Rock The Vouhhhnn!, Chapter 5: Part 2.3
Page 114 (Chapter 5, Page 11)
Panel 1: Cut to Madison on the other side of the table glancing up from the folder to explain her thought process in full; her left hand and shoulder is resting gently on top of the crisp white pages.
MADISON
Back in the Stupid Ages, when the Internet was treated by politicians (and some outside politics) as this omnipotent magic space rather than the basic utility it is today…
Panel 2: Animation of a candidate standing in front of a blank background trying to punch against a hard ceiling of sound at the top of the panel. You can see faintly musical notes and bits of dialogue amidst the waves.
Caption (Cont., Madison)
Politicians of all stripes struggled to have their message stand out against a thick wall of a million different information and entertainment options for the public consume. Not to mention the thing that helped, in part, caused the hell of the Wars…
Panel 3: Same setting/layout as the previous panel. From off-panel left, we see a fist come into view and socks the politician square in the face.
Caption (Cont., Madison)
Apathy!
Panel 4: A few moments later, we see the politician on the ground holding the side of their face, looking down in ponderous thought after the action from the previous panel.
Caption (Madison) Then some relatively forward thinking souls came up with the idea to use the Web as an entree to their message.
Panel 5: We move to a still from Mike Gravel’s famed “Man Staring into the Camera” ad from 2007.
Caption (Madison)
Sometimes it was absurd…
Panel 6: Then we move to another similar still from one of the Yang Gang ads put out in 2019.
Caption (Cont., Madison) Other times it was funny, and also kinda absurd. None of them were all that successful electorally, but it got the job done.
Page 115 (Chapter 5, Page 12)
Panel 1: We go back to the present day with Madison at the table, glancing down at the middle part of a set of pages somewhere in the binder; her gaze still glancing partially over in Zoe’s direction.
MADISON (Cont., to Zoe) At this point, “job done” is a good start. Get us on our feet, and start chipping away at Jenkins’ lead.
Panel 2: Cut to Zoe on the other side of the table, placing her glass down on the table. The woman has a look of concern painted on her face as she speaks, taking in the whole meat of what Ms. Mitchell’s said up to this point.
ZOE Still haven’t heard the word “win” through all this spiel. That is the end goal with your binder, right?
Panel 3: Back to Madison in the same setting/layout as Panel 1. She nods affirmatively with a great deal of confidence, reaching out off-panel left to grab her drink again.
MADISON
Absolutely. If there’s one thing I’ve noticed about politics, both then and now, you get one small win...
Panel 4: Cut to a shot of Nate’s face with a brick background, which is in fact the lobby of the ICT on the night of the festival (though we don’t notice that at this point). You can see a low level buzzing anxiety in his eyes, along with the faint hum of dialogue bumping in from off-panel left as his show’s going on.
Caption
(Cont., Madison) “The rest tends to snowball.”
Panel 5: Same setting/layout as the previous panel. His anxiety that was evident then has spiked, though the background overall seems to blur and blend around signifying the excruciating seeming passage of time in Mr. Kelly’s mind.
NATE
(thought bubble)
They should’ve laughed at that scene! I made it specifically so that it would be viewed as funny...maybe they’re bored. Maybe it’s not making the impact that I thought it could…
ROWENA (Off-Panel)
First show staged?