Sum 41 ~ What am I to Say (version 2)

Rejected 06/01 2011

Premise

Band footage inter-cut with steam-punk robot imagery, shot in black and white. Similar vibe to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.

Tone

Moody, surprising.

Shot list

Band footage
Sum 41 will be shot in black and white sitting in an industrial-looking room filled with scrap metal. Members of the band will be shot in various ways interacting with the machine parts they’re surround by.

Inserts
We see an unusual grave in a field of tall grasses. The footage is black and white and grainy, like Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. The grave is a pile of white stones overgrown by weeds. The grave marker is a small tree made out of twisted wire. The tree has corroded metal leaves and strange fruit growing on it. The fruit looks like glass light bulbs. The entire tree looks to be covered in some kind of dark grease.

One of the bulbs falls from the tree and is immediately swallowed by the soil. The soil on the grave begins to seethe and expand. Tangled weeds on the grave recede and the white stones roll away. The soil parts. The body of a mummified woman is revealed. Her face is shrunken with age and she has two large moth cocoons attached to her eyes. Lying across the woman’s chest is a small robotic dog. The dog looks amateurish, cobbled together, and rusted. In time lapse we see the woman’s face restored. The woman jolts up, gasping for breath. The eye cocoons split and two large moths fly out from them.

The woman climbs out from the grave. As she does, she notices the robotic dog. The dog has a hole in its back where one would expect to screw in a light bulb. The woman picks up the machine.

Cut to the woman walking along the side of a gravel road in the middle of nowhere. She’s dragging the robotic dog behind her on a leash. The machine is bouncing off the gravel like a tin can being dragged behind a wedding limo.

The woman finds a weathered looking barn. She enters, still dragging the dog behind her. The interior of the barn looks to be the same place where Sum 41’s footage was shot. The woman finds one of the grave tree’s bulbs lying on a work bench. She screws the bulb into the dog’s back. The bulb illuminates and the dog robot begins to mechanically shuffle across the bench.
Further on in the space the woman spots what looks to be a humanoid robot. The woman picks up the illuminated dog robot, to cast light on the discovery. The humanoid robot is a mass of twisted wires, gears, and steel, some eight feet tall. The woman is startled by something touching her back. She drops the robot dog, and its bulb explodes. It lies motionless.
The woman turns around and feels the arm of the humanoid robot. Its long skeleton-like arms are reaching out lifelessly from the darkness.

We notice that, in the dimness, the woman’s blouse is glowing.

The woman backs away from the arm right into the torso of the humanoid robot. As soon as she makes contact with it, a row of metal latches spring shut around her body. The woman struggles. The large robot begins to move. Its monstrous head tilts into the frame. The robot eyes its new power source. With a skeletal robotic finger it opens the woman’s blouse a few inches. Her chest is pulsating with a mysterious while light.

The large robot moves out of the barn into the daylight, the struggling woman bonded to it. The two characters move through the field at increasing speed.

The woman’s fear turns to exhilaration. As the track finishes the robot and the woman fire past the open grave at great speed.

Cut to black.