I have strange dreams sometimes. Dreams are always strange–they’re dreams–but mine can be strange in a strange way. I had a dream in which I was Sherlock Holmes once. I was at a crime scene, everyone was looking at me for an insight, an explanation, and I had no idea what to do. I just stood there, hoping nobody would notice I had no idea what to do.
Other reoccurring dreams: I’m back in school again, exams are coming up, I haven’t attended any classes in years, I start to panic. Or my teeth are dropping out. Or I’m flying, but I can’t land without dying.
And then people say: “Live your dreams.” No thanks.
One time I had a dream in which someone asked me to kick a ball, and right before I kicked it, I noticed it had a little face: it wasn’t a ball. That dream somehow blended together with an old video game I remembered, and the result is this video, Humaniwubba.
It’s a nonsense word, “Humaniwubba”. I was known for those when I was very young–“Humaniwubba” is from when I was 11–but later on too. Nonsensical words always perfectly express what I want to say. A couple of those nonsense words later turned out to actually mean something: I used to say “Zambezi” for example, because I liked the sound of it; years later I discovered it’s a river in Africa.
I don’t know why I went around as a kid uttering the names of African rivers.
As you can see, we’re off to a good start. Love this blog.
That’s the skyline of the quaint little town where Humaniwubba and his friends reside. His friends are called Goom and Sandor. I didn’t know this either, but my files say it, so it must be so. Goom is the little blue fellow: I did his voice myself, and it took such a toll on my vocal cords that I was hoarse for a few days. (I accidentally wrote “horse” first: “It took such a toll on my vocal cords that I was a horse for a few days.”) I was so hoarse, I needed a hearse. A hearse pulled by horses. I did all the voices for this one actually–Humaniwubba and Sandor too. I do that sometimes, but never credit myself, out of modesty, or shame. I did the narration for Silex the Barbarian, and the Skull King’s voice; and Zernak is me too; and those two Converters. I’m Dutch, so if there’s an accent, now you know why. The great thing about doing voice work myself is that I don’t have to endlessly explain to myself what I want.
Backdrop for the scene where Goom hands the ball to Humaniwubba. The camera pans down. I restricted myself to only using the 15-color palette of the old 8-bit ZX Spectrum home computer, as you do. I didn’t have one of those, but I was aware of its existence through ads and stuff, and its limited colors always intrigued me. Every screenshot had a unique look. Imposing such restrictions upon yourself forces you to access different parts of your brain, to be creative; you become an artist without habits. I really had to think about the color arrangement when I made this video–strategize almost.
The video’s general look was stolen from inspired by an old PC video game called The Neverhood. Not many people have played it, but my brother was a fan. He used to say, “Come on, look, this is great,” but I felt I was too old for video games then and wasn’t interested. It was a point-and-click adventure made entirely with clay, very creatively done, very inventive. I suppose the word “Humaniwubba” made me think of Hubba Bubba chewing gum, which in turn made me think of clay, which made me think of claymation, and then The Neverhood. See, this is why I opened this blog post talking about dreams.
Why are there Beatles in this video? There’s a bit where Goom appears to refer to the film The Wild One (1953), more specifically the scene where the character Chino (Lee Marvin) says: “That’s better Johnny. You know I miss you. Ever since the club split up, I miss you. We all missed ya… Ya miss him? Yeah! The Beetles missed ya! All the Beetles missed ya!” It’s supposedly where The Beatles got their name from (though I doubt that). Anyway, this clip is shown in the Beatles Anthology documentary, which aired on TV in 1996, the same year The Neverhood came out. I could easily make things even weirder than that, but I don’t want to completely alienate my modest Tumblr audience just yet.
That’s the original pencil drawing of the scene above. Forgot to add that, so here it is.
Might as well add the original skyline drawing too then. The style, with its hatched shadings and rubbery buildings, actually reminds me of those old Krazy Kat newspaper comics a bit. Krazy Kat seemed to live in a cold, alien world, filled with abstract objects and a random daytime/nighttime cycle. The comics had a dark, dreamlike atmosphere, a surrealistic quality that presented itself as the most ordinary thing in the world. I’m sure there’s a trace of those comics in this video.
You can see the Humaniwubba video on my channel, Tales from Weirdland (plug, plug):
No comments:
Post a Comment