I, Eddie Murphy

I know—we'll have only one character! That will make it easier to make a short film. Riiiight.

There are three things that are making the piece difficult to edit. First, there are lots of characters in the movie. The problem is, they're inanimate (no, I don't mean Ben). How do you make a character like a crystalline star perform without using traditional animation techniques? Second, I have to perform all the non-Ben parts myself, Eddie Murphy style. Third, I need to figure out how to only imply sentience and menace. The star sequence is a good example. Do I show the stars literally "communicating" with the evil Sputnik satellite orbiting around the earth as in the early versions? How do you imply communication without actually showing it? Having now thought about it, I think the solution is to go subjective as much as possible. Remember, the idea is to enable audiences to be able to interpret the conflict as actually happening OR as a product of Ben's imagination. For example, I think I'll have the stars create ringing noises. Then we see a view of the night sky. The ringing noises seem to "talk" to the beep beeps of an unseen satellite which then transforms into a malevolent radio tone. Easy to create visually (still image of night sky), an approach that relies heavily on sound design.