Once upon a time, there was a woman who everyone thought was a witch…
I am trying to figure out how much time I have to establish the series of past accusations against Elizabeth How. I have started drawing a series of poses for the cow that chokes on a turnip. Like the sequence in My Grandmother Ironed the King’s Shirts I discussed a few posts ago, one that took 24 seconds to tell the history of the demise of all the former kings of Norway, I’ve been studying the brief sequence in The Incredibles when Edna Mode puts her foot down with Mr. Incredible about his new supersuit, announcing definitively, “No capes!” It takes her all of 30 seconds to tell the stories of the deaths of five different supers because of accidents with their capes:
This is how I’ve timed it out:
Timing for the “No capes!” sequence in The Incredibles
As the film stands now (Take #8), I’ve got the opening devoted previous accusations – three of them: afflicting Hannah Perley (6 seconds), the cow choking on a turnip (3 seconds), and the sow leaping in the air and falling dead (2 second) – followed by the ministers defending her from those accusations, before the trial deposition sequence begins at about 20 seconds in (counting the time for the titles). As I’ve got the cow sequence drawn right now, it’s gotten to 6 seconds. It may depend on what kind of narration goes with it – how long it actually takes to say what it is. I have a couple of other bizarre accusations in the records, too, that I may be able to put together in a few seconds of storytelling. The “no capes” sequence starts with a 17-second beginning to establish the theme of the danger of capes, then the following four “stories” take progressively less time: 6 seconds, 3 seconds, 2 seconds, and 2 seconds. I’d like to spend the longest time with the initial accusations regarding Hannah Perley. Then I have the cow choking on the turnip, and the pig leaping up and dying. I don’t know that just three will do it for the lead-in. I probably have enough stories in the records to do a couple more, but they’d have to be really quick. I don’t think I should spend more than 30 seconds on the intro. If I can get Hannah Perley in 15 seconds, the cow in 6, and two to three more deftly in 2-3 seconds each (the pig should go that quickly), I’d be in that timeframe, and ready to tell the BIG story, about the mare. That’s when I can switch to the true-crime format and have the four witnesses tell their parts of the story. Hmm… I’ll have to go back and see what else I can find…
Salem Witch Tales: Production Blog 