Planning: Initial Ideas (Miss. B)

Planning: Initial Ideas

In media we were put into groups to carry out the coursework of putting all our research into action and filming an original opening. My group consists of Fatma, Suweda and Mohidin. We have all thought of individual ideas/plots, all of which were discussed. Some aspects of each are more favored than others. On a wider scale, some overall ideas were better appreciated and agreed upon. We made sure to keep our narrative conventional to a thriller so hopefully all ideas would have something to offer for our final product.

MY IDEA

One of the subjects I picked as GCSE was media studies. For the coursework I had to create a trailer of any genre. I came up with the plot of two friends. One dies due to a traumatic terminal illness, though this was not made clear in the trailer. Instead, I showed the remaining friend receiving a devastating phone call, and then a shot of the fallen friend on the floor. She comes back as another being, intended to be an angel but the audience's imagination will obviously run its own accord. The remaining friend is given a chance to change the outcome of their friendship in hopes of saving the life. It then shows the two friends together again, letting the audience know that we've gone back in time. The trailer ends with the 'being' walking down a dimly lit room as a soft piano piece plays, and then fades to white. Genres associated I picked as tragedy, friendship, supernatural.
I could transform this into a thriller by changing the role of the being - she was assassinated, and comes back as something psychotic and evil. Using blackmail, she forces the friend to kill that assassin before he commits murder. If this fails, the being will assign her friend to one of two fates (I have not yet decided), 1. haunted for the rest of her life | 2. stuck on the day  that her friend dies and having to witness it again and again. This is conventional to a thriller because there are elements of death, psychosis, tension.

Titles: Fateology, Psycho-ology, Reverse Psycho-ology
Subgenres: supernatural, psychology, tragedy
MES: low lighting as a theme for the 'being', top lighting for innocent friend, white dirty dress on being, neutral clothing on innocent friend, (will the assassin be shown?)
Cast: Friend (protagonist), Friend, Being/angel (2nd friend/antagonist), Assassin (antagonist)
Setting & Iconography: house/park/school/isolated road/dark room | dolls/gun/light/mobile phone/blood

I personally think that this idea is very strong, but very hard to pull off, especially when making time-travel clear. Generally, we as a group like my idea and have agreed to take some aspects toward the making of our final product. For example, the 'being' will now be a 'ghost'.



SUWEDA'S IDEA
A boy gets cursed with a secret that makes him find out why he has the curse. The plot involves him carrying out a journey down the road of other supernatural beings.

Title: Secret Involved, Cvrsed
Subgenres: Supernatural
MES: low lighting, neutral coloured clothing
Camera shots: straight cut from face to face, introducing supernatural characters / jump cut of the boy's discomfort and frustration of being cursed
Cast: innocent boy (victim)

As a group we agreed that this plan isn't very ideal toward a thriller because there was no extra detail of what comes after, because we have a whole minute to fill. I think this idea could work if it was planned thoroughly rather than thought of on the spot. Unfortunately I failed to understand the actual plot, so could not see the future of our thriller involving her idea. 


MOHIDIN'S IDEA:
An innocent girl of around teenage years is walking down a dark alleyway. Then, a vampire comes and bites her. Instead of dying or turning into a vampire, she gives birth to a child that is a vampire fused with psychotic problems and has to deal with a bloodthirsty son, a danger to society. Influences include Twilight: Eclipse, the act of Bella giving birth to a half vampire who feeds on blood, but unlike the other vampires, grows older.

Title: Vampiller
Subgenres: supernatural, horror
MES: low lighting alleyway, neutral coloured clothing on both girl and vampire antagonist as vampires as meant to blend in as humans, clothig of 'innocence' on the vampire child to create irony
Cast: innocent teenage girl (victim), vampire (antagonist), vampire son (disturbed/protagonist)

I think this idea is good, but not entirely original. To begin, vampires have been a symbol of cliche for decades. There are too many iconic vampire films to even begin to think that any idea hasn't been used before. It could be stronger with a mixture of other creates, but then might seem too much like Suweda's idea. And because it's just an opening, showing the 'danger to society' might be hard. We would most likely have to film lots of people in different places to represent that society, while also thinking about the demographics so we know how to represent a Western society, the one that we live in. Having said that, it's a good idea and a tiny aspect has been considered, ironically one that seemed to not fit with this plan. The idea of society in danger has transformed into a mentally disturbed pregnant woman locked up in a mental institution or hospital, which will be put forth for our final idea.


FATMA'S IDEA:

There is a professor in a dimly lit office area observing his laptop. Around him are photographs of a woman looking quite deranged. We are shown the laptop and the footage on it, by zooming in so far that the visual eventually transmits inside of the footage - which is discovered to be the same woman. She is acting crazy; pulling her hair, jumping around, rocking back and forth, whispering in unintelligible phrases. Ultimately the professor is trying to fragment her history as to why she has become like this. As time progresses she gets more hysterical, because she experiences three flashbacks: the first one showing a pregnancy test. The second one showing her lover's wife discovering them. The third one consisting of this pregnant woman killing the wife so she can't intrude in on her pregnancy and new love. She feels an emotional response to these flashbacks and her actions become more extreme and exaggerated. The plot then twists. She looks up because light is being filtered into the room - the dead wife has arrived. This will be made clear because we'll use the same woman acting as the wife and the ghost being. However, a new perspective forms; the professor and what he sees on the laptop. There will be two main shots, one of what the woman sees and one of what the laptop shows. The laptop shows the dead woman not really there, so the professor feels confused. To contrast, the woman's point of view includes the woman walking toward her with her hand outstretched. The pregnant woman is now out of control, backing into a corner, shivering, crying. The opening ends with a profile shot of the dead hand hovering in front of the stomach and the baby giving a kick in response to the presence. 

Title: Psycho-ology, Insanity
Subgenres: supernatural, psychological, mental health
Settings & Iconography: hospital/office/bathroom, weapon/pregnancy test/laptop/photographs/doll
MES: low lighting in office & hospital, top lighting for first two flashbacks, pregnant woman wearing neutral but ripped clothing, dead woman wearing a long white dirty gown, professor dressed neat and smart, wife and husband dressed neutrally
Cast: professor, husband, pregnant woman (protagonist), wife (victim because she dies, but also antagonist as a ghost?)

This idea is a mixture of different aspects. For one, the idea of the baby kicking abnormally was inspired by Twilight: Eclipse, like Mohidin's idea. I also saw a similar shot in American Horror Story: S1E11. The ghost/dead woman/fallen wife has been taken from my idea of the dead friend coming back as an angel. I think it's very complex and if carried out well, deserving of a good grade. The hardest part, in my opinion, will be making concepts clear to the audience. This largely revolves around the flashbacks because those are saturated in information. The rest of the opening is all to do with tension and cliffhangers and 'what's going on?'. Camera shots may also be hard because we plan to have the professor perspective from a camera facing the pregnant woman as well, which would mean acting out the same scene a few times so we can show it in all of those perspectives.