X-Message-Number: 10576 Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 21:36:35 -0700 From: Jeff Davis <> Subject: Cost of cryonics tv promo spots. Thomas Donaldson wrote: How much do you estimate the first ad would cost if it were done for real? =09 Frankly, Thomas, as to the cost, I haven't a clue. I've lived practically without money all my life and never buy anything retail. I beg it, borrow it, scrounge it, get it at auction, or build it myself. I squeeze a nickel till it turns into a twenty. So I don't relate to money and cost the way other folks do. I have a cousin in LA who is a film producer, unexcelled in unimportance, but an emmy nominee and resource nonetheless. He has friends, some of whom are MY friends, who are music people, sound people, editing people, etc. My plan was to schmooze them into helping me out, for the fun of it, after all none of these spots is a big thing. For example the basketball spot--The Game of Life--what does it take? Eleven old guys. (Dr. Ettinger could be one of them--wouldn't that be a hoot?) Eleven basketball uniforms, size extra large. A few minutes in an empty arena. And a stock shot of the tip-off of a game. A tad of post production to edit, and add the "CRYONICS", "get back in the game" overlay, and it's in the can. I would like to get the LA Lakers, because of the LA, hollywood, film-capital-of-the-world thing. Or the Phoenix Suns, because Dr. E is in Phoenix. Schmooze some of the players about cryonics, and get permission to use them and their arena. Probably not possible, but you never can tell. Also, cryonics seems a natural for the entertainment biz. Youth, beauty, adventure, uncertainty/suspense/danger, and futuristic glitz. The Hollywood crowd may not be lining up to sign on for the freeze, but how tough can it be to get them interested, first in a film/tv project, then...who knows? Jim Halperin's TFI adaptation for the tube seems destined to be the first of many media treatments. I'm working on a screenplay--a Disney dog movie/pure Capracorn--entitled The Dog That Lived Forever, for which all of these tv promos do double duty, serving as publicity for the movie as well as for cryonics. Frankly, I find cryonics to be an unparalleled adventure, intellectually challenging and absolutely fascinating. Flat out thrilling. Whether it will work or not is ALMOST beside the point. Life has always been a crap shoot. (And now were working to load the dice in our favor.) As to your offer of funding, thanks much, I'll keep it in mind. But mostly, I go for the fun and figure out the funding later on. Speaking of fun, here's another promo spot. I call this one On the Beach Three women are gathered on the beach. Jana, Brazilian lithe; Lisette, French "haute" child woman; and Ariel, California aerobics blonde. Tanned, oiled, shades, bikinis. Model perfect. Towels on the sand. Beach chairs. Accessories. One empty towel for a forth who has not yet arrived. It's Southern California, Hermosa Beach. The sand is wide, maybe two hundred feet from the paved bicycle path to the water. The girls are 30 feet from the path--"The Strand". Thirty feet beyond them, at the left of the frame, is a group of Adonis's playing volleyball. The camera is low to the ground, intimately among the women, looking out toward the ocean. You can see only half of the volleyball game--only one side of the net--and you can only see the men--the action--from mid-chest on down. They're non-persons, objects. The women are guy-watching, and critiquing, with a delicious directness. Glowing, fully aware of their dazzling sexuality, basking in their glory, each in her position, posed and motionless. Lionesses dreaming of the hunt. Only their lips move. Beyond them the beach is empty except for one little girl, seven-ish, off to the right, sitting in the sand, playing quietly with bucket and shovel, counterpoint to the women's fierce maturity, and the shimmering expanse of ocean beyond. Cut off by the right edge of the frame, small in the distant mist far out to sea, is a crystal dome (ie., the future). Jana: Who is he? Lisette: I don't know. Ariel: And she wouldn't tell you if she did. Jana: Neither would I. Lisette: I love his legs. Jana: I love his butt. Lisette: Well, now that you mention it, I kind of see his butt as part of his legs, the upper part. Jana: Right! The knee bone's connected to the thigh bone=85 Look, you like legs, you get legs. I got dibbs on the butt. Ariel: You girls going to eat here, or do you want that order to go? (laughs all around) Jana: Reminds me of the one about the eight hundred pound gorilla? Ariel: Okay, I'll bite. Jana: You know, "Where does an eight hundred pound gorilla sleep?" Ariel: (anticipating) You got that right. Lisette: Huh? Jana and Ariel: (With an almost imperceptible glance/head turn toward each other to synchronize) Anywhere he wants. (giggles all around) Jana: It's the way he moves. Ariel: How old do you think he is? Lisette: Seventy-five? Jana: Something...about the way he moves. Something I've never seen before. Do you think Marney knows him? Ariel: Older. Much