Decomposer: A post-COVID reflection on nature, humanity, and stillness | Kinolime Podcast Episode 13

Show Notes

This video features a panel discussion hosted by Kinolime regarding one of the top three screenplays from their 2.0 competition, titled Decomposer. The participants discuss the following key themes and observations: First Impressions and Visual Storytelling: The panelists praised Decomposer as a fast-paced, highly visual screenplay that relies more on imagery than dialogue. They noted the story’s ability to remain engaging throughout its approximately 70-page length. Protagonist and Genre: The main character, a parasite named George, is viewed as an empathetic, yet complex anti-hero. The panel discussed how the screenplay effectively balances levity with darker, existential themes, fitting well within the horror genre despite its non-traditional approach to character arcs. Nature and Humanity: A central theme of the discussion was the portrayal of nature as a powerful, unforgiving force that may be indifferent to humanity. The panelists noted how the story mirrors real-world fears about the environment and humanity’s impact on the planet. Narrative Comparisons: The panelists compared the screenplay to works such as Under the Skin and The Road, as well as citing the character’s struggle with being an alien trying to fit into a human context, similar to the character arc in Men in Black. The Need for the Story: Reflecting on why the screenplay should be produced, the panel emphasized that it is a "great screenplay" that successfully explores themes of loss, the tragic cycle of becoming what one hates, and the question of what humanity is worth saving.

Full Transcript

[00:00]

I'll tell you why I think the story needs to be told in Iran or order to get ready because

[00:03]

the screenplay is good.

[00:05]

Boom.

[00:06]

That's it.

[00:07]

That's why it should be made.

[00:08]

Great screenplay should be made.

[00:09]

And you guys said all the eloquent, you know, uh, uh, I'm more like it's a great screenplay.

[00:18]

It should be.

[00:19]

I want to see it get made.

[00:21]

It's a great screenplay.

[00:22]

It should be made.

[00:23]

Great screenplay should get made.

[00:30]

All right.

[00:37]

Welcome everyone to another keen align round table discussions.

[00:40]

Talk about one of the top three screenplays from our 2.0 competition, the composer and here

[00:46]

with us live overseas in Zoom rooms at home.

[00:50]

We have three amazing people to discuss the composer, which was an amazing screenplay

[00:54]

that I personally loved.

[00:56]

First and foremost, we have Andre Ford, who was one of the top three finalists in the

[01:01]

2.0 competition or Cooperville.

[01:03]

Andre, what's up?

[01:04]

How are you?

[01:05]

Good, man.

[01:06]

Are you doing today?

[01:07]

Thanks for volunteering and, you know, wanting to come in.

[01:09]

I know you're hugely active on the forum.

[01:12]

So, uh, you know, I know you mentioned many times how much you love decomposer.

[01:16]

So thanks for hopping on to talk about it.

[01:18]

Thanks for the invite.

[01:19]

Got the email.

[01:20]

It was a no brainer.

[01:21]

I was like, oh, I'll be right there.

[01:23]

And then we have Georgina, George, aka George, no, that's for Paul Neck.

[01:28]

So Georgina, Georgie, thank you for coming on.

[01:33]

Thank you very much for having me.

[01:34]

It's very nice to be here.

[01:35]

I'm excited.

[01:36]

And where are you based currently?

[01:38]

London.

[01:39]

Yeah, North London.

[01:40]

Oh, okay.

[01:42]

And how did you hear about keen align?

[01:43]

What brought you into the fold here with us?

[01:45]

Lovely friend of mine, right?

[01:46]

One of your submitted scripts to you guys.

[01:49]

I really enjoyed reading it and ended up sort of carrying on reading more of the scripts

[01:53]

on the site.

[01:55]

I really enjoyed it.

[01:56]

So much great content on there.

[01:57]

It's, you know, it's worth sticking around.

[01:59]

Thanks for coming on.

[02:00]

And we have the lovely Kaya Amor, who is a colleague of here, a keen align, a CMO, a keen

[02:07]

align, a big fan of decomposer.

[02:10]

I know Kaya, when you read this, you were like, you're texting like crazy about it and

[02:14]

then what you were so vocal about how much you loved it.

[02:15]

So thanks for coming on too.

[02:17]

Of course.

[02:18]

Absolutely.

[02:19]

Yes.

[02:20]

I really, all the scripts that have come and made it this far have been incredible.

[02:24]

I've so much to say about so many scripts, but decomposer definitely was a top contender

[02:28]

and I'm really excited to dive in and talk more about it.

[02:31]

Very cool.

[02:32]

So let's get into it.

[02:34]

So Andre, I know that you're obviously a writer.

