids is a beautiful wide-‐mouth Bass leaping after a colorful fly. The Action freezes: The beads of water slow and stop in mid-‐air, the curl of the fish’s tail, the spread of its gills, the clouds rolling by-‐ everything stops, but the POV of the camera continues-‐ moving into close orbit around the magnificent creature.
As the camera rounds the fish, it’s pose does not change, but the entire scene appears to go through a series of elaborate make-‐overs that represent the taxidermy process. The first captures the glorious leap, mounted on a beautiful plaque in a traditional style in a fishing lodge, but that’s only the beginning. Suddenly the fish sprouts hawk wings, shimmery sequins replace its scales making it the centerpiece in a fantastic otherworldly sculpture. It even transforms into a decorative headpiece atop a stunning model in a runway show.
The camera continues to orbit as the scene transforms back to reality. The moment is just as suddenly unfrozen-‐ the fish lands in the water and swims away. The camera orbit slows, as we transition past a row of our “Immortalizers” suggesting that the POV was theirs. The logo follows them in.
IMMORTALIZED
Death is so full of possibility. AMC
-‐-‐Legs-‐-‐
This same concept might be executed with a variety of beginning scenes including: a 7 Point Deer leaping over logs in the forest, A Grizzly Bear rearing up on a mountain ridge, A Canadian Goose taking off from a pristine lake. The possibilities are endless.
-‐-‐Execution-‐-‐
The entire scenes or at least the animals would be CG, to facilitate the makeover animations. The “immortalizer” talent would be shot on Green Screen.
ART does not Apologize
A Greek sculpture twists, eying something strange out of the corner of its eye. The camera pulls back to reveal the puzzled look on the face of a woman in an impressionist painting, shielding her child from some unseen horror, Munch’s The Scream, well, Screams as the camera continues to pull back through a densely packed fine art gallery.
VO: “Each new era of art history is filled with a unique spirit of creativity. The true artist breaks free of the shackles of long held tradition, and the tastes of polite society, to wrestle with their inner demons, to embrace the spirit in their materials. Their revolutionary work provokes surprise, confusion, and even anger…”
The camera continues back through the gallery-‐ ultimately coming to rest just on the other side of a fantastic traditional piece of taxidermy on a pedestal in the foreground.
VO: “… but Art does not apologize!” Cut to: IMMORTALIZED
Cut back to the gallery:
The camera, still focused on the foreground piece of taxidermy, suddenly orbits around it to reveal a vast array of fantastic creations and their “Immortalizer” creators, standing in the same gallery.
The camera pushes through the group to an AMC logo, created out of features, bones, sequins, etc.
VO: The Season 1 competition begins this Valentine’s Day.
DEATH is just the beginning
| Video | GRFX |
| In a split screen effect that slowly scrolls horizontally to bring on the new clip we see first: | GRFX: LIFE-‐ is short-‐ |
| A beautiful red fox frolics through a springtime meadow. In the next panel we see time-lapse of the fox dead and decomposing rapidly. | GRFX:
DEATH-‐ is instantaneous |
| But in the next panel a fox is immortalized in a taxidermy scene from nature. | GRFX: But IMMORTALITY-‐ is highly competitive! |
| Each new panel in a high energy montage reveals a new interpretation of the red fox-‐ some natural, some fantastic, all works of art-‐ interspersed with shots of the “Immortalizers” at work. | GRFX: IMMORTALIZED-‐ On AMC-‐ Forever begins on February 14th. |
Thursday Night at the Museum
| Video | Audio |
| Every Thursday Night at the Natural History Museum, after the crowds have left, something odd happens in the wild animal hall. When the guard gets up from in front of his TV and goes on his rounds, a murmur builds from way back by the snow leopard and moves like a wave towards the Grizzly Bear exhibit next to the office door. | Snow Leopard: Is it on? Honey Badger: Is it on? Chipmunk: Is it on yet?Moose: Is it on?Blue Jay: Is it… Grizzly: I heard him. I heard him. Blue Jay: Well? Grizzley: Comic Book Men is just wrapping up. Moose: I love that show. Blue Jay: You’ve never even seen it. Moose: I have ears, don’t I? Honey Badger: They’re doing Big Ears tonight? |
| You get the idea. Only the Grizzly can see into the Guard’s office, where AMC is on the TV, and must “telephone” back through the galleries of wild animals in their respective scenes, what is happening on their favorite show, IMMORTALIZED. | GRFX (on TV) Immortalized (Logo). |
-‐-‐Legs-‐-‐
With one shoot, you can create a number of spots, as the character’s dialog is not dependent on mouth movement. Could be a running campaign throughout the season.
It even works on the topical level, as we can play as much show footage as we like, as the POV of the Grizzl