older. Two hundred at least. Lisette: Is he... a primitive?!, (then correcting herself, and using the more "polite" term) I mean, is he an ancient, like Marney? Ariel: Ask her yourself? Marney enters: The camera pans right, up the beach, and you're dazzeled as the frame is suddenly filled by a gleaming crystal city reaching into the sky, the crystal dome being only the most extreme seaward element. Marney moves down the beach out of this backdrop. She is a buff Rita Hayworth. A goddess of poise in motion. The universe stops to feast on her entrance. Every movement is Bottecelli perfect. The little girl, now in the left of the frame, stops and looks up. Lisette:(looking at the guys) It must be true. They are like gods! Marney: Ask me what? (Looks over towards the game, with realization) Oh. (With care not to show her excitement) He's here. The camera now swings out around her, as she turns in to face her friends, back to the ocean, until it is viewing her from behind as she stands before her friends and removes her sun jacket., she stretches... just enough to catch a glimpse over her shoulder,... then she turns and sinks slowly to her knees onto the luxuriant beach towel. Everything is quiet, the game has stopped. Marney: Is he looking over here? (Pause) Lisette: Yes. (Marney performs the ritual: kneels on the towel, throws her hair back, shakes it, gathers and secures it, as Jana speaks.) Jana to Ariel: You ask her. Jana (unwilling to wait): Is he really a primitive? Marney: (Turning, knees planted, from the waist, for a very deliberate inspection. Then she turns back and answers, in a mixture of affirmation and appreciation) Mmmmmmmmm. Lisette: He's coming over. A tanned biceps appears from behind the camera at the left, and we see a small tattoo of a winged volleyball with a ribbon below on which is inscribed "bump, set, spike". Man's Voice: Marney? Marney:(Not looking up. She knows who it is.) Jeff? Is that you? Jeff moves forward into the frame. We see only his back. The camera pans right to Ariel sitting absolutely still, next to Marney, facing straight out to sea past the camera, and fixes on her face. Then, as Jeff moves forward and down to Marney the camera moves in to the lens of Ariel's sunglasses, to an extreme close-up, and we see both Ariel's eye behind the lens, watching the scene covertly, and, reflected in the lens, Jeff leaning forward to Marney. Jeff:(kneels and kisses her behind the ear.) I dreamed you would come today. Marney: Mmmmmmmm. In Ariel's lens. Jeff: (Reaches past her holding the sunscreen/lotion where she can see it.) May I be of assistance? Marney:(An affirmative response, as she stretches out prone onto the towel.) Mmmmmmmmmmm. He reaches with slow deliberation for the snap that secures her top, and with two fingers, unsnaps it. At the moment the snap opens, across the screen, centered on the point of visual focus (ie.,the snap) we see the word "Cryonics". The letters glisten and flash like the rippling surface of water under blinding sunlight. This remains on the screen as Jeff goes through the ritual of opening the container, doling out the balm, closing the container, setting the container aside with deliberation, and rubbing his hands together. As he does this he recites the Shakespearean Sonnet... When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries And look upon myself and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possessed, Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least, When in this state, myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee, then my soul, Like to the lark at break of day Arising from sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate. For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings. Then, as he applies the sunscreen in one fluid motion from waist to shoulders, below "cryonics" appear the words " because the future is a long time." Simultaneously, Jeff says: Jeff: I will love you for a thousand years. Marney: Mmmmmmmm. (Some notes on the above: I'm after an over-the-top quality of vitality, shimmering in the brilliant sunlight; a larger-than-life aesthetic of youth and health and beauty. Sensuality, certainly, but rising out of, and deriving its power from, a deeper source. The two characters, Jeff and Marney, have a LONG history of love, the depth of which can only be hinted at. Thus the love poem, and "I will love you for a thousand years." It's a combination of the Calvin Klein's Obsession and the International Coffees commercials. One note: the dialogue between the women is perhaps a bit cheesy and mayhaps could be reworked so as to be classy yet playfully bawdy. Also, the sound track will help. Perhaps Ravel's Bolero before Marney appears, then Thus Spoke Zarathustra(the theme to "2001") as she comes on the scene, and then some "deep and abiding love" music for the end. What do you think? Are we having fun yet?) Copyright 1998 by Jeff Davis, all rights reserved. Best, Jeff Davis "Everything's hard till you know how to do it." Ray Charles =09 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=10576