The Bad Idea Reunion

The Bad Idea Reunion is a 2010 Canadian short experimental film by video artist Daniel Cockburn,[1] in which an infant muses in an internal monologue on the future and the forms its good and bad ideas will take.

The Bad Idea Reunion
Directed byDaniel Cockburn
Written byDaniel Cockburn
Produced byDaniel Cockburn
StarringMinna Haller
Cinematography
  • Daniel Cockburn
  • Barbara Goldstein
Edited byDaniel Cockburn
Animation byJenn Norton
Production
company
ZeroFunction Productions
Distributed byVtape[1]
Release date
  • September 2010 (2010-09) (TIFF)
Running time
4 minutes
CountryCanada
LanguageEnglish

Synopsis

"It's never too early to think about your future," muses an infant (Minna Haller) in voice-over (London Angelis) in the carseat of a car in motion on a rainy night. The baby contemplates the ideas to come with growing up, good and bad. "My good ideas will manifest as shapes... pure, clean, simple geometry." The shapes - a red pyramid, a blue sphere, and a green cube - float before and past the baby's eyes. "My bad ideas will manifest as people... with straight black hair, albino skin, and bright green eyes."

Someday, when grown up, the adult child will have a final bad idea, and all the "bad idea people" will gather together at the airport to board a plane, looking as though they are there for a family reunion since they all resemble one another. The image transitions from the infant in the carseat to one of a plane on a tarmac on a day with low visibility. Aboard the plane, thinks the infant, a very old man tells the rest of the passengers in a cracked voice: I am the original bad idea. I was hear before any of you. I'm the idea to make all of you and put you on this plane. When asked where they are going to land, he tells them they are not going to land anywhere. "And if they look worried, he'll try to soothe them." The old man will say: Don't worry, it's never too late to think about your future.

On the tarmac, the plane begins to taxi in preparation for takeoff and fades into the distance.

Cast
  • Minna Haller • infant
  • London Angelis (voice)

Themes

The infant, neither named nor gendered,[note 1] is "the most pessimistic pre-verbal baby ever."[4] To the child, the ideal or good is identified with simple geometry, "pure" and "clean", while the "bad" is, as Daniel Benedict remarks, embodied by pale, bright-eyed, "creepy" or "scary" (unheimlich) people. When asked if this is how he sees the world, Daniel Cockburn said he habitually prefers the ideal to the complicated world of people, noting that no-one likes to admit feeling this way.[5] Benedict and Cockburn briefly discuss the film's themes in relation to Cockburn's lecture-performance, All The Mistakes I've Made.

Production

Commission

The Bad Idea Reunion was made for the TIFF Talent Lab.[6] The commission was for films of one to five minutes.[7]

Voice and music

London Angelis voices another anonymous child character in You Are Here, Cockburn's first feature film also released in 2010.

An electronic music beat running through the monologue serves as an overture for the song which plays as the plane fades into the fog ("My Favourite Mistakes", by Ford Pier).

Release

The Bad Idea Reunion premiered at the 35th annual Toronto International Film Festival in September 2010.[6]

Note
  1. Played by a baby girl but voiced by a boy.[2][3]

References
  1. "Daniel Cockburn". Vtape. Retrieved 15 July 2020.
  2. "London Angelis". Video Detective. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  3. "London Angelis". IMDb. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  4. The Right to Know: Impakt Festival, 2-6 November 2011, Utrecht (PDF). Utrecht. 2011. p. 9. Retrieved 28 July 2020.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  5. Benedict, Daniel (20 April 2012). "Daniel Cockburn: "Alle meine Fehler"". Osnabrücker Zeitung (in German). Retrieved 14 July 2020. Ich weiß, dass man die komplizierte Welt der Menschen nicht verteufeln darf. Aber es gehört wohl zu meinen Angewohnheiten, das Ideale der Menschenwelt vorzuziehen. Niemand gesteht sich so eine Haltung gern ein.
  6. "The Bad Idea Reunion". Vimeo. 7 July 2011. Retrieved 14 July 2020.
  7. "2010/11 RBC Emerging Filmmakers Competition". Vimeo. 21 May 2017. Retrieved 15 July 2020.
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