Nightwood: The Film Bible
Jazz Wong
Nightwood: The Film Bible serves as an experimentation of visual narrative within world building for a movie pitch, as depicted through the screenplay “Nightwood.” Plagued by surreal dreams of an avian monster, an outcast teenager enlists her detention partner in uncovering the mysteries behind their bird-obsessed town in an attempt to preserve her sanity. This pitch contains: act one, concept design, source material, and accompanying music for “Nightwood” through a book modeled after Catholic missals and bibles.
The visual component assists in fleshing out the characters and the town, as shown through the concept designs that are meticulously created and essential for foreshadowing, like the repetition of the number three, or secret alchemy symbols carved everywhere. The screenplay also deals with themes of loneliness and forgiveness through a religious lens, drawing ties to the surreal painter, Hieronymus Bosch, whose work serves as an inspiration for Nightwood's “dreamworld." Influenced by precursors such as Donnie Darko and Hereditary, which contain heavy world-building and complex mysteries, this pitch bible examines the screenplay’s source material, including Philippine myth, Dante’s Inferno, Gustave Flaubert's The Temptation of Saint Anthony, alchemy’s "Tria Prima," and Bosch’s art. These concepts and works are essential to understanding the direction and lore of “Nightwood.”