[02:37]

Georgie, do you write at all?

[02:38]

Are you giving any interest in screenwriting?

[02:40]

Well, I studied filmmaking and I've made a few shorts myself, but I actually focused

[02:45]

more on sound recording and design, but I've been reading scripts for a long time.

[02:49]

I'm very avid reader.

[02:50]

So that sort of crosses over those interests there a lot.

[02:53]

All right.

[02:54]

Well, we'll give you the first mic opportunity here to talk about decomposer.

[02:58]

So tell us, when you read it, what would you think?

[03:00]

What was your first impression of decomposer?

[03:02]

I absolutely loved it.

[03:04]

I think it's really different.

[03:06]

I really enjoyed that sort of intersect between the levity of it.

[03:10]

And then this, you know, these darker themes sort of making their way through

[03:14]

is really, yeah, really powerful and stayed with me.

[03:17]

And I think you like that it's got this stillness to it.

[03:21]

It's not tons of dialogue.

[03:23]

The characters are quite well.

[03:24]

The main character, this parasite is quite quiet.

[03:27]

Yeah, I think it's quite good.

[03:28]

Imagine this being a really physical performance.

[03:30]

So be really, yeah, really captivating and moody.

[03:33]

Sure.

[03:34]

And Andre, tell us a little bit about your sentiment on decomposer.

[03:37]

I know you're a big fan of horror, obviously.

[03:39]

So what was your first impression?

[03:41]

I did remember when I, it's a really quick read,

[03:44]

which is really funny on the, you know, I'm sight reading it because it goes like,

[03:48]

it seems like you skipped this page and I'm like, no, I kind of like keep going.

[03:51]

I want to keep going.

[03:52]

But imagery is a big important thing with me anyway.

[03:56]

And it brings you right there.

[03:59]

Like the graze of it, like the woods and just this sense of your kind of like,

[04:05]

what is happening?

[04:06]

And it's this interesting kind of sadness that's with this parasite that's learning these traits.

[04:18]

But they have a sense of humor as they're writing.

[04:21]

You could tell like in some of the, like description, like what I did like that one,

[04:25]

description was like, George looks like a chemo patient that fell down the stairs.

[04:30]

It was something like that.

[04:31]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was great.

[04:33]

Like that was really cool.

[04:34]

And like the whole time he's like writing and all this,

[04:37]

but then you'll have something as beautiful as, well, I think it's kind of beautiful.

[04:42]

Like when they're good to that one scene where everyone's singing the church hymns.

[04:46]

And he's standing behind the lady, the old lady in the wheelchair with this hammer.

[04:50]

And there's all these people around and they just don't notice that there's something so strange and odd about that.

[04:58]

But it moves, you know, it's like what like 70 something pages and it's just it kind of has this.

[05:04]

And it's a quick read.

[05:05]

Yeah, I want to touch upon that.

[05:06]

Kyle and hear your opinion because this is what I mean,

[05:09]

what I look for in a screenplay and I look to know what you think as well.

[05:11]

But you know, I love a screenplay.

[05:14]

Even when I watch a movie when I'm not looking at the watch, when I'm not checking my phone,

[05:18]

right, when I'm just going through a screenplay and I look up in an hour's gone by,

[05:21]

I'm like, oh my god, I'm like already like, you know, on page 70.

[05:24]

This is what happened to you composer Kyle, I don't what would love to hear your thoughts about your first impression.

[05:28]

Yeah, absolutely.

[05:29]

I have to agree both with Georgie and Andre where I say Georgie, right?

[05:34]

Yeah, right.

[05:35]

Yeah.

[05:36]

I did agree that, you know, it's very interesting to read a script like this where it brings you in on a fast pace, but on a visual.

[05:43]

So it was really visually fast paced for me.

[05:46]

So there was like, I was able to see it.

[05:48]

So like come to life.

[05:50]

So I loved how it also really played geologically like versus supernaturally.

[05:54]

So it was really a really fun way to kind of go through this where there's not not a lot of dialogue at all,

[06:00]

but yet you kind of are like mirroring fears of like what we experienced, but through visuals.

[06:07]

And it was really exciting, especially like you have like mother earth, who I mean, I guess it's one of my fears,

[06:13]

but just like you know, we have with like what's going to happen with how we're treating the earth and how it's all going to come back to us and kind of having like mirror its effect on us of like,

[06:23]

oh, you're going to treat me this way.

[06:25]

Let me show you how I'm going to continue and we have all of this like I guess these fears of like people missing and the earth, you know, just consuming us.

[06:33]

And it just mirrors it so well visually versus actually using dialogue.

