The Grand Plan

story’s very straightforward - dust bunnies versus the vacuum cleaner. How could Rayon and the dust bunnies ever win that fight?

Along the way it’s got ‘meet cute’, deadly jeopardy, a plucky, rag-tag team is assembled, there’s a daunting quest, a race against time, the foe is confronted and there’s a joyous and exuberant ending.

The Big However

Ideas are ten-a-penny. Marketable ideas that earn their salt though are much scarcer. So what’s an animated film about scruffy dust bunnies got to offer?

For starters, universal relevance – everybody, everywhere has dust bunnies.

For seconds, after The Year That Dare Not Speak Its Name I think we could do with something light, frivolous, whimsical, cheerful, funny with a teensy bit of the nice kind of sad at the end.

And it’s not dystopian, gritty, harrowing or any of the other dismal adjectives. I’m aiming for delightful. Paddington 2 is a grand example of delightful.

Rayon and the dust bunnies is however cursed with the commercial taint of originality. Nobody’s done a dust bunny film before. It’s not a sequel, prequel, re-boot, a re-imagining or a re-visiting of a familiar tale to sell to an established audience.

That’s why some of my rejection letters come back saying “We like it but don’t know what to do with it.” It doesn’t sit comfortably in children’s fiction, YA, speculative fiction (maybe) or fantasy. And I don’t think there’s a category for Appliance Fiction.

In ad-speak though Rayon and the dust bunnies is written for a particular psychographic.

It’s for people like me (age irrelevant) with a taste for whimsy and imaginative fiction lying somewhere on the spectrum between The Clangers and Pullman’s glorious His Dark Materials.

“The original writer is a pain in the ass…you have to get rid of the original writer.”

Better make myself useful instead.

From the moment of its conception, the story was written to be animated.

So as well as the story, I bring a direction and the vision for the film, the Big Picture.

So what does this Big Picture look and sound like?

It depends where you stand.

If you’re a human you’re mostly in a regular messy house with a pregnant mum, a dad, a young Andrew and his pal, Josh.

There’s upstairs, downstairs and a basement or utility room, nothing special. Chairs, desks, beds, towels and clothes on the floor.

If you're a dust bunny called Rayon though and you've just fallen from a hat...

Welcome to the world of Rayon and the dust bunnies - a guided tour

As the camera follows his descent from hat to ground level, Rayon's view of an average untidy bedroom floor transforms into a vast landscape, a painterly expanse with towering features, full of light shade and colour.

Furniture becomes architecture, laundry becomes geology.

And underwear under the bed becomes a cave system with an odour issue.

The music of the dust bunnies

The Wind will play the music of the dust bunnies

For the music of The Wind we’ll create the First Aerophonic Orchestra, an orchestra of wind-powered instruments only - no strings, no keyboards, no percussion - just puff and inventiveness.

Music for dust bunnies to dance to

The Wind choreographs the dust bunnies’ movements so there are interludes for dance sequences.

For example, Rayon's first lingering, descent fluttering down from a lofty hat to the squalid bedroom floor.

The majestic moonlit migration of the upstairs dust bunnies to escape the central vac

Cotton’s abduction by the innocent pirouetting dandelion seeds turns deadly

The final joyous return of the dust bunnies to their rightful place will need a special piece of music - it should be a banger.

If I'm forced to justify dust bunny dance sequences I reference the humble dancing plastic bag in American Beauty for its simple beauty.

And the National Ballet’s Tales of Beatrix Potter for dance within narrative.

And if Fantasia can have dancing hippos, we can have dancing dust bunnies.

Who will speak for the dust bunnies?

Dust bunnies being a various lot have various voices – accents and dialects should abound. 

The voice is the character so voice casting is a critical ingredient in creating the character.

Fresh from the tumble drier, fuzzballs are full of youthful exuberance while Yarn in the attic is laden with the threads of many years.

