Rough (really rough) Layouts

Character turnarounds

Character Development- Sketchdump

Revised Layouts

Revised Script

Beelzebob

Page 1:

Panel 1: Establishing shot, winter, day. A dirty cityscape, shop fronts the main focus of attention. Busy, people about. Some decent and some a bit dodgy.

Caption: every person has a darkness in them but its what they choose that defines them.

Panel 2: full shot, of a woman dressed smartly leaving a shop, a sign in the window says: job vacancies apply within. She seems to be carrying a bundle of C.V’s

Caption: some have more darkness than others…

Panel 3: ¾ shot. She starts to move towards the next shop. She looks up slightly… seeming to be tired and fed up.

Panel 4: ¾ shot. Just before she enters Beelzebob appears on her shoulder. She looks annoyed.

     Lilith: ‘not again bob… leave me alone.’

Panel 5: shot as before. Bob smiles mischievously.

     Bob: ‘no can do.’

Panel 6: she sighs and goes into the shop.

Page 2:

Panel 1: full shot. In the shop. She is handing her CV to the lady at the counter, while Bob who has moved off her shoulder has started playing with jewellery that is sitting on the counter. It is obvious that the woman behind the counter cant see him.

Panel 2: ¾ shot. As she is talking to the lady at the counter Bob tries to put the jewellery in her pocket.

Panel 3: ¾ shot. She thanks the lady and starts to move off. Bob jumps on to her shoulder again, still clutching jewellery.

Lilith: ‘Beelzebob cut it out or I will send you back to the hell you came from.’

Panel 4: ¾ shot. Bob just smirks at her as she tries to remove the jewellery from her pocket before exiting the shop.

Bob: ‘come on Lilith you know you want to… such a little thing shoplifting. No one will notice.’

Panel 5: Lilith successfully removes the jewellery and dumps it on the stand next to the exit. Bob moves to the other shoulder defeated look on his face.

    

Bob: ‘one day you’ll do something really bad and then hell will have you.’

Panel 6: Lilith pauses outside the shop and looks at bob.

Lilith: ‘enough Bob… please. I just want to go home.’

Page 3:

Panel 1: establishing shot. A dirty street view, late afternoon. Very few people about and those who are a bit rough. There are rundown old cars lining the streets. The main focus is an apartment block half way down the street. It’s shabby like the others around and most of the bottom windows are boarded up.

Panel 2: full shot. Lilith is about to go up the stairs to the dingy apartment block. Bob is still on her shoulder. The door is old and the paint is peeling. The lighting has become increasingly dark.

Panel 3: ¾ shot. Inside the apartment block Lilith and Bob pause, shocked.

Panel 4: full shot. A man has attacked one of the residents with a knife. He is positioned over a beaten and bloody body.

Panel 5: ¾ shot. Bob pushes the door behind them.

Panel 6: same ¾ shot. It shuts with a bang. Lilith flinches.

Panel 7: ¾ shot. The man with the knife turns. Anger apparent on his face. And looks at the camera with a dark expression.

Page 4:

Panel 1: the man lunges for her. Her C.V.’s fly everywhere as she reacts.

Panel 2: she moves to the side but his arm catches her around her waist.

Panel 3:they both fall to the ground. Bob has conveniently disappeared.

Panel 4: the man is first to recover from the fall and towers over her knife in hand.

Panel 5: just as he gets ready to bring the knife down. Lilith brings her knee up to hit in the groin.

Panel 6: he topples and Lilith grabs the knife.

Panel 7: she stabs him in the leg, through the calf muscle.

Panel 8: She pulls the knife out.

Page 5:

Panel 1:she stands over the guy who is howling in pain clutching at his leg. A darkness has passed over her face and bob has appeared at her feet about to jump to her shoulder.

     Bob: ‘do it… finish it. You know you want to’

Panel 2: close up of Lilith’s head and shoulders. Angle from underneath. Can see bob on her shoulder. She has a slight menacing grin on her face and Bob is outright grinning demonically.

Page 6:

Panel 1: ¾ shot. Outside Lilith’s flat. Lilith returns to her flat, exhausted and numb and disheveled. Reaching for door handle. Bob is at her feet.

Panel 2: full shot. Inside the flat. Lilith leans heavily on the door, closing it and using it for support. Head bowed down. Bob is around her feet.

Panel 3: full shot, as before. She looks up, bob still around her feet.

Panel 4: full shot, same as before. Lilith walks down the corridor towards the side unit.

Panel 5: 1/2 shot(view of mirror) she stops in front of the side unit where there is a mirror and she looks at herself. She has a shocked expression and has slight bloodstains on her face and hands. A handsome man can be seen behind her in the shadows (she cant see him as she is focused on the blood) (in the mirror).

Page 7:

Panel 1: ½ shot. Lilith reaches out and touches the mirror leaving stain. Bob appears next to her sitting on the side. A menacing grin on his face.

Panel 2: ½ shot, as before. The man grabs Lilith by her hair and her arm. She becomes even more shocked/scared. He has a slight smile on his face and an evil look.

Man: ‘You’re mine now.’

Panel 3: head/shoulders shot. She stammers with fear.

     Lilith: ‘w-who are y-y-you?’

Panel 4: close up on mans face. Man leans into her, bends his head towards her neck, looking at her in the mirror, with an evil glint in his eye. Bob has entered scene at bottom, smiling.

Man: ‘I’m the devil in disguise.’

Panel 5: black panel.

Page 8:

Panel 1: Black panel apart from a speech bubble.

Bob: ‘uhm boss… She didn’t do it’

Panel 2: over the shoulder shot of bob. The man has moved back away from Lilith, who has doubled over the side unit in relief. Bob is sitting watching the scene. The mans arms are thrown up around his head in frustration.

