“ The Music of Erich Zann”

Short Animation Script

Original Story by H.P. Lovecraft
Screenplay by Ruben Martins

Copyright. Ruben Martins. 2011

 Narrator (V.O.)

"I have examined maps of the city with the greatest care, yet have never
again found the Rue d’Auseil. I have delved deeply into all the
antiquities of the place, and have personally explored every region, of
whatever name, which could possibly answer to the street I knew as the
Rue d’Auseil. But despite all I have done, it remains an humiliating fact
that I cannot find the house, the street, or even the locality, where,
during the last months of my impoverished life as a student of
metaphysics at the university, I heard the music of Erich Zann."

“That my memory is broken, I do not wonder; for my health, physical and

mental, was gravely disturbed throughout the period of my residence in
the Rue d’Auseil.

Map Shots

(Montage Avant-Garde Style) Recreated Expressionist maps of Paris.

Fade To Black:

Fade In:

Ext. German Expressionist Style Rue D'Auseil

(Establishing Shot) Steep street with the buildings creating the

silhouettes. A distorted bridge is in the foreground and the young man/
narrator crosses it.
Cut To:

(Full Shot)Young man/ narrator walking up the empty Rue D'Auseil.

With lighting from the lamps create some more distorted shadows.
Cut To:

(Full Shot) Showing the steep street, and the boarding house, where the
young man is about to stay.

(Rise Up Shot)Showing how tall the building is, penetrating the smoke
above.

(Fall Down Shot) Shows the man already walking to the door and opening
it.

Narrator (V.O) Ends

Cut To:

Int. Boarding House

(Medium Close-up) Young man at the door looking up facing towards the
camera.
Cut To:

(Full Shot) The stairs leading to the darkness, which eventually will
lead to his room on the 5th floor.
Cut To:
Int. 5th Floor Hallway
 (Full Shot)The 5th floor showing the young man directing to the door of
his apartment.

Cut To:
Int. Young Man's Apartment

(Medium Close-up)Young man laying in bed with his arms behind his head.

*Music Type 2 (variation) plays*

Suddenly,he hears a strange music from the peaked garret overhead.

The young man becomes disturbed yet curious to find who is the person
behind such weird music.

The young man in bed restless and can't sleep.

Fade to Black:

Narrator (V.O)

“Thereafter I heard the music every night, and although it kept me

awake,I was haunted by the weirdness of it. The longer I listened, the
more I was fascinated. I asked the lodger for the name of the
musician,who told me that the old man who played the music would sign as
Erich Zann... I desired to meet him.”

Fade in:

(Medium Shot) The young man is leaning on the door excited to find the
man behind the music.

Narrator (V.O) Ends

( A clock ticks evoking excitement by the young man)
(The young man listens some keys and small steps coming towards him)

Int. Boarding House- Hallway

Cut To:
(Full Shot from the peephole)The Hallway, where out of the dark stairs a
dim light of a candle is visible carrying it is a old, small, lean figure
going slowly upstairs.
Cut To:
Narrator (V.O)
“ After discovering the person behind such peculiar music, my curiosity
grew bigger, so I decided to make the old man's acquaintance”

(Medium Shot) The Old Man, Erich Zann, is going upstairs, when the young
man opens the door and intercepts him.

Narrator (V.O) Ends

Cut to:

(Medium Close-Up) Erich Zann as he hears the noise turns back and fixes
his sceptical face on the young man.
Cut To:

(Medium Shot) The young man friendly approaches Erich Zann and tries to
hand-shake him.
Cut To:
 (Medium Shot on the opposite side) Erich Zann anxiously steps back.
However, after some moments of facing that friendly character he eases
and handshakes the young man.
Cut to:

Narrator (V.O)
“After the odd first impressions, I pleasantly motioned to go upstairs
and listen to the old man's playing”.

(Medium Shot) The young man motions upstairs, as a self-invitation to

listen the old man's playing.

Narrator (V.O) Ends

Cut to:

(Medium Shot) Erich Zann looks angered, unease and afraid with the idea.
Though after some moments of consideration, as a confirmation he motions
the young man to follow him.
Cut to:

( Full Shot Side) Showing the distorted almost destroyed stairs, and
where first the old man climbs up holding the candle followed by the
young man.

