The script for my recital depicts an urban fantasy setting where spirits exist alongside humans in Yurahi, the modernised city of spirits built in a valley. These spirits are heavily inspired by Hayao Miyazaki's spirits from "Spirited Away", with the world building particularly inspired by "Naussica: Valley of the Wind", with the exception being that it's a more modern era. The character dynamics were inspired by "Avatar: The Last Airbender", with two high school students being gifted the powers of the spirits of balance - Yin & Yang - so that they may carry out their duties as Spirit Hosts to balance upset / corrupted spirits. Our main protagonists are Chase Withers and Asim Essa. When creating this story and world, these two characters were the first thing I drew and fleshed out. Chase Withers is a snarky, high school loner, and since she isn't the smartest cookie and comes from a poor family, she gets quickly defensive around her peers . However, at home, she has a strong family life. She asks her little sister, Mei, for help with her homework and encourages her with her own academic endeavours. Not only that, she has hobbies outside of school such as training in martial arts, which is supported by her Aunt Jackie. Here, we see her relaxed and warm, especially with her little sister. This dichotomy between her home life and school life serves to directly contrast our other main protagonist, Asim Essa. Asim Essa is smart, charming, and wealthy, making him very popular at school. He's confident, if not a bit arrogant, and often has to be lectured by his more emotionally mature boyfriend, Yoshizumi (AKA Yoshi) when it comes to social tact. However, this completely changes with his life at home being quiet and cold. We find out that he is his father's carer and that due to his mother's fame, he rarely sees her. This striking contrast helps Asim and Chase be fantastic foils for one another when they are forced to work together in the narrative, and helps them help each other. They are not opposites; they simply balance out the other, as Yin & Yang do. Throughout the script, the trio of Asim, Chase & Yoshi try to figure out how to calm down the Spirit of Manners, who has taken to possessing the school students and staff after being corrupted by Chase & Asim's arguments and rudeness to one another. This plot and premise allows me to draw many musical parallels between the characters, spirits and setting without overcrowding the episode and I'm excited to tackle the score! Overall, I'm proud of the work I've done with the script, characters and world building as I feel like I've taken what I loved from all the anime inspired media I consumed as a kid and distilled it into something new and original that I made. Image by Robin McMahon (Chase & Asim's older 2020 character designs) - if you're interested in their art, look up their instagram tag @hollowchimes. Full script PDF can be found just below!
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Artist SummaryI'm a WA Fremantle based singer-songwriter / composer. Here, you can have a gawk at my studies, compositions and performances. Archives
August 2022
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