Part VII is a focus on adaptation and how that can be a form of Second-Hand Personal Inflection, this is the second example of Second-Hand Exploration that I will be doing. In this blog, we look at the concept, story structure, inspiration from external sources and final outline.
I think that adaptation is a form of the second-hand exploration which I am looking into with my Research this year. I had an idea a couple of years ago for a Scooby-Doo style animated show which would work as a subversive adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's' work. I have chosen to do 2D animation as my elective this year and will then produce this idea, hopefully finishing the initial designs, script, storyboards, and pitch bible for this Lovecraft project well before I start that paper in the second semester.
Concept
The work's title is Lil' Cthulu and Friends, a tv parody series of the old Hanna-Barbera mystery crew shows (like Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?, The Funky Phantom and Goober and the Ghost Chasers) where it is presented like a child-friendly, goofy cartoon, but which still maintains the dark atmosphere and traumatic elements that make Lovecraft stories what they are.
Logline
On a school trip to the neighboring town of Innsmouth, three children uncover an old-god worshipping cult who has bred a half-fish, half-human abomination with the ability to telepathically enter the old-god dimension, with the intention for it to open a gate between our world and theirs.
The children pity it and save it from its world-ending fate, nicknaming him "Lil' Cthulu" and in turn placing them in the line of fire.
Series Plan
The show is to be made up of many episodes, each chronologically following the previous, however, there are to be side-adventures and opportunities to explore the supernatural world outside of just Innsmouth and the titular Cthulu. The series takes inspiration from all of Lovecraft's work and uses them as a backdrop on top of which to tell a mystery procedural story similar to the work of Hanna-Barbera's cartoons.
Lil' Cthulu and Friends -in- "The Rats in The Walls"
The episode that I wish to writer, animate and all in all produce this year is the third of second in the series, based on a short story by H.P. Lovecraft called 'The Rats in the Walls'.
Lovecraft's tale is about an American who returns to his ancestral home, an old castle which he wishes to renovate, but the longer he stays within its walls the more and more he becomes convinced that there is an infestation of rats in his newly refurbished mansion. He hears them every night and goes mad, his nephew goes missing and upon searching for him he discovers the horrible reality that there are caverns running underneath the property, where his ancestors killed and ate their slaves. To make things worse it's revealed to us that he went crazy in a similar fashion and ended up killing and eating his nephew.
The story is one of the more disturbing Lovecraft tales in my mind, which is why I want this to be the first episode - to show the contrast inherent in the show's concept between the childlike execution, but the disturbing subject matter and heavy atmosphere.
One of the most unsettling ideas present in the story is that the slaves kept underneath the castle were kept as food for their masters for so long, that it spread through generations, and the people underneath slowly devolved to become human-like cattle.
The themes in the story are about inheritance and legacy, it tackles the age-old question of nature or nurture, and Lovecraft (in his now archaic political point of view) provides an interesting alternative answer.
The story represents bloodline as something that is unavoidable, it shows a reality where our familial ties determine who we are. The madness the main character experiences is directly inherited from his cannibalistic ancestors, and he follows neatly in their bloody footprints.
This episode will have the gang approached by an equivalent character to the protagonist in this story (Delapore) and have them uncover the same mystery, with the same shocking discovery, but be forced to battle the crazed cannibal by act three.
Incorporating Themes
The themes in the original short story, as well as themes spanning Lovecraft's' entire output, need to be incorporated into the show I'm putting together. This episode takes the themes from the short story and superimposes them onto my characters and determines the character arcs and final outcome.
Lil' Cthulu himself takes the role of protagonist in this story and in direct comparison to the Delapore character has to deal with his own origin and whether or not he is destined for the horrible fate his parents had always planned for him.
This episode sees him trying to fit into everyday life and engage in the same play that his friends do, but his psychic abilities make it incapable. He wants to fit in and be normal, but one of the other characters (Sophia) convinces him that it is accepting the differences that would make him happy. They form a little paranormal investigative group and advertise themselves around town.
