Tom Webb Assignment 2

Film Research

Opening Helicopter

most of the team

discovery of the slab

The dead thing

The Thing reveals itself

Fire is the weapon used throughout the movie

Discovering the UFO

Bennings is assimilated

Dark blues are used to represent night in outside scenes

The final form of the thing

Again, fire plays a crucial role, and is dominant in the end scene

Essay

John Carpenter's The Thing tells the story of an American research team stationed in the Arctic who encounter an alien life form that can assimilate and mimic any living being, as well as alter its form to its choosing. The film begins with a helicopter racing across the arctic plain in pursuit of a dog, with one of the men on board firing a rifle and attempting to drop grenades on it. Eventually the dog and helicopter reach the base of the American research team that the film centers on, but as the helicopter begins to touch down one of the grenades on board detonates, destroying the helicopter. One of the men (who has been identified as Norwegian) survives the explosion and begins firing at the dog and on the research team, screaming in Norwegian. Gary, the research team commander, fires his pistol and kills the apparently crazed Norwegian, and the team brings the dog into camp.

The research team discovers that the Norwegian team was not too far away, and helicopter pilot MacReady and Copper, the team's doctor, agree to fly out and see what has happened to them. Upon arrival they find that the Norwegian base is a scorched wreck. In addition, there is evidence of extreme violence, and one member who had committed suicide. Along with taking the base's research and video recordings the find a mysterious block of ice that has been opened, almost like a coffin, and strange, fused, burned mass of flesh and bone. Meanwhile, the dog is mysteriously wandering camp.

Copper and MacReady return with the findings and Blair, the chief scientist, begins an autopsy on the fused mass of flesh, where he discovers that it is made up of human organs. Clark is ordered to kennel the dog from that morning with the other sled dogs, but shortly after the dog begins to transform and attack and assimilate the other dogs. Hearing the commotion, the team rushes in the investigate and finds The Thing as it now tries to escape after being discovered. Childs brings a flamethrower at MacReady's request and incinerates The Thing.

The Norwegian research shows that their team had found something massive buried in the ice, which leads the American team to find a massive flying saucer which is speculated to by over 100,000 years old. Blair continues research on The Thing, and discovers that the one found on the Norwegian base is still alive on a cellular level, and if the The Thing where to reach civilized areas it would assimilate the all live on the planet within a few years. Blair begins to demonstrate signs of paranoia and retreats to his lab.

That night, the creature though dead from the Norway base attacks Bennings and begins to flee and almost fully transforms into Bennings, but is caught by the American team and incinerated. Paranoia now grips the camp as they begin to realize that any of them could be infected by The Thing. Blair has a psychotic breakdown destroys all means of transport, radio equipment, and kills the remaining sled dogs. Blair is then taken into a tool shed and lock up for his own safety.

The team spirals downward from then on, as fear and paranoia begin to take hold of the surviving members. Thanks in most part to MacReady more team members are discovered to be infected. But not before more team members are also killed. From the twelve man team, the only ones who remain who are not infected and Gary, MacReady, Childs, and Nauls, with Blair needing to be tested. MacReady, Gary, and Nauls go out to test Blair in the tool shed, but discover that he has been assimilated and what using parts from the machines he destroyed to build a space ship. The three destroy the ship, but Blair isn't found. And Childs has disappeared as well.

The power in the camp goes out, and MacReady speculates that the only option The Thing has now is for it to freeze itself again until a rescue team can be found. The three survivors only option is to blow up the camp, and create temperatures too hot for the The Thing to go into hibernation and hopefully destroy it. But as the three set explosives The Thing silently kills Gary and Nauls, and transforms into a massive monster to attack MacReady. But MacReady is able to set off the explosives with a stick of dynamite, killing The Thing and destroying the base.

As the base burns and MacReady sits alone among the wreckage Childs reappears. Childs claims that he had though he had seen Blair earlier and when chasing him became lost in the storm. Both men, exhausted and knowing that there is no hope for survival, share a drink of scotch. Not knowing if the other is truly human, or has been assimilated by The Thing.

Words to Idea + Thesis Statement

Five Words:
Fear, Paranoia, Tension, Mistrust, Hopelessness
Thesis Statement: The Thing is a story of an American research team in the Arctic pitted against an ancient alien being who can assimilate any living thing and alter its form at will, and paranoia of not knowing who is human.

Visual Research (Inspiration Board/Collection)

Exploration/Formulation (Style Board/Examples/Studies)

Exploration/Formulation (Motion Tests)

Tom Webb motion test 1 from

Tom Webb motion test 2 from

Tom Webb motion test 3 from

Story Board

The composition begins with the text "Kurt Russel" gradually appearing. The text starts at zero opacity and ends at 100 opacity.

After a moment the text rapidly gets sucked into the center as a circle erupts from the center, as if the text condensed itself and morphed into a circle.

The circle expands in sized until it takes up a significant part of the screen.

The circle then shrinks slightly and begins to divide itself like a cell.

When the cell has finished dividing the text "Keith David" can be seen in the center of the screen, being revealed by the two new cells.

The process reverses itself and the cells form back into one large circle, hiding the text.

More cell transformations begin to appear from the corners of the screen. As they become more numerous the center circle begins to transform again. It begins to expand and contract rapidly, until it violently expands and covers the screen in darkness.

The darkness splits and the credits for the writers of the movie can be seen. They are floating as if trapped inside the liquid of a cell.

After a brief time tendrils erupt from the black shapes on either side and pull the shapes back together, like the shapes are stitching themselves closed. The screen goes black again.

The screen zooms out to show more cells, but this time they appear unstable. They are less circular and more textured as they have been mutated so many times.

The camera zooms in on the edge of one of the cells, showing the name "John Carpenter" which was too small to see until zooming in. The cell then expands and assimilates the text.

From the blackness a shape splits opens. It transforms into an upper case "I" that will be slightly larger than other letter forms.

As the 'I' fully emerges other shapes slit open and reveal themselves as well. They start to transform into uppercase 'T' and 'G'.

The body of the 'G' reveals itself, but in a unstable way. It reveals itself rapidly and then slowly and then rapidly again (not a smooth transition). The shape of an 'N' starts to emerge from the 'I'.