[06:38]

So I really really learned that pacing.

[06:41]

And I want to bring up that point for everyone that's watching at home, you know Alfred Hitchcock would do this when he would write his screenplays.

[06:47]

He would put all of his scenes visually in order first and he would always have to get the beats down right.

[06:54]

So he needed to know what the what it was going to look like the frame, the visual storytelling and then last add the dialogue,

[07:01]

which I always love when I'm writing because if I get stuck from two bog down a dialogue and wait a second, let's hold back a second.

[07:06]

What am I trying to say visually right this is this is not a novel.

[07:09]

This is a movie so what visually can we capture and I think what the writers of decomposer did here like beautifully like very, very, very visual.

[07:18]

I love how you brought that up because I that struck a chord with me as well.

[07:22]

It's really visual and it also there is no answer to it, which I really like.

[07:29]

It's just this events are happening and the two I like how from the human perspective, especially toward the end when they're making it clear like when the guy.

[07:39]

The guy who's like give me all your stuff and he's like you're one of them.

[07:43]

So at this point now they know what's going on.

[07:47]

Like all the animals they're never scared about any of the weird stuff that's going on like the dog is not went for anything.

[07:57]

The dog is just kind of like, yo, there's something in that barn and I think one of my favorite descriptions was.

[08:04]

They said like the horse like she walks in and they're like the horses are just silent.

[08:09]

They said to them like these horses were like yeah, the words are like yeah, she's going to walk in here.

[08:15]

Like they don't give her a warning at all.

[08:17]

They're like you know there's like an insect thing in the corner.

[08:19]

They're like not they're just want to watch and see what happens.

[08:21]

There's no fear whatsoever and each and each and he say it with like birds the birds are flying around.

[08:26]

So sense of any kind of panic it's almost like a leveling of the playing field.

[08:32]

It's kind of reminded me a little unfortunately because remind me of like when COVID happened.

[08:36]

I was literally just going to say that.

[08:38]

You hear the birds and the animals are out.

[08:40]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[08:41]

The animals are like yeah, this is great.

[08:43]

You know, you know, I think it's just kind of like that's I kind of like that that they kind of had that there but they didn't outright say it.

[08:51]

It's just something that you would kind of notice.

[08:53]

The cats would shrink dogs would bark but they went against convention which was which is it.

[08:58]

It's a violent threat to the point.

[09:00]

Yeah, it's so neat how they they went about doing it.

[09:04]

So George, I got a question.

[09:05]

Was there anything that surprised you when reading the screenplay like what's the guy that you could be a good surprise bad surprise.

[09:11]

Yeah, it's a good question.

[09:14]

I mean a lot actually just I mean I think how fast when like the I guess George or the parasite.

[09:22]

Like found found a sense of self.

[09:28]

I felt yeah, I guess it was surprise.

[09:30]

I thought there was going to be this like huge push and pull between like they start dragging people to the whole and they can't quite do it.

[09:37]

They set a few free some end up going in but there was kind of this like really fast.

[09:42]

Like almost evolution that they have as a creature into like consciousness and empathy.

[09:49]

They found really surprising but really like really moving and I think is it China?

[09:57]

Yeah, China made a really good point about this fear of nature like this.

[10:02]

I think a lot of us fear you know the power you know when we think about like the power of the ocean or earthquakes and then I bat that kind of like it plays into this like primal fear of nature being this huge unfeeling like power.

[10:16]

It's to gravitating back towards this homeostasis that like the people are taking away and I just really liked this change that George had.

[10:23]

It was this kind of acknowledgement of yeah maybe people are doing something wrong but I'm feeling this this pull to this something worth it here.

[10:31]

There's something more than just singular purpose that really yeah I found that touching and it surprised me that I was rooting for him to come to that conclusion quite quickly.

[10:42]

Wow, that's amazing.

[10:44]

Yeah, Kai, let's talk about George a little bit because we talked about you know how empathetic he was and what a great character and sort of a horror movie that you want him to kind of succeed in a weird way.

[10:54]

So what were your thoughts about George as a protagonist and like was there a moment that stuck out at you that really the writer brought them to brought into life.

[11:02]

Yeah, I agree with just with George here that it was a constant surprise in general.

[11:08]

I have quite a few scenes that stood out to me but I think overall what was like both surprising but also was kind of happy because it stays in the arc of horror film was the fact that you know George never he never learned a lesson even though he was so close to learning lessons all the time.

[11:25]

So you always like usually you know the arc of like you know he starts off this way he learned a lesson and he you know resolves it or there's some resolution.

