There’s gonna be a whole plague of these.
Fly
Category: Animation
The Second Plague (Frogs) – rough
Music is from “Frogs” by DJ Zeph featuring Azeem, from the album “Sunset Scavenger.” It’s from 2004, making it the most contemporary song in the film. I almost used Taylor Swift’s 2014 “Bad Blood” for Blood, but I ended up deciding Josh White’s 1933 “Blood Red River Blues” was simply a better song. It wasn’t due to fear of lawsuits; I decided long ago not to allow copyright to determine my artistic choices. If you don’t know my stance on Intellectual Disobedience, you can learn about it here:
youtube.com/watch?v=dfGWQnj6RNA
and here:
blog.ninapaley.com/2013/12/07/make-art-not-law-2/
I’m curious what frogs DJ Zeph and Azeem were originally referring to. Here, of course, the frogs are these:
“3 And the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into thine house, and into thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed, and into the house of thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thine ovens, and into thy kneadingtroughs:
“4 And the frogs shall come up both on thee, and upon thy people, and upon all thy servants.” -Exodus 8, King James Version
The closest I come to “storyboards”
The First Plague (Blood) – rough
“17 Thus saith the Lord, In this thou shalt know that I am the Lord: behold, I will smite with the rod that is in mine hand upon the waters which are in the river, and they shall be turned to blood.
“18 And the fish that is in the river shall die, and the river shall stink; and the Egyptians shall lothe to drink of the water of the river.
“19 And the Lord spake unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Take thy rod, and stretch out thine hand upon the waters of Egypt, upon their streams, upon their rivers, and upon their ponds, and upon all their pools of water, that they may become blood; and that there may be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood, and in vessels of stone.” — Exodus 7, King James Version
Like many storytellers, I use Moses alone to represent both Moses and Aharon. When I deviate from the texts, it’s on purpose.
Music: “Blood Red River Blues” by Josh White (1933), severely edited by me. With great effort I bought a CD with this song, but the quality was terrible – it sounded like a tape player under a mattress – so I ended up copying audio from this YouTube video.
The second stanza depicts Anuket, goddess of the Nile. I hope there are no Ancient Egyptian Religious fundamentalists out there, because they might not like the implication She’s menstruating. Then again, the whole Book of Exodus is anti-Ancient-Egypt propaganda. If there were an Ancient-Egyptian-Anti-Defamation League, Exodus would be banned.
The Third Plague (Lice) – rough
The Third Plague (Lice) – rough from Nina Paley on Vimeo.
“16 And the Lord said unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch out thy rod, and smite the dust of the land, that it may become lice throughout all the land of Egypt.
“17 And they did so; for Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod, and smote the dust of the earth, and it became lice in man, and in beast; all the dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt.”
–Exodus 8, King James Version
Like many filmmakers, I use Moses to represent both Moses and Aharon.
The music is “Insects” by Oingo Boingo (1982). The lyrics, which are hard to understand here (but will get a bit easier when we get to flies and locusts) are:
Tiny insects in my hair
Tiny insects everywhere
Tiny insects in my pants
Watching insects make romance
Insects make you make me want to dance
Dance (dance)
They make me want to dance
Dance (dance)
Those insects make me want to dance!
Frogz
Having found suitable song snippets for all Ten Plagues, I am now animating them. This frog is adapted from one in Sita Sings the Blues, where it appeared in “Am I Blue.” In Seder-Masochism it stars in the Second Plague, “Frogs.” Above, a nice messy mass o’ frogs (on a beat of 13.5 frames – the song itself is 13.3 frames per beat, but close enough). Below: same frogs marching in a 27-frame lock-hop.
