I chose to look at the Cyberpunk sub-genre for a number of reasons. The most important one to me is the idea that Gregor is something alien like, unexplainable and shocking. These things to me can be easily placed into the Sci-fi genre. Choosing Cyberpunk from this was purely for contrast against the English Gothic. The high technology aspect of the sub-genre will help me show the difference between the family and Gregor. He is trying to understand this futuristic, unrealised being he has become and his family are set in their ways, stubborn and unwilling to accept the fact that although he has changed on the outside, he is still the same person within.
Lawrence Person, editor of Nova Express –a science fiction fanzine- describes a classic cyberpunk character as ‘marginalized, alienated loners who lived on the edge of society’, traits I feel Gregor beholds.
The example of Cyberpunk I looked into was the film The Matrix. To summarise this film....
‘Thomas A. Anderson is a man living two lives. By day he is an average computer programmer and by night a malevolent hacker known as Neo. Neo has always questioned his reality but the truth is far beyond his imagination. Neo finds himself targeted by the police when he is contacted by Morpheus, a legendary computer hacker branded a terrorist by the government. Morpheus awakens Neo to the real world, a ravaged wasteland where most of humanity have been captured by a race of machines which live off of their body heat and imprison their minds within an artificial reality known as the Matrix. As a rebel against the machines, Neo must return to the Matrix and confront the agents, super powerful computer programs devoted to snuffing out Neo and the entire human rebellion.’
Taken from www.IMDB.com
The link below explains the ideas of imprisonment within the matrix, and how Neo becomes ‘re-born’ in the real world. I chose this example to show the idea of imprisonment in the mind, and how it is shown. There is a vast difference between the sets of the Matrix world and the Real world, with the matrix seeming to be a wash of colours with no real depth or brightness and the real world delivering a stark contrast of light and dark, brightness and gloominess.
I want to use the idea of differences in The Matrix to explain the difference between Gregor and his family. Gregors family are in the dark about this new world that Gregor has entered into, whilst Gregor is experiencing something new and hidden from the other people in his world – his family – and no one understands, including him.
The Red Room by HG Well is a classic example of Gothic Horror.
The story is about a young man who stays in a room that a young duke died in. When told about the haunting of the room, the young man doesn’t hold back in his disbelief of ghostly creatures and is invited to stay in the room to test his own opinions. Once in the room he starts doubt himself, lighting candles about the room to keep in the light. It is when the candles start to go out without due cause or explanation that his panic grows gradually until he is somehow knocked unconscious and awakes the next day. He announces the next day that it is in fact fear itself that he was afraid of, the darkness surrounding him and the room itself.
The idea that a room can bring about this irrational fear with only imagination thinking that the drafts blowing out the candles are being guided by a malevolent ghostly intelligence is almost appalling, but when a brought to theatre it shows a whole new world. Within the English gothic horror sub-genre, the room becomes a character. The shade of red used, the objects in the room and their placing, where the light is coming from and the shape of the room.
The full story can be read here
http://www.twilightharbor.com/moonmistress/stories/RedRoom.html
It was this loneliness mainly that made me think about how I wanted to portray The Metamorphosis and also the separation between Gregor and his family. In my chosen Sub-genres, English Gothic Horror and Cyber Punk I feel like I can work different aspects of the play and then bring them together in a mix to create a new sub-genre of the two.
I will firstly be looking into them separately, drawing sketches from each and then bringing them together, mixing the aspects I think will work best together. Hopefully I will be able to have one sub-genre to express Gregors family and the other to express Gregor himself, which I think will help me to portray the divide between them that I see.
English Gothic Horror – Characteristic theme is the stranglehold of the past upon the present or the encroachment of the Dark Ages of oppression upon the "enlightened" modern era. Enclosed and haunted settings (castles, crypts, convents, mansions), gloomy images of ruin and decay, episodes of imprisonment, cruelty, and persecution are used to express this.
Cyber Punk - High technology in the not-so-distant future, featuring a bleak outlook and setting, displaying humanity almost destroying itself with its own advances. It Encompasses nanotechnology, cyborgs, androids and/or virtual reality.