Man: ‘God dammit!’

Panel 3. Same as before. Man is looking towards bob and Lilith, scowl on his face.

Panel 4. Same as before. There is a swirl of smoke in place of the man. Lilith has looked up towards bob.

Panel 5. She reaches out to scratch bob behind his ear.

Lilith: ‘Thanks bob.’

End

Revised Pitch and synopsis

Beelzebob Elevator pitch:

A young woman, Lilith, with a Personal Demon finds herself in trouble with the Devil after Bob, her demon, has been trying to get her to commit an unforgivable crime. The Devil believing Bob has succeeded tries to take her soul but Bob doesn’t let her fall into the Devils hands.

Synopsis

Lilith has an unfortunate situation that has landed her with her own Personal Demon, Beelzebob, or Bob for short. He has spent the last 4 years trying to persuade Lilith to commit an unforgivable crime, thus condemning her soul to the care of the Devil.

Now his chance has come.

After a long day searching for a new job, the exhausted Lilith goes home to find an over enthusiastic drug dealer taking payment with a knife. Bob takes this opportunity and Lilith finds herself struggling for her life and her soul.  

The Devil, thinking she has committed murder, arrives to take her soul. However Bob has a moment of morality that leads to him to tell the truth and saving Lilith’s soul.

Initial Concept- visual development

Research

Research notes

Hell.

·      Eternal place of endless torture and punishment.

·      Typically by religious traditions hell is located under the Earths external surface and often include entrances on earth.

·      Other afterlife destinations: heaven, purgatory and limbo

·      Some traditions just depict hell as a home for the dead, a neutral place: the underworld and Hades.

·      Hell is portrayed as populated with demons who torment those that live there- many are ruled by demons/death gods such as Nergal, hades, Enma, Devil

·      Dantes’s devine comedy, Plato’s myth of Er

·      Punishments in hell often correspond to the sins committed during life.  Often sinners are subjected to several chambers of hell or levels of suffering.

·      Depicted as fiery, painful, guilt inflicting and suffering. Others sometimes portray hell as cold.

·      Buddhist (especially Tibetan Buddhist) describes hell as having equal number of hot and cold hells.

·      In Dante’s inferno portrays the innermost circle of hell as a frozen lake of blood and guilt.

·      Greek mythology: Tartarus. Deep gloomy place, a pit or abyss used as a dungeon of torment and suffering within Hades(the whole of the underworld)  souls were judged after death and those who received punishement wee sent to tartarus.

·      Native American: mayan- dangerous underworld of 9 levels ruled by the demons Vucub Caquix and Hun Came. The road in and out is said to be steep, thorny and very forbidding. Metnal is the lowest and horrible of the 9 hells and is ruled by ah Puch. Healers would perform rituals to banish diseases and illness to Metnal.  

The Aztecs- the dead travelled to Mictlan, a neutral place in the north, which was always dark and grew white flowers and was home to the gods of death.  Took 4 years to travel to Mictlan and the travellers had t overcome difficult tests, such as pasing a mountain range where mountains crashed into each other, a field where the wind carried flesh scrapping knives and a river of blood with fearsome jaguars.

·      Christianity. : The Roman Catholic Church defines Hell as "a state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God. you would end up in Hell as the result of dying in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love, becoming eternally separated from Him by one's own free choice. Hell is taught as the final destiny of those who have not been found worthy after the general resurrection and last judgment, where they will be eternally punished for sin.

·      Islam: In the Qur'an, the holy book of Islam, there are literal descriptions of the condemned in a fiery Hell. In addition, Heaven and Hell are split into many different levels depending on the actions perpetrated in life, where punishment is given depending on the level of evil done in life, and good is separated into other levels depending on how well one followed God while alive. The gate of Hell is guarded by Maalik who is the leader of the angels assigned as the guards of hell also known as Zabaaniyah.

Although generally Hell is often portrayed as a hot steaming and tormenting place for sinners, there is one Hell pit which is characterized differently from the other Hell in Islamic tradition. Zamhareer is the Hell of extreme coldness, of unbearable blizzards, ice, and snow.

The lowest pit of Hell is Hawiyah, meant for those hypocrites who claimed aloud to believe in Allah and His messenger but denounced both in their hearts

·      Buddhism: Buddha teaches about the hell in vivid detail. Buddhism teaches that there are five (sometimes six) realms of rebirth, which can then be further subdivided into degrees of agony or pleasure. Of these realms, the hell realms, or Naraka, is the lowest realm of rebirth. Of the hell realms, the worst is Avīci or "endless suffering".

However, like all realms of rebirth, rebirth in the Hell realms is not permanent, though suffering can persist for eons before being reborn again.

The Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha, according to the Ksitigarbha Sutra, made a great vow as a young girl to not reach Nirvana until all beings were liberated from the Hell Realms or other unwholesome rebirths. In popular literature, Ksitigarbha travels to the Hell realms to teach and relieve beings of their suffering.

Beelzebub.

·      Literally in Arabic means lord of the flies, with numerous archaic variants

·      Another name for the devil (biblical) and is one of the 7 princes of hell according to the catholic church.

·      Prince of demons. Formerly a heavenly angel. Claims to cause destruction through tyrants, to cause demons to be worshiped among men, to cause jealousies, lust, murder and wars.

·      Placed high in hell’s hierarchy.

·      Led a successful revolt against the devil and presides over the order of the fly.

·      One of the 3 most prominent fallen angels.

·      Associated with the sin of pride and gluttony.

·      Also known as the prince of false gods.

·      Often used by witches in their confessions. Salem witch trials.

·      Beelzebub- responsible for many demon possessions.