early production notes.

The items which appear below are taken from photocopies of notes Mark made in '95 as well as some html pages José put up around the same time. While the former are largely thematic and pretty inspiring, the latter attempt to tackle (if only to miss!) certain design concerns. There are, however, an astonishing number of seeds in these pages -- many of which you might recognize in the final product.

a few of Mark's notes:

Lost in Vegas what is lost as Vegas cleans up its act becomes less transgressive dissipitates transgression by sanctioning it multinational corporations appropriate even transgression corporations incorporate make resistance impossible controlled excess not at odds with consumer capitalism but promotes it family resort not just necessitated for expanding market of Vegas but economy itself requires cultivation of new spending strategies

Desert desertion desert light desert silence intersection of desert silence and Vegas noise at a certain point, noise becomes indistinguishable from silence Jabes: You do not go into the desert to find yourself but to lose yourself

11/8/95 Vegas is as much about losing as winning might make loss central "theme" -- esp if title is lost in Vegas who wins/who loses? what is winning/what is losing? winners as losers loss of real is it a gain? inescapability of loss winning as deferral of loss Bataille > wager -- expectation of return of investment but will to lose is as strong as will to win spending > being spent expenditure with no expectation of return ecstasy of loss why does the popularity of Vegas grow? gap between rich and poor grows disappearance of middle class recognition of the impossibility of ever having big peice of American pie nothing to lose by taking a chance cf. lottery most popular among those who have no money sense that things are out of control -- or out of "my" control it's all a matter or non-matter of chance so only thing that makes sense is to take a chance on chance -- which never makes sense

a few of Jose's notes:

November 1995 My own thoughts, right now, are both too scattered and too specific to list fully here - but what the hell: I want to introduce different machines that don't work, or work very slowly and incompletely throughout the "presentation." I want to cap off any sequence of moving text or moving images with a sharp, three-shot flash; i.e., after a series of clouds moving and words floating some nonsense about materiality and ether I want to punctuate / end the bit with three very sharp resolution, very quickly displayed images of a hand wielding a old-fashioned razor, an eye, a cloud passing over the moon. ETC. ad nauseum. I want the user to generate these animated "dream" sequences by picking up on a somewhat static object and I want the "content" of these moving sequences (about water, nuclear power, the high-roller aesthetic, etc.) to be made up of three "image sources" juxtaposed against each other (and overlapping). This is sort of what I mean: and, as you can tell, it's a lot like plopping three "projectors", of sorts, next to each other and giving them free play on one screen (with the added bonus of some "magical" device to "control" things, which, in this illustration, would appear on the upper right-hand corner of the screen.) What I don't want to see or do is shit like this [ommitted] rendered crap ala MYST whereby the computer screen is conflated with the screenplay in a really cheap way. I think computers are just dandy, but I don't think our Las Vegas is really all about the cute little things computers can do. Anyway, I have to run now. Back to work - all that. But I'll post more later, since I have tons more to go through viz. a viz. the actual organization of the CD-Rom.

[Napkins, notebooks, scraps of paper. There are probably hundreds of drawings unlike the digital one on the right (which was done for Mark) scattered on the trail of The Réal.

This tendency to sketch out The Réal's narrative space in pseudo-architectural terms was actually a blessing in disguise since the ultimate shape of The Réal turned out to be more like a series of sketches and scrapbook pages (wallpaper) than some impenetrable fortress of polished steel -- José]

Some general design notes (November 1995) Record bodily sounds (breathing, swallowing, hiccupping, choking) at amplified, almost over-distorted levels. Pump sounds back into the motel rooms at an almost inaudible rate. Produce and reproduce these "shadow sounds" by mixing them into all of the "event-driven sounds." In every "space" there are recognizable objects. Some are open and lead to dream sequences, some are closed and when "clicked on" simply make the screen flash red and plan an obnoxiously loud buzzer noise. Scattered throughout all of the possible "sets": vials, medicine bottles, spilled contents: reds, blues, uppers, downers, a rainbow of pills. These are just background images. They should only open once, onto a tunnel with white light at the far end. After seeing this tunnel, the screen should freeze for about ten seconds -- after which the application (CD-ROM) should shut down. This motel, this maze, must also have its monster. It's hardwired into the very logic of exploring any terrain, topic, topos , inside a computer screen that there will be a minotaur around the next corner, at the next level, in the basement, in the icebox, or closet. We should seriously consider one big monster [the following sentences ommitted because they're silly.] Perhaps, there should be two versions of all the "sets": one that is fully rendered or photographed/videographed (with textures, shadows, colors, etc.) and one that is simply a wireframe world. Straight and sharp red, green, blue lines to denote objects, walls, etc. A bit like being trapped in Tron or an architect's dream/nightmare... Mirror (to be seen) Bible (to be cited) Cable TV (to be playing) Beds (to be slept in, made, dreamt in) Windows (special views) Bathrooms (special uses) Telephone (to receive calls -- to make calls to patched-in operators who are always standing by) Telephone Book (to be sampled from -- we have the real McCoy and it's almost 500 pages long) Drugs/Alcohol (marginal notes) USA TODAY (cover story? Teacher of the Year) Maid (walks in? knocks on the door?) Chest/Drawers (underwear, guns, money belts) Suitcases (half-empty, half-full) Is the premise of this story that the viewer has stumbled into a world lost in time, frozen in time ? Or is it so late at night that nothing was stirring...save for a mouse? DIAGRAMS : of rides, roads, slot machines, prostitutes, waterways, financial exchanges, handguns, air traffic, poker strategies, boxing matches, mafia families, landscape designs BLUEPRINTS : of hotels, precincts, nuclear warheads, army bases, ufo's, irrigation systems, transportation systems CHARTS : of demographics, taxes, venereal diseases, restaurant sales (by type), shoe sales (by type), gun sales (by type) MANUALS : of how to visit Las Vegas, how to get married in Las Vegas, hot to get laid in Las Vegas, how to build a nuclear bomb, hot to make money in Las Vegas BROCHURES : from hotels, casinos, wedding halls, restaurants, brothels, churches, golf clubs, gun dealers