Definitions taken from www.fictonfactor.com
Taking influence from the 2 projects we did previously, I bought the screenplay and found the scene that I want to do and made a copy to write on.
The extract that I have chosen is form the end of the screen play. I choose to start it when I did so that I can better understand the important mix of emotions that rapidly change from start to finish. I marked out the points when Gregor speaks as individual because it shows something important in how Steven Berkoff portrays the story. Greogor is speaking to the audience as a narrator of his own emotions. Berkoff makes a clear difference between the animal side of Gregor and the human side. I took this all into consideration, split up my scenes on my paper copies and started to make a table up.
| Scene Section | Scene description and plot development | Page and Line | Location and Place | Light | Mood |
| 1 | Lodgers are coming to the house for much need income. | Pg. 114 L.11 To Pg. 114 L. 24 | Main living area. | Warm lighting | Happy, Inviting. |
| 2 | The Lodgers arrive and the family tend to them. | Pg. 115 L.1 To Pg. 115 L. 22 | Doorway and main living area. | Warm lighting | “ “ |
| 3 | The family mention that a ‘pet’ lives in the back room. | Pg. 115 L.23 To Pg. 116 L. 5 | Main living area. | As the family mentions the pet, illuminate Gregors room, then bring back to darkness. | Worry, Deception, Secrecy. |
| 4 | The lodgers possessions are thrown into Gregors room out of the way. Dinner is served, the family wait on the lodgers like servants. | Pg. 116 L.6 To Pg. 116 L.24 | Main living area, doorway to Gregors room, Dining Table. | Warm light, with Gregors room only illuminating slightly as the lodgers possessions are tossed inside. | Happy, Jovial. |
| 4 – Gregors Narration | Gregor speaks of how he feels alone and forgotten, even more so now the lodgers have arrived. | Pg. 116 L.12 To Pg. 116 L.17 | Gregors room. | As Gregor speaks, The rest of the stage goes black and only his room is illuminated dimly with a spot light on him. | Sadness, Hatred, Loneliness. |
| 5 | Gregor is heard eating his food by the lodgers and they are disturbed. The family successfully conceal his exsistance as a ‘pet’. Greta starts to play the violin to distract the lodgers. | Pg. 117 L.1 To Pg. 117 L.21 | Dining room, Main living area. | Warm lighting with Gregors room this time dimly lit. As Greta starts to play her violin, the dim light grows in Gregors room, with a spotlight following his movements. | Panic, Worry, Deception, Calm. |
| 5 – Gregors narration | He talks about how he is not an animal, he hears the music and appreciates it. He cannot remember how long it has been since he was his human self. | Pg. 117 L. 11 To Pg. 117 L.21 | Gregors room. | The light grows brighter as he walks down the stairs from his room, lighting the whole stage. | Longing, Sadness, Loneliness. |
| 6 | One of the Lodgers spots Gregor and pulls back in disgust. The lodgers feel deceived by the family and leave the house. | Pg. 117 L.22 To Pg. 119 L.16 | Main living area, doorway. | As soon as a lodger spots Gregor, the lighting goes dim, except for a spot light around Gregor in white light. As the lodgers leave, the house loses its warm glow. | Unease, Distrust, Anger. |
| 7 | The family now despise Gregor for driving the lodgers away, their only source of income. They talk about how they are to get rid of him, he is no longer Gregor and how the ‘real’ Gregor would have understood. | Pg. 119 L.17 To Pg. 120 L. 17 | Main living area. | The house remains dim and as Gregor slinks back to his room, the light on the stairs goes out and the spotlight on him dims down. As and when Gregor finishes talking, the rest of the stage goes to blackout. | Despair, Hatred, Cunning, Reason. |
| 7 – Gregors narration | He sees that his family fear him and are in misery. He wants to leave the weakening body behind, and be at peace at last. | Pg. 120 L.11 To Pg. 120 L.17 | Gregors Room | Gregors final spotlight dims down to blackout as he finishes talking. | Sadness, Weakness, Contentment. |