He compares himself with Delapore who seems to have shed himself from his family's horrifying legacy and starts believing that he too can escape the terrible fate he was born for. Things are thrown completely out of whack when he finds out that Delapore is the same as his ancestors and the conclusion of the story returns them to the status quo at the beginning, but now Lil' Cthulu no longer wants to fit in, he feels like he can't change who he is and deliberately isolates himself - thinking the world might be better without his existence.
This is a more rough outline than what I've got prepared so far but it gets across how I've incorporated the story's themes into the episode, this will be the ideal for all the episodes - taking a classic Lovecraft tale and adapting it into the continuity of the film whilst still staying true to the original's intentions and central message.
External Inspiration and Adaptation
I think adaptation can work as an example of a Second-Hand Personal Inspiration project because of two writer/directors who have proved time and time again that they can adapt another intellectual property, make a modern and entertaining version of it, while sticking to the core ideas apparent in the original:
These boys are of course Chris Lord and Phil Miller.
The two examples I think of when I think of these two are The Lego Movie (2014) and Spider-man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018).
Both of these obey the core values that are at the heart of each property - The Lego Movie in the belief that the toy is a tool of creation for anyone to make anything they want, its about being able to follow instructions and also be able to make your own path. Two choices that are equally valuable.
Spider-man has always been a hero who every kid sees themselves as because he is the most relatable of the superheroes (representative of his own target demographic), the Spider-Verse movie's main theme is that anyone can be Spider-Man and takes the concept farther, illustrating that you don't have to be a white teenage boy either, literally anyone can.
I believe adaptation to be very similar to writing for someone else because you are also keeping in mind the personal inspirations of another person to tell the story. These examples are great because they show how it can be done well, many adaptations fail to be satisfying experiences because they don't capture what the author originally intended - or miss the personalization that the author put into it.
Adaptations can be good when the person adapting puts their own spin on it, especially if they infuse it with their own personal experiences - the recent Oscar-winning Jo Jo Rabbit (2019) being a good example of that - but a lot are poorly received because the directors or writers go out of their way to change someone else's work.
With Lil' Cthulu I want to do something in the same vein as Lord and Miller, take an existing universe and change the style while keeping the core themes and ideas alive.
Story Circle
When developing the large strokes of my story I decided to look towards Dan Harmon's story circle (best known for being the head writer on Community and Rick and Morty).
His stories are structured very similarly to The Hero's Journey and have been proven to work extremely well for TV and animated shows similar in length to what I want Lil' Cthulu to be.
So here is Lil' Cthulu and Friends in "The Rats In The Walls" broken down into Dan Harmon's story circle:
1) Comfort Zone
Lil' Cthulu and his friends are chilling at home, they play some sort of game and he wants to join in but ruins it with his out of control magical abilities.
2) Want
This incident, along with him being unable to go out without a disguise, makes him sad that he can't be like everyone else, Sophia cheers him up with the idea that maybe they can use his special abilities for good.
3) Into the Unknown
They set up their paranormal investigative group and advertise it around town with posters, they are soon contacted by Lord Delapore, who claims that his Nephew disappeared inside the walls of his newly renovated castle - and that he believes evil rats took him.
4) Adapt
The group gets into the investigating and Lil' Cthulu looks up to the self-crowned Delapore, seeing him as a prime example of someone who escaped his genetic chains.
5) Get What We Want
Lil' Cthulu starts feeling useful and accepted when his powers start helping the investigation a lot, even Howie (who was angry and distrustful of him) starts warming up.
6) Heavy Price
But Cthulu is too good of an investigator and they find the truth about Lord Delapore when they realize he has gone mad and reverted to his family's cannibalistic nature.
7) Return
Shocked and crushed by this the team have to flee from the crazed Delapore, who has trapped them and is hunting them in the castle.
8) Having Changed
They beat him and escape back to their normal lives, everyone plays again but this time Lil' Cthulu doesn't even try and play with, deciding instead to seclude himself.
