In this world, it is instantly obvious that something is odd. Little skeletal creatures scuttle around the warm streets of L.A. The whole population was forced to migrate to warmer climates because their characteristically frail bodies could not withstand even the slightest frost. It all began years ago when humans went on strike against obesity. Doctors said that obesity would shorten a person’s life span and cause a laundry list of medical problems. Thin bodies became glamorized and a focus of the influential media. Instead of exercising and eating healthy like all the nutritionists recommended, a vast majority of the population took on a diet of saltine crackers and water. Tobacco companies also had to bump up production of cigarettes because 99% of the population was now smokers (due to the claim that they decrease appetite). At first the radical effort seemed to pay off: everyone was thin and beautiful. Any size above a small became obsolete; companies began manufacturing XXXXXS’s. Over time, people began to grow more tired and weak. Their hair began to thin and break off, their teeth grayed and yellowed. It was not uncommon to see the full length of a cheekbone or the deeply sunken eye sockets of even the “largest” human. Without realizing, the world’s population was reversing its efforts. Staying young and beautiful and increasing life span drifted out of view as everyone grew thinner and thinner. Humans began dropping like flies while the bony few that were left shifted to warmer regions and scurried like rats on the streets. The few nutritionists of the world managed to avoid the wave of self-destruction and continued to prosper somewhere cool. They began rebuilding the world in their own northern metropolis where they could avoid those pesky rats. ******
Some of the actions, verbs and descriptions that stick out to me in my monologue are: scuttle, skeletal, strike, laundry list of medical problems, glamorized, tired and weak, grayed and yellowwed, sunken, dropping like flies, scurried like rats on the streets, prosper, rebuild, metropolis
I see this animated either digitally-stop motioned or with construction paper (still not sure). I want to exaggerate all of the things I described and go through each scene dramatically. I really want to work on making the "rats" the skinny, haggard creatures I imagined them as: hunched, bony and gaunt.