[11:34]

And instead it's like they're so close to something he seems like he's touching humanity it seems like there's an interaction and then he just the comes to the full like I will decay and I will be a part of this decomposer cult and he just has this like it just stays within that horror arc of like oh so we're never going to learn anything and we were just going to stay with consistently being this part of this program.

[11:59]

So I guess it was surprising more just because it seemed like it was leaning that way and it was learning he was learning something from it but then they went I was kind of like oh so happy that it kind of paid in that arc of like no we're not I love that it ends in the same meaning because you wanted to be hopeful and it's not I still think it fits in the genre of what it's supposed to be like sometimes.

[12:20]

We're moving away more to like you know drama but it's not it's a horror film so it does it's an element of hard very good point which I think it's very important because everybody has a different style and if your horror is your thing I think it does touch I think there's just ways I also wanted to say I personally love the silent man and I would have loved to know more about the silent man.

[12:41]

It's just like I feel like maybe I would have loved to have gotten to know them in some capacity and there could have been more even more visually something there but I think George Collins said best he said when people are like we need to protect the earth we need to recycle more in this and George Collins said he said part of my front but he said the earth doesn't there will be just fine without humans like we've had like we've had about six or eight extinction level events in the earth is going to be just like a

[13:10]

It's going to be just fine so like the fact that the end of the movie he's like just because he's this parasite is now

[13:19]

Just kind of starting to feel this way mother Nate mother or the whole or whatever made it very clear she's like nah like we're we're cleaning house exactly

[13:29]

We've got a movie which is the story was just kind of like like I really like that last image of him just he's like you don't get the camera you do not you we're not getting rid of this this part of humanity and he's trumps himself into that to hell

[13:44]

Green going down to go to yeah we were just talking about how much I liked that song before you guys during the call but I agree that that with both of you

[13:54]

I think it's right that it ends that way like it he can't save the world right like it the the force of nature has to take over

[14:05]

And him going in the hole and having a moment of sentimentality that connects with this human body that they're in is really nice but yeah it makes it scary it makes

[14:16]

existential them go oh was that person he saw the last person like I was listening to that song after a

[14:25]

Descript a few times and I felt sick thinking about that I was like well imagine that the last this last person and even

[14:32]

Those who have sort of taken everyone away are now choosing to go as well and yeah everything's resetting but like you said

[14:38]

And it's like the earth doesn't need you there is also slightly strangely hopeful about that like in it's scary

[14:45]

And it's like but it still carries on like it's a cold sentiment but it is kind of like yeah you know there's there's

[14:55]

Some things that are just beyond our understanding but it just feels right and that's kind of that's kind of

[15:02]

Yeah, but also like the moments were George um

[15:06]

One of the coolest things was when he left the um the scene out lady right at the edge of the cliff and I think they wrote

[15:12]

He said like it's up to nature now. Like it's up to the lower end. It kind of reminded me of um

[15:18]

That scene in um in that movie under the skin could this group reminded me of that movie

[15:23]

I don't know if you had to see them now but uh yeah that was that that was the next question I wanted to ask was what are some

[15:28]

Comps that you felt about the film like what does this screenplay?

[15:32]

That was just the skin is very very comparable. Yeah, it was kind of like under the skin meets like um

[15:39]

I kind of had a little bit of

[15:41]

Maybe just because it was written but I had a little bit of it reminded me of when I read um the road by comic McCarthy

[15:48]

It's yes

[15:49]

Very good to the skin and in the road

[15:51]

But what do you think of the uh the cops?

[15:54]

Do you guys know I think it's normal here you scream

[15:59]

It's that it's about it's a story of the lady with the um there's actually lives alone and there's a home invasion and

[16:07]

Uh there's it's basically just story of an alien comes down and

[16:12]

She's like a silent

[16:14]

Yeah

[16:16]

You realize later on in the film that she's it took me like three quarters of the way the film because it's so captivating and then I went

[16:21]

She's never spoken. She's never said a word so about

[16:25]

Isolation and found family and back yeah, it really it reminded me of that a lot

[16:30]

I think for me the comp was like the very anti-hero

[16:34]

character of who he is which was like the Joker, you know where it's like

[16:38]

You kind of have this anti-hero character, but that is

[16:42]

The protagonist and I kind of really I really like thought it like hey like something like that can really

[16:48]

Yeah, it becomes something bigger and I yeah when I read this I remember for some reason it the Vincent and the fariel

[16:55]

Character for men and black do you guys remember?

[16:58]

Yeah, he's in the like in the meat suit and he's like an alien trying to be a human

[17:03]

I read this and I saw a bit more humor into it because he's George. He's like this fumbling guy throwing people in pits

[17:09]

Um and lastly this is one of my favorite questions that I want to ask everybody here and we'll start with Andre is

[17:15]

You know, why is this a story that needs to be told?