Characters
I've mentioned a couple of the characters but need to go a bit more in-depth with them:
1) Lil' Cthulu - he is a Harry Potter or Hellboy type character, cursed by his own existence (purposely made to open a gate so the old-gods can re-enter this realm), he wants to fit in but acts as not only a fish-out-of-water but also as an outcast from society.
2) Howie - A cowardly kid who has his nose buried in books, he is untrusting of new things but extremely sharp and book-smart. He is reluctant to do the more risky things but always good to have around for observing important items in the world and sometimes acting as an exposition spout. Based on Lovecraft himself.
3) Sophia - The investigator type character that are so often the lead in Lovecraft stories, she is curious and has a keen eye, always exploring and pushing the team forward. She is sympathetic and cares for the others, but can also be bossy, possessive and mean to the others if she doesn't get her way. The other half of this character is inspired by the women in Lovecraft's life, who he tried to stay away from and who he feared above all else.
4) Herbert - An inventor character, he loves science and is always the one to help get them out of a sticky situation with some kind of quickly fashioned contraption. Unfortunately, he is borderline psychopathic with low empathy and some violent tendencies. Based on Herbert West from Lovecraft's The Re-Animator.
These are the main group, the mystery crew if you will.
Also in this episode is:
Lord Delapore: A self-crowned Lord who has moved back to his ancestral home to rebuild it, his whole life has been spent separating himself from the horrible legacy he was left with and his intentions returning are to overhaul every last part of his past. He does everything to get away from the monstrous reputation his family acquired over the years but tragically succumbs to the same illness of the mind that they had and ends up eating his assistant.
These are probably all the characters that will be featured in this episode, however, I want a cliffhanger at the end where an Innsmouth person (who has been sent to retrieve Lil' Cthulu) finds one of their posters.
Extra Scenes:
While following very closely to the story circle I want a teaser at the beginning for this episode and another at the end for the next. The teaser at the beginning will be of Lord Delapore hearing the rats in the walls and it getting way louder, as he is unable to find his assistant, only finding a finger or something. This goes into the amazing opening I hope to have (similar to Scooby-Doo, but which sounds more like Die Antwoord). The final teaser is of the Innsmouth citizen finding the poster and recognizing the small, cloaked shape of Lil' Cthulu.
I think that adaptation is a form of the second-hand exploration which I am looking into with my Research this year. I had an idea a couple of years ago for a Scooby-Doo style animated show which would work as a subversive adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's' work. I have chosen to do 2D animation as my elective this year and will then produce this idea, hopefully finishing the initial designs, script, storyboards, and pitch bible for this Lovecraft project well before I start that paper in the second semester.
Concept
The work's title is Lil' Cthulu and Friends, a tv parody series of the old Hanna-Barbera mystery crew shows (like Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?, The Funky Phantom and Goober and the Ghost Chasers) where it is presented like a child-friendly, goofy cartoon, but which still maintains the dark atmosphere and traumatic elements that make Lovecraft stories what they are.
Logline
On a school trip to the neighboring town of Innsmouth, three children uncover an old-god worshipping cult who has bred a half-fish, half-human abomination with the ability to telepathically enter the old-god dimension, with the intention for it to open a gate between our world and theirs.
The children pity it and save it from its world-ending fate, nicknaming him "Lil' Cthulu" and in turn placing them in the line of fire.
Series Plan
The show is to be made up of many episodes, each chronologically following the previous, however, there are to be side-adventures and opportunities to explore the supernatural world outside of just Innsmouth and the titular Cthulu. The series takes inspiration from all of Lovecraft's work and uses them as a backdrop on top of which to tell a mystery procedural story similar to the work of Hanna-Barbera's cartoons.
Lil' Cthulu and Friends -in- "The Rats in The Walls"
The episode that I wish to writer, animate and all in all produce this year is the third of second in the series, based on a short story by H.P. Lovecraft called 'The Rats in the Walls'.
Lovecraft's tale is about an American who returns to his ancestral home, an old castle which he wishes to renovate, but the longer he stays within its walls the more and more he becomes convinced that there is an infestation of rats in his newly refurbished mansion. He hears them every night and goes mad, his nephew goes missing and upon searching for him he discovers the horrible reality that there are caverns running underneath the property, where his ancestors killed and ate their slaves. To make things worse it's revealed to us that he went crazy in a similar fashion and ended up killing and eating his nephew.
