A Waiting Game

This week at school was crazy. On Tuesday I saw morgan for 4 hours and on Thursday I was supposed to see her and never did. So it's been a crazy schedule and we have not been able to get feedback and criticism from others. 

We are trying to further develop our idea and come up with a script! I  asked my friend to be in our video as the victim and she agreed! so now we have our cast! Since the childhood friend will only be in pictures, I am just going to find pictures with a friend that I've had for a while to use as a prop for the film. 

I am seeing Morgan tomorrow so we will discuss more what we're going to do next. Creating the script will probably take a while since we have to somehow ensure that its 2 minutes long and we also have to create a title though that is going to be the last thing we do before filming. 

This is just a waiting game at this point. We have not been able to move forward with our project but tomorrow hopefully we will be able to officially start!

I got the part! Now what...?

Morgan and I have come to the agreement that I will be playing the main character in our film opening! 

I am terrified! 

I've never so much as acted in a play, the most performance-like activity I've ever done is presentations in class. Not only have I never been much of a film person, but I also am not a thriller type of gal. I don't watch them often and I certainly do not act as the main antagonist, I said this from the start. I am not a person who knows much about psychological thrillers though I do feel I understand them much more now after doing a lot of research on the genre. 

I seem perfect for the job I know. Morgan believes I am good for the part mainly because I am easily accessible but also because I am naturally excitable, giddy, and sometimes I get obsessive..but not in a stalker way! 

I think at least having me cast as our main character prepares us for the next steps. Knowing that I will be the main actress makes it easier to further develop the character since now we can base her a little more on me. This will make it easier for me to act believably since I am a total newbie at acting and our character still isn't completely developed. 

This also allows us to start thinking about clothing, makeup, and other costume items. We have decided that the MC should have a more feminine outfit and makeup. Her personality will be more like Harley Quinn and her outfits more like Love Quinn. She should look normal to completely contrast her irrational behavior. She will also have some blood on her face and clothes that she will wipe off before opening the door in order to show that she is calming down and collecting herself. 

These are ome simple outfits that are like the type of look we want for the main character. We want her to look girly and normal so that it contrasts her behavior completely. 

Character Development

Main Character: Female and queer. Her main traits are obsessive, crazy, delusional, erratic, unpredictable, and psychopathic. She does not realize that she's being irrational and that her behavior is wrong. She decides that the kidnapping of her coworker is justifiable. The MC has feelings for her childhood friend and is very possessive and believes that they're in a relationship even though they're not. The coworker interacted with MC's "girlfriend" for too long so the MC is determined to get rid of any threats to her "relationship" and is willing to go to any lengths to protect what she believes is rightfully hers though it is not.

Harley Quinn from DC Comics has a similar vibe to the MC. She's erratic, unpredictable, excitable, and giddy and makes jokes while doing awful things. She is more childlike and extravagant with her mannerisms and is crazy in a way that makes people love her. 

Her outfits are colorful, attractive, and exciting and she herself is also portrayed as that. She is determined to be the most fun and intoxicating person in the room.

She's so crazy in love with her boyfriend that she's willing to do whatever he asks and whatever it takes to keep him with her and keep him happy while also enjoying what she's doing. Her joy is purely based off of how her boyfriend feels about her and her main goal is to please him by being crazy and crazy in love. 

Love Quinn from Netflix's show YOU is another example of our character's vibe. She is impulsive, reckless, rash, and hasty. She doesn't think her decisions through, unlike her husband Joe who is sociopathic but thinks all of his actions through before doing anything drastic. 

She acts on impulse and after her actions, she rationalizes them with her intense love and fierce protectiveness for her family. She loves her husband and her family so much and is willing to get rid of anyone that he interacts with for too long or that threatens the safety of her family. She behaves like a regular 20-year-old and is usually not erratic until the moment that she makes a decision.  

Our character will be as excitable, giddy, and fun as Harley though she is not as overtly crazy, She will have bursts of this type of erratic energy and it will be reflected while she panics in our scene. Harley is more overtly obvious about her erraticness compared to Love so our character would be a mix of both. She is going to be crazy but not as scary. 

Other Characters

Victim: Female, MC's coworker, confused, scared. Tied up to a chair, provides questions for the MC to be able to show her erraticness. 

Love interest: Female. Not an acting character just featured in pictures and in conversations. MC's "girlfriend", childhood best friend, the reason for MC's actions, and why the victim was kidnapped. 

Brainstorming!!

Morgan (my partner) and I have come up with an idea! It was actually really fast once we actually focused on it and we had a lot of time in school today.

We’re taking inspiration from YOU the Netflix show and basing it off Joe’s internal monologues and his constant need to rationalize in order to relieve himself of guilt. 

We were thinking about a psychopath that decides to hold someone, hostage, for their own personal vendetta, and the scene is them pacing around and explaining their reasoning and trying to avoid being captured after receiving a call from the police that they’re on their way to her house just to chat. 