[17:20]

Well, just to be blunt. We're messing up the world that we live in and

[17:25]

It's a dystopian feel good movie. At the end of the day this parasite learns

[17:32]

Not hope but

[17:34]

Joy it's not sent this would have easily been just like a mean

[17:38]

spirited we just follow

[17:40]

This guy doing all this stuff and he's just doing it. He's not enjoying doing this

[17:45]

He doesn't want to kill all these people. I mean, he doesn't also not want to he's like this is what I did

[17:50]

Yeah, yeah, so it reminded me of that listen movie with Leonardo capio and Astroids coming

[17:55]

Jennifer Lawrence is in it. Yeah, yeah, don't look. Yes, right. He has that line at the end

[18:00]

He said we really had everything and we screwed it up, you know

[18:05]

What a gift and she kind of the older like the sea not a lady

[18:08]

She literally says like she says the one thing that makes sense. She goes like we really had it all

[18:14]

And now we're complaining about it because now it's too late. We could have easily

[18:18]

avoided all this so I think that's obviously the messaging is yeah

[18:22]

That's what I think it would be important and Georgian why does this story need to be told?

[18:28]

Um, I definitely gonna slightly mirror Andre's answer in the sense that I

[18:33]

Tosi rhythmatically that it's

[18:36]

It's ecological it's it

[18:39]

There's a hopeful non-synical element to it. I totally agree with you on that

[18:44]

It makes us go humans of worth saving in a world that is worth living in like the the photographs that this

[18:52]

Parasite this organism connects with the most are real smiles from real people living

[18:58]

Lives in a world that's nice to live in and he kind of misses that

[19:04]

Golden age of humanity kind of just at the end of it all um, but it makes yeah, I think it gives a real

[19:10]

There's no fondness to it as well as just being a really enjoyable

[19:16]

Sort of thrilling tale of the force of nature. I think it's um it just sounds

[19:21]

Not only interesting thematically and exciting

[19:25]

To you know to really dig into about what you know what's worth saving

[19:31]

What kind of world do we want to live in?

[19:34]

Also how you know who deserves to be here and you know when all right

[19:39]

Well, I like that side of it. I like that feeling of our antagonist. Uh, well our protagonist antagonist

[19:44]

I guess is a

[19:46]

[19:47]

Is in a person but gets to live like one and it yeah, I don't know

[19:51]

I felt I really related to that to them as a person feeling like

[19:55]

I don't want to I don't want to hurt people. I don't want to be told what to do

[19:58]

I don't all these sort of feelings we've all had is really weird and relatable

[20:02]

For me I was like there's actually a layer to the decomposer that I think is like really interesting that

[20:08]

So I wrote this down I wrote like the tragic cycle of becoming what you hate

[20:12]

Like losing yourself to the servers of something greater only to find out that that whatever is greater is actually evil

[20:19]

And I feel like that's something that is unfortunately like in this time now

[20:23]

But in general and all of our times that we I guess become conditioned to but like we think that something is important to be a part of

[20:30]

We jump into it wholeheartedly just to become a part of this greater movement only to find out whatever that is actually might be really bad or evil

[20:39]

And we lose ourselves to it but then we're in it and that's what we are

[20:44]

Um, and it just you know, maybe that's why Mother Earth is coming to reset us all the time but um unfortunately

[20:51]

But you know, it's it's scary that uh sure

[20:55]

We become sometimes who we actually ideally hate but we become that in itself just because we we don't realize we're a part of the same that cycle

[21:04]

So I did think that it kind of brought out a really intense layer but very unassumingly also in some type of way yes

[21:12]

And I'll tell you why I think the story to be told in Iran or order to get ready because the screenplay is

[21:17]

Good boom. That's it. That's why it should be made

[21:20]

I know it's always great screenplay should be made you guys said all the eloquent you know

[21:27]

No, I but I'm I'm more like it's a great screenplay. It should be

[21:32]

Like I want to see it get made it's a great screenplay should be made

[21:38]

That's it great screenplay should get made that's that's my story. I'm sticking to it

[21:43]

Andre for Georgina George aka Georgie and kaya more thank you so much for joining us today at the keynote

[21:48]

I'm round table so much fun talking story nerding out

[21:52]

Here so we hope to have you on soon and thank you so much for you know being a part of the keynote family. We really appreciate it

[21:58]

Absolutely. Thank you. You guys have a great day

Decomposer: A post-COVID reflection on nature, humanity, and stillness | Kinolime Podcast Episode 13

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