The story is one of the more disturbing Lovecraft tales in my mind, which is why I want this to be the first episode - to show the contrast inherent in the show's concept between the childlike execution, but the disturbing subject matter and heavy atmosphere.
One of the most unsettling ideas present in the story is that the slaves kept underneath the castle were kept as food for their masters for so long, that it spread through generations, and the people underneath slowly devolved to become human-like cattle.
The themes in the story are about inheritance and legacy, it tackles the age-old question of nature or nurture, and Lovecraft (in his now archaic political point of view) provides an interesting alternative answer.
The story represents bloodline as something that is unavoidable, it shows a reality where our familial ties determine who we are. The madness the main character experiences is directly inherited from his cannibalistic ancestors, and he follows neatly in their bloody footprints.
This episode will have the gang approached by an equivalent character to the protagonist in this story (Delapore) and have them uncover the same mystery, with the same shocking discovery, but be forced to battle the crazed cannibal by act three.
Incorporating Themes
The themes in the original short story, as well as themes spanning Lovecraft's' entire output, need to be incorporated into the show I'm putting together. This episode takes the themes from the short story and superimposes them onto my characters and determines the character arcs and final outcome.
Lil' Cthulu himself takes the role of protagonist in this story and in direct comparison to the Delapore character has to deal with his own origin and whether or not he is destined for the horrible fate his parents had always planned for him.
This episode sees him trying to fit into everyday life and engage in the same play that his friends do, but his psychic abilities make it incapable. He wants to fit in and be normal, but one of the other characters (Sophia) convinces him that it is accepting the differences that would make him happy. They form a little paranormal investigative group and advertise themselves around town.
He compares himself with Delapore who seems to have shed himself from his family's horrifying legacy and starts believing that he too can escape the terrible fate he was born for. Things are thrown completely out of whack when he finds out that Delapore is the same as his ancestors and the conclusion of the story returns them to the status quo at the beginning, but now Lil' Cthulu no longer wants to fit in, he feels like he can't change who he is and deliberately isolates himself - thinking the world might be better without his existence.
This is a more rough outline than what I've got prepared so far but it gets across how I've incorporated the story's themes into the episode, this will be the ideal for all the episodes - taking a classic Lovecraft tale and adapting it into the continuity of the film whilst still staying true to the original's intentions and central message.
External Inspiration and Adaptation
I think adaptation can work as an example of a Second-Hand Personal Inspiration project because of two writer/directors who have proved time and time again that they can adapt another intellectual property, make a modern and entertaining version of it, while sticking to the core ideas apparent in the original:
These boys are of course Chris Lord and Phil Miller.
The two examples I think of when I think of these two are The Lego Movie (2014) and Spider-man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018).
Both of these obey the core values that are at the heart of each property - The Lego Movie in the belief that the toy is a tool of creation for anyone to make anything they want, its about being able to follow instructions and also be able to make your own path. Two choices that are equally valuable.
Spider-man has always been a hero who every kid sees themselves as because he is the most relatable of the superheroes (representative of his own target demographic), the Spider-Verse movie's main theme is that anyone can be Spider-Man and takes the concept farther, illustrating that you don't have to be a white teenage boy either, literally anyone can.
I believe adaptation to be very similar to writing for someone else because you are also keeping in mind the personal inspirations of another person to tell the story. These examples are great because they show how it can be done well, many adaptations fail to be satisfying experiences because they don't capture what the author originally intended - or miss the personalization that the author put into it.
Adaptations can be good when the person adapting puts their own spin on it, especially if they infuse it with their own personal experiences - the recent Oscar-winning Jo Jo Rabbit (2019) being a good example of that - but a lot are poorly received because the directors or writers go out of their way to change someone else's work.
With Lil' Cthulu I want to do something in the same vein as Lord and Miller, take an existing universe and change the style while keeping the core themes and ideas alive.