Our main character will be erratic, delusional, jealous, queer, and female. Our victim will also be female and she will have been kidnapped under the suspicion that she was flirting with the character’s supposed love interest. The supposed lover will be the childhood friend of the main character and the victim will be her coworker. 

The setting is going to be a typical suburban house and a regular-looking living room. The scene will begin with a ringtone to announce that she’s about to have a visit from the cops and then she would start frantically pacing and talking to the victim.

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Above is a storyboard of some of our initial shot ideas for the opening, a very very rough draft. 

I feel much more comfortable now that we have an idea and we just have to develop it more in detail! I'm thinking next we should develop the characters and setting in extreme detail since they're going to be the main focus of our opening.

IT & IT 2

IT is based on a Stephen King novel and an adaptation of the original 1990 movie. It follows a scary clown named Pennywise that kidnaps children and haunts the town, he feeds off of fear and eats the children's souls. There's a group of children, the loser's club, that is being targeted by Pennywise and they are all terrified of him and they refer to him as "it" because he is a monster to them. This highlights the psychological trauma that they are being forced to endure and eventually they band together and fight the clown and they swear to come back to Derry, Maine if the clown ever comes back to life. 

Unlike in YOU, this psychological thriller follows the victims as the main characters and it shows the effects of trauma. This is another approach that we could use in our intro, introducing the victims and the effects of the trauma could be done in two minutes successfully. 

IT for example starts with the initial murder of Georgie, the main character's little brother, and this sets up the main plot problem. Bill's obsession with finding out what happened to his brother since he is in denial over him being dead. Our intro could be done by following an initial victim and establishing the initial problem and the way that it affects the victims. 

This movie has a very dark and dull ambiance that implies to the audience that this is not a happy subject and that something bad is going to happen in this film. The intro specifically has Georgie wearing a bright yellow raincoat and there is a big contrast between the setting and him. The world around him is dark and rainy which emphasizes that Georgie is in danger though he has a bright and happy outfit that is joyful and young. 

Bill and his friends fight the clown and they think they are successful at getting rid of him but they're not. 

The second movie has an opening scene of a happy scene being ruined once again. There is a couple that is coming from a bright and happy fair and they are walking into a more dark and secluded area where they are attacked by other men and then Pennywise appears and attacks them. This scene once again has contrasts of happy scenes and dark environments to foreshadow the upcoming events of the movie. 

The clown comes back after 27 years and the kids are all grown up and have to come back to Derry and face their fears all over again. It begins with them all getting a letter from mike, the only one who remained in derry after years, and in the letter, it says that the attacks have started again and that Pennywise is back. they don't want to go back and they all struggle with the idea of having to face their childhood fears again. we see different parallels in their lives compared to their lives as kids. 

Our opening should include some type of problem being established and the initial conflict that will be developed as the movie goes on. 

Psychological Thrillers Analysis

"A dangerously charming, intensely obsessive young man goes to extreme measures to insert himself into the lives of those he is transfixed by."

Netflix's new show YOU is one of my favorite shows based on a book, and the idea of doing an intro similar to this show is very exciting, in my last blog post, I went into the details a little bit but now I'm going to go into more depth!

This show came out in September of 2018 and it follows Joe Goldberg, Penn Badgley, as he literally follows all his love interests secretly. He is the typical stalker that tries to get his love interests to fall for him "accidentally". He presents himself as the perfect guy and the perfect boyfriend while finding out everything possible about the woman he loves and removing anyone that gets in his way.

He is the typical stalker and this show takes a different approach and makes him the main character rather than the victim which leads to the audience actually sympathizing with him even though we all know what he is doing is terrible and wrong. He goes to every extent possible, even killing his enemies or anyone that is a threat to his lover. 

Joe is a charming man that presents himself as unthreatening and kind and this makes people care more about him. We hear his inner thoughts and feelings and sympathize with what he's feeling and the way he rationalizes all his decisions. The typical antagonist in a psychological thriller is driven by obsession and violence and has an emphasis on internal tension and conflict. this perfectly describes Joe, he is obsessed with the women he loves and he is aggressive and violent when he feels that his potential relationships are being harmed. his inner conflict comes from when he knows that he is doing something wrong and messed up in every way but he rationalizes it by saying that he is being "forced" to do this by the women and his love for them. Psychological thrillers have the core mystery being highlighted by the workings of a disturbed mind and this character does that perfectly.

In our intro, we might have to introduce a character that is disturbed, and having the inner monologue present could be a way to clearly show what is going on in the character's mind. This could also be done through the mise-en-scene of the show. 

Joe's costuming is very simple and his signature outfit always includes a cap. The cap is used to signify the moment when he is stalking and is controversial in terms of morals. The moment that the cap goes on, the audience is aware that something dark is going to happen. In our intro, we could create something that is similar to the cap and show our audience that the thrill of something is going on. 