Should we use famous voices? They’re certainly a valuable marketing tool for an animated film.

I often wonder who would fit the bill but I know there are a lot of other diverse voices out there who could add their unique and perhaps unexpected take to a character.

The Clangers had a narrator so the dust bunnies should have one too. It's lovely having a gentle voice leading you through a narrative.

How doth a dust bunny move?

I can help here, I have experience.

When they’re blown across a wooden floor, dust bunnies hop, skip and bounce like a crabapple kicked down the road.

Sometimes they roll like tumbleweed.

Sometimes The Wind carries them off and they’re cast into the air to swirl and dance according to the dictates of the equations governing airflow – convection, turbulence, gusts, eddies, vortices and the like, the internal meteorology of the house.

(Late one night the lightweight fuzzballs frolic on the noisy exhalations of the sleeping Vera - gleefully snore-riding until one fuzzball meets a sticky end.)

Dust bunnies self-propel by puffing.

When they need arms, dust bunnies just reach out a thread or three.

What's missing?

Character design.

That’s a job for the pros, I can’t do eyes or hands at all.

That's the broad creative direction of the dust bunnies.

Now I'd like to explore how the idea might unfold further.

Is the dust bunny concept serialiseable, franchiseable and merchandisable?

Or - do dust bunnies have legs?

I’d like to think so.

As a follow-up I’ve a story about young Filamentia and her encounter with dust dragons and I fully expect that somebody clever working on the project to have some excellent notions for a third or fourth.

I don’t have any insights into Dust Bunnies From Other Countries to extend international reach but I’m sure somebody does.

In Germany, by the way, a dust bunny is called a wollmaus, ‘wool mouse’, ‘mouton de poussiere’ in French, ‘sheep of dust’.

Could the dust bunnies be serialised is a fair question.

I haven’t given that much thought other than dust bunnies meet new baby world, dust bunnies in puppy world and more about dust bunnies in the kitchen and in the basement.

And I haven’t touched on the bathroom dust bunnies because, you know, yuck.

What else can I bring with this story of household detritus? My bona fides.

As an ad guy you quickly learn that getting an idea out of the door and into the world to earn its keep is the point of the exercise. But getting the job done is always a collaborative process.

I’ve worked with global corporate marketers, creative directors, producers, art directors, commercial directors, casting agents, animators, sound designers, composers, studio engineers and voice-over artists.

The first radio commercial I ever did was with Robbie Coltrane long before he was Hagrid.

I created an ad campaign that ran globally for over 18 years – the Philadelphia Cream cheese angel. She's recently been revived so that's creatively gratifying.

I’m hoping dust bunny tales will have a longer but equally productive lifespan. I think of how many years Peter Rabbit and The Borrowers have been enjoyed. That would be something to be proud of.

I’m used to collaborative creative projects. I’ve years of production experience in commercials, music, sound design, animation and radio.

I’d like to put that experience to work on the film.

Rayon the dust bunny and a vacuum abhorred – its dirty secret.

It’s a parable of sorts.

While it’s fun following a whimsical story about one of the humblest, scruffiest, most inconsequential motes of detritus you will ever find in a story, there’s a big truth in it at the end.

The whimsy is just a charade hiding the true story of everything – in time Rayon, the dust bunnies, people, their laundry - everything comes and goes.

I think it’s important to be gently reminded of that occasionally.

It’s the circle of life drawn in the dust under the bed.

If I had my druthers…

After producing ideas for a living for over thirty years, I’ve never had an idea yet which wasn’t improved upon by working with somebody else.

A fresh set of eyes would be a boon.

I’d love to work with any of the women writers and directors who ushered His Dark Materials from book to screen.

That partnership would add a sensibility to the story I don’t have.

So I’m looking for allies with a taste for whimsy, people who can take a big idea and run with it and make it so much better than a geezer with a vacuum cleaner could ever make on his own.

Thanks for your time.

You can reach me here

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