Story Circle
When developing the large strokes of my story I decided to look towards Dan Harmon's story circle (best known for being the head writer on Community and Rick and Morty).
His stories are structured very similarly to The Hero's Journey and have been proven to work extremely well for TV and animated shows similar in length to what I want Lil' Cthulu to be.
So here is Lil' Cthulu and Friends in "The Rats In The Walls" broken down into Dan Harmon's story circle:
1) Comfort Zone
Lil' Cthulu and his friends are chilling at home, they play some sort of game and he wants to join in but ruins it with his out of control magical abilities.
2) Want
This incident, along with him being unable to go out without a disguise, makes him sad that he can't be like everyone else, Sophia cheers him up with the idea that maybe they can use his special abilities for good.
3) Into the Unknown
They set up their paranormal investigative group and advertise it around town with posters, they are soon contacted by Lord Delapore, who claims that his Nephew disappeared inside the walls of his newly renovated castle - and that he believes evil rats took him.
4) Adapt
The group gets into the investigating and Lil' Cthulu looks up to the self-crowned Delapore, seeing him as a prime example of someone who escaped his genetic chains.
5) Get What We Want
Lil' Cthulu starts feeling useful and accepted when his powers start helping the investigation a lot, even Howie (who was angry and distrustful of him) starts warming up.
6) Heavy Price
But Cthulu is too good of an investigator and they find the truth about Lord Delapore when they realize he has gone mad and reverted to his family's cannibalistic nature.
7) Return
Shocked and crushed by this the team have to flee from the crazed Delapore, who has trapped them and is hunting them in the castle.
8) Having Changed
They beat him and escape back to their normal lives, everyone plays again but this time Lil' Cthulu doesn't even try and play with, deciding instead to seclude himself.
Characters
I've mentioned a couple of the characters but need to go a bit more in-depth with them:
1) Lil' Cthulu - he is a Harry Potter or Hellboy type character, cursed by his own existence (purposely made to open a gate so the old-gods can re-enter this realm), he wants to fit in but acts as not only a fish-out-of-water but also as an outcast from society.
2) Howie - A cowardly kid who has his nose buried in books, he is untrusting of new things but extremely sharp and book-smart. He is reluctant to do the more risky things but always good to have around for observing important items in the world and sometimes acting as an exposition spout. Based on Lovecraft himself.
3) Sophia - The investigator type character that are so often the lead in Lovecraft stories, she is curious and has a keen eye, always exploring and pushing the team forward. She is sympathetic and cares for the others, but can also be bossy, possessive and mean to the others if she doesn't get her way. The other half of this character is inspired by the women in Lovecraft's life, who he tried to stay away from and who he feared above all else.
4) Herbert - An inventor character, he loves science and is always the one to help get them out of a sticky situation with some kind of quickly fashioned contraption. Unfortunately, he is borderline psychopathic with low empathy and some violent tendencies. Based on Herbert West from Lovecraft's The Re-Animator.
These are the main group, the mystery crew if you will.
Also in this episode is:
Lord Delapore: A self-crowned Lord who has moved back to his ancestral home to rebuild it, his whole life has been spent separating himself from the horrible legacy he was left with and his intentions returning are to overhaul every last part of his past. He does everything to get away from the monstrous reputation his family acquired over the years but tragically succumbs to the same illness of the mind that they had and ends up eating his assistant.
These are probably all the characters that will be featured in this episode, however, I want a cliffhanger at the end where an Innsmouth person (who has been sent to retrieve Lil' Cthulu) finds one of their posters.
Extra Scenes:
While following very closely to the story circle I want a teaser at the beginning for this episode and another at the end for the next. The teaser at the beginning will be of Lord Delapore hearing the rats in the walls and it getting way louder, as he is unable to find his assistant, only finding a finger or something. This goes into the amazing opening I hope to have (similar to Scooby-Doo, but which sounds more like Die Antwoord). The final teaser is of the Innsmouth citizen finding the poster and recognizing the small, cloaked shape of Lil' Cthulu.
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