*Noise of the wooden steps creaking*

Cut to:

(Full shot)The top floor hallway, Erich Zann is leaning and holding the
door to open it. The young man behind him, begins to feel anxiety,
however curiosity is stronger.
They both enter.
Cut to:

Int. Boarding House Zann's Apartment

(Establishing shot) Zann's Apartment, this spacious room, which seemed

bigger because of the extraordinary barrenness and neglect. It is visible
few pieces of furniture and a mysterious window, with ripped curtains.
(Firstly a dark room but when the host lights another candle, it
brightens.)
Cut to:

(Medium Shot) Erich Zann lights the place, holds a chair, and with his
hand motions, almost like an order, the young man to seat. The young man
approaches and seats on the chair.
Cut to:

(Medium Close-Up)Zann takes the viol from its motheaten cover, and begins
to play this captivating yet fugue music. While playing the old man,
seems bored and it is only playing to please the guest.
After sometime he finishes playing.
Cut to:

Narrator (V.O)
“The music played did not satisfy me, I noted the absence of the weird
notes that often haunted my sleepless nights. I asked my host if he could
render some of those notes.”
 (Medium Shot) The young man sat on the chair,marvelled by the music he
just heard, however after some moments, he realises that the music played
differed from the previously heard in his bedroom. So the sense of
curiosity grew in his face.
Narrator (V.O) Ends

When prepared the young man begins to whistle some of the weird notes he
had listened before.
Cut to:

(Close-up) Erich Zann's satyr-like face moves towards the camera and the
boredom in his face automatically changes to anger and fright. His face
becomes distorted with an expression wholly beyond analysis.
Cut to:

(Medium Shot) The old man surprisingly gathers some strength and hastily
reaches out his right bony hand to the guest's mouth, to silence that
crude imitation.
He then casts a startled glance at the lonely window (camera), as afraid
of some intruder.

Quick Pan To The Window:

(Full Shot)The window with nondescript and ripped curtains. the young man
moves towards it.

Zoom In W/ Character:

(Medium close-up) The young man reaches the window and moves slowly the
curtains aside.
Cut to:

(Medium Shot) Erich Zann hastily grabs the young man's arm with his 2
hands. He then motions with his head to the door and tries to drag the
guest. The young man disgusted with his host, pulls his arm. And moves
towards the door.
Cut to:

(Medium Shot) Erich Zann realising the disgust in the young man's face.
Pursues his guest, and in a friendly manner forces him to chair.
Cut to:

Narrator (V.O)
“In his note, Erich Zann said that he was old, lonely, afflicted with
strange fears and nervous disorders connected with his music. He had
enjoyed my listening to his music, however he could not play to another
his weird harmonies and could not bear hearing them from another. He had
not known until our hallway conversation that I could overhear his
playing, and now asked me if I would arrange to take a lower room, where
I wouldn't be able to hear him at night.”

(Medium Close-Up)Erich Zann writes a note to the young man.

*With the reading of first part of the note, “Old” ,”Lonely”, “Strange
Fears”, “Nervous Disorders” “ Erich Zann's Music” will appear.
Cut to:

(Medium Shot) the young man receives the note,stands up and leaves.
 Fades to Black

Int. Boarding House- 3rd Floor Hallway

Fades In:

(Medium Shot) Young man moves in to a new apartment, while at the door he
stops for some moments. And hears a door closing and locking far away.
Narrator (V.O) Ends
Narrator(V.O)
“ I found that Zann's eagerness for my company was not as great. He did
not ask me call on him. My liking for him did not grow, though the attic
room and the weird music seemed to hold an odd fascination for me. I had
curious desire to look out of that window, the only window in the Rue
D'Auseil from which one might see the slope beyond the wall and the city
outspread beneath.”
Cut to:

(Full Shot) The dark hallway, where the stairs leading upstairs are all
distorted and destroyed.
Cut to:

(Medium Shot) Young man enters the new apartment.

Narrator (V.O) Ends

Fades to Black
Narrator (V.O)
“My curiosity led me to overhear the nocturnal playing of the dumb old
man.”

*Music playing in the background* (calmer variation of music type 2)

(Full Shot Side) Young man comes out of the darkness tip toeing up the
distorted stairs.
Cut to:

(Full Shot Side) Reversed previous shot.

Cut to:
Narrator (V.O.) Ends
Int. Boarding House- Peaked Garret Narrow Hall

(Full shot) The narrow hall at the peaked garret

Cut to:

( Medium Shot) The young man seats on the steps listening to the music
being played.
Cut to:

(Full Shot) The bolted door ( camera fixes there), suddenly the shrieking
viol swells into a chaotic babel of sound.

Zoom in:
(Medium Shot) The bolted door,where the playing grew wilder and louder.
Into a awful, inarticulate cry that only a mute can utter.
Cut to:
 (Medium Shot) The young man senses fear,anguish and anxiety, he quickly
gets up and runs to the door.
Cut to:

(Medium shot) The young man knocks repeatedly, but receives no response.
Afterwards he slides down the door, shivering with cold and fear.

