Noah's Ark

During my sophomore year at NYU, I took a screenwriting class with the goal of writing the first thirty pages--or Act I--of a feature length script. At the time, I was also reading Billy Collins' poetry anthology, "180," which included a poem by C.S. Lewis (of "Narnia" fame) entitled, "The Late Passenger." It told the biblical story of Noah's Ark with a twist; one animal arrived too late to board: the unicorn. When it came time to brainstorm ideas for the screenplay, this idea was at the forefront of my mind. I wrote the story of why the unicorn was late, and "Avalloc and the Ark"--now a completed script--was born.

Of course, the story of the ark has been told on film for almost as long as the medium has existed. The earliest reference I have found is a 1906 animated version from the UK by Arthur Melbourne Cooper. Interestingly enough, in 1928, the ark featured as a parallel story line for a Great War film that included a performance by Myrna Loy, who later found fame alongside William Powell in "The Thin Man" series. The first Disney animation came in the form of a "Silly Symphony" cartoon (1933), and was revisited in "Fantasia 2000" to the accompaniment of "Pomp and Circumstance," shown here. It's a fun clip. You might recognize several of the animals from previous Disney films, including ostriches from the original "Fantasia" (1940), skunks from "Bambi" (1942), elephants from "The Jungle Book" (1967), and an opening that strongly resonates with "The Lion King (1994).

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Notice the dragon, unicorn, and phoenix around the 2:22 mark? Similar idea to Lewis. My approach, however, was not that the mythical creatures scoffed at the idea of boarding the ark. Rather, they were impeded from doing so...[dun dun dun!] Like this short, my story was also told from the animals' point of view, which is apparently the plan for a 2010 CG film version. While my initial response to this news was devastation that someone has beaten me to the punch, the $35 million budget ("UP" was made for $129M, to give you some comparison) and vocal talent of Rob Schneider assures me that there may still be room for my vision in the future.

In any event, I include all of this to give some contexts for my final project for DPP, which is to be a high-definition DVD lasting 30 seconds. My chosen theme, of course, is Noah's Ark. With this in mind, I have been asked to come up with three proposed styles. Thus, the .jpegs seen here:

Judaica


Watercolors


Stained Glass