Possible Genre?????

My partner and I have been thinking about a psychological thriller! This is very different from what I'm used to watching, reading, or enjoying basically. The internet describes a psychological thriller as a story that "features protagonists/antagonists driven by obsession or violence, with an emphasis on internal tension and conflict". Honestly, the idea of this is very intimidating. This is not a genre I'm that familiar with, the last movie I watched that was categorized as a psychological thriller was "Don't Worry Darling" and it was not my favorite, to say the least, only watched for Harry Styles and Florence Pugh... 

About Psychological Thrillers

Common themes in this genre are crime, morality, substance abuse, multiple or a dissolving sense of realities, and my favorite part, unreliable narrators. Usually, the target audience is 25 or older since movies like these have topics that are more mature or intellectually demanding, but many younger people have become more desensitized to many issues and younger people also tend to enjoy these types of films. 

Theres different tropes that typically go into this genre, some are about stalkers, coercion, and mysterious strangers and they each have different characteristics. I'm not sure which story I want to follow but they all seem like they're very complex, and achieving that level of mystery and intrigue in only the two-minute intro is quite the task. 

Sample Movies

The Netflix show "YOU" follows the story of Joe and he stalks the women he loves and obsesses over. This is the trope of the stalker and you have to watch as Joe tries to rationalize every action with the excuse of love. This makes the audience have an emotional dilemma of having to deal with whether they want to feel bad for Joe's victims or root for him to succeed. 

I am excited to see where this route would take us if we do decide to do this genre!

Make Them Care!!

I’ve always loved telling stories through writing and in class last week we watched a TedTalk about storytelling with Andrew Stanton, the founder of Pixar, the best person to learn storytelling from I think. It really opened my eyes on how to do it effectively and in a way that would actually appeal to an audience. This was really helpful in understanding how i’m going to present the opening of my movie. 

The most impactful tip I learned was the “Theory of 2+2”. It basically says that instead of giving your audience “4” right away give them “2+2”. Make them work for it, make them care about your story and your characters and their purpose. 

The goal and reading for existing pretty much is obviously something that gets developed throughout the whole story so it’s hard for just the movie introduction but it’s still relevant. I think this would be the point in the story where everything starts getting established and I want to be able to do that in a cool and interesting way. 

This TedTalk highlighted the importance of making your audience care! That’s what this intro is about!! I need to create a story that seems intriguing enough that people want to continue watching just by the first 2 minutes.  

I’ve been thinking about this TedTalk since I saw it because story telling has always been so fun to me and for this project, it is definitely vital. 

To Begin With...

This is the beginning of my blog for real. I have always loved reading and writing and keeping up with a diary but the idea of keeping up with something online and for a professional reader is very intimidating. Updating every step of my process on this blog will be a challenge since sometimes I just don't feel like writing anything. Also writing in a casual way for a school assignment will always feel weird to me...

Anyways this is to track the beginning of my movie intro and I'm going to be honest, I have no idea what I am going to do. I have been toying with the idea of "Coming of Age" simply because it's what I know but I'm not sure if it's the route I want to go down. I'm not even sure if I want to work in a group or not.

This is a big project and I really have to consider everything. I still have a couple days to think it through and even start a vague idea for what I want to present to Cambridge. I do want this project to be something that I am proud of so I'm really excited to start updating this and to really explore the more creative side of me that I've never really looked explored as much before and to bring a story to life like all the books I've read before. 

Music Marketing #2

    This project required us to think outside the box when presenting our song, artist, and brand. We began with understanding what our song was about and how we could best represent it with the resources we had. Once we decided on representing the trapped aspect of the relationship more abstractly, we moved on to the setting of our project. We decided on an empty field near one of our neighborhoods in order to represent how alone he really felt in this suffocating relationship. 

    We created a schedule for everything we needed to do and tried our best to stick to it. We focused on the research for the case studies as an in-class assignment and finished it in a couple hours. This research helped us with our final presentation.

    While filming the music video we worked quickly and tried to keep it as simple as possible since we did not have that many resources. We finished the actual music video in 3 days. The only props we used were a chair, rope, and makeup. We wanted to make sure he looked comfortable in his outfit but was clearly uncomfortable in his environment and by tying him up to the chair, we displayed how trapped he felt. 

    The editing process of the video took around a week and the presentation itself was the most time-consuming part. We struggled to organize our information at first since we just had so much to say. In the end, we structured a basic presentation and then added information. We created images of our social media pages and implemented one of our group members as the actual artist during the presentation in class. We split up our slides while creating the presentation and while presenting. 

    This project was mainly about time management for us. Though we had a schedule created, it was hard to organize our different lives around it and our other class assignments but in the end, we pulled it together and our project worked out. We should have spent more time practicing what we would say during the actual presentation, we underestimated how important this part would be to our actual project.