Until he hears the poor musician's feeble effort to rise from the floor
by the aid of the chair. At that time, his awareness grew and and he
quickly stood up and banged harder in the door.

After some time, the young man hears the noise of Zann closing the window
both shutter and sash. Then the noise of Zann stumbling onto the door and
unfastened it to admit the young man.

Erich Zann opens the door and shaking pathetically invites the young man
in,and forces him into a chair.
Cut to:

(Medium Shot) Zann moves a chair in front of the table, seats and begins
to write a brief note to the young man.
Cut to:

Narrator (V.O.)
“ After those horrific moments, Zann, in his brief note, implored me in
the name of mercy, and for the sake of my own curiosity, to wait while he
would prepare a full account of all the marvels and terror which beset
him.”

(Medium Shot) Young man receives the note and begins to read it.
Narrator (V.O) Ends
Cut to:

(Medium Shot) Erich Zann rapidly continues to write his extensive note.
(Layered Frame) With some pages falling from top to bottom,evoking time.

When he almost finished with the writing he is interrupted by an

exquisitely low and infinitely distant musical note. Zann's face grows
fearful, he quickly drops the pencil, rises, seizes his viol which is
laying beside him, and begins to rend the wildest play ever.
Cut to:

(Close-up) Young man is surprised to hear such horrible song

Cut to:

(Medium Close-up)Erich Zann tries to make some noise, to ward something

off or drown something out. As he makes the noise his playing grows
intense and he imitates the motions intended by the noise.
Cut to:
(Close-up) The window is shaking.
Cut to:
(Close-up) The expression in Zann's face is stark fear.
Cut to:
(Close-up) The window shakes strongly now.
Cut to:
(Medium Close-up) Erich Zann playing grows wilder and louder, mounted the
shrieking and whining of that desperate viol. He is dripping with an
uncanny perspiration and twisted like a monkey. He doesn't stop.
 Cut to:
(Close-up) The window, where from that direction a steadier note that was
not from the viol; a calm, deliberate, purposeful, mocking note from far
away. Suddenly, the shutter begins to rattle in a howling night wind
which had sprung up outside.
Cut to:
(Medium Close-up)Zann is emitting unbelievable sounds with his viol,
loud, wild, insane.
Cut to:
(Close-up)The shutter rattles louder,unfastened,slamming against the
window.
Cut to:
(Medium Close-up) Zann's playing was frantic,mechanical, blind and
unconscious.
Cut to:
(Close-up) Glass at the window breaks.
Cut to:
(Close-up) Papers from the table fly.
Cut to:
(Close-up) Zann's face transforms. His eyes are bulging,glassy and
sightless.
Cut to:
(Medium Close-up) Papers fly towards the window.
Cut to:
(Medium Shot) Young man tries to catch them.
Cut to:
(Medium Close-up)The young man reaches the window, with the demolished
panes. His face grows terrified and anxious.
Cut to:
(Medium Close-up) The sight out of the window. Where no city was spread
below,only blackness of space illimitable, unimagined space alive with
motion and music.
Cut to:
(Close-up) Young Man's fearful face, when a gust of wind blows out the
candle in the room, the only source of light.

The young man now is between a impenetrable darkness with chaos laid
ahead and the darkness of the room with that insane playing on his back.
Cut to:
(Medium Shot)The young man returns to the room, dark and with no mean to
strike a light, he crashes against a table.
Cut to:
(Medium Close-Up)When he recovers, he realises that he is close to the
old man,so he begins to scream helplessly.
Cut to:
(Medium Close-up) Young man faces the back of the chair where Zann is sat
, and begins to shake his shoulders and then screams in his ear. Then he
moves his hand onto the old man's head stopping that mechanical nodding.
As he feels Zann ear.
Cut to:
(Close-up) Erich Zann still, ice-cold, stiffened,unbreathable face whose
glassy eyes bulged uselessly into the void.
Cut to:
(Medium Shot) Young man scared luckily finds door and runs away, from
that glassy-eyed thing and from the ghoulish howling of that viol.

Narrator (V.O)
“ Leaping, floating,racing mindlessly out in the narrow, steep, and
ancient street of steps and tottering houses, clattering down steps and
over cobbles to the lower streets and the putrid canyon-walled river I
fled..."
Cut to:
(Full Shot) Young man runs away from the boarding house in direction to
the camera.
Cut to:
(Medium Shot)Young man runs down the flight of steps.
Cut to:
(Medium-Shot Side) Young man runs pass the tottering houses.
Cut to:
(Medium Shot) Young man crosses the river.

“... And I have never since been able to find the Rue D'Auseil.”
Narrator (V.O) Ends

The End