BSA 204 W4 : My Script Idea and Pitch

I have chosen to write a TV series pilot on an idea that I had a while ago and that have re-submerged the other day.

The LOGLINE

Possible PLOTLINES

Structure:

I've divided my pilot into three parts, so about twenty pages for each.

1) The first part of the episode establishes the characters and their main motivations -
2)
3)

ROUGH BEAT SHEET:

ACT I
Establish the main character and friend > Three main friends see rich kid and feel sorry for him > The protagonists' home life and failing writer of a dad > The two besties hanging out, saying what they are going to do with their lives > Protagonist approaching rich kid and starting to hang out with him > Meeting the rich kid's parents and inviting him to hang out with them > Group hanging out / tension between rich kid and best friend > Rich kid tells them about Cabin job

ACT II
Group goes to cabin and shown what they must do > Them working / taking a break > finding the stuff in the basement > deciding to sell it all > Sneaking stuff home > supernatural awakenings > selling stuff @ school > supernatural happenings

ACT III

PITCH PLANNING

Format : TV Series
Genre : Children's Horror
Target Audience : 12 - 30?

Logline : A group of kids are hired to clean out an old cabin that the landlord wants to sell since the current tenant have been absent for months, it just so happens that said tenant was an avid collector of the supernatural, seeing this opportunity the kids decide to make an extra buck by selling these items.

Plot : The series will be episodic in nature, almost a monster of the week formula, but the different supernatural entities will have to be juggled by the characters and it will have a sense of too much on one platter.

Characters :

Themes :

Arc :

Key Practitioners :

Existing Canon :

BSA 206 W4 : As Above, So Below (2014) Review

I watched the found footage horror movie As Above, So Below. The reason I wanted to watch it at all was because the concept intrigued me, a group of people go down into the catacombs under Paris only to find it's the gateway to hell. I thought this was a really good logline and I was originally under the impression that Hell and it's different rings would take up the majority of the runtime. I was wrong in this assumption and while disappointing the movie did provide something else that was unexpected but admittedly interesting.



Instead of the full on horror experience I expected what I got instead was an odd blend of adventure movies like Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider and horror, almost like what the Brendan Fraser Mummy movies could have been - except this is all from a found footage perspective.

It's a very interesting blend and reminded me a lot about the idea I had when watching Tomb Raider - about presenting that type of adventure movie more realistically. I think the film manages to this to a certain extent, it's a very different aesthetic and tone for a movie with this plot, I think the problem here is that the mystery that they're solving just isn't that interesting.

Seeing the characters crack these puzzles isn't very engaging here because it feels like we're just surveying them and not really a part of their adventure, the opposite of what the found footage implementation here is supposed to do. I like the idea of an adventure film from this perspective and I like the idea of going really creepy with the supernatural components present in those films, but it just wasn't executed very well here. The concept of them going through hell according to Dante is also way more intriguing and I couldn't help thinking I'd much rather be watching that film the whole time.

They don't officially enter Hell until the one hour mark, a problem because the film is only and hour and a half long. This was understandably very disappointing.



Once they do enter Hell it isn't nearly as entertaining as it should be and the found footage format starts showing it's weaknesses. Up until this point the film's biggest strength is how big it feels for such a low budget. By not having to show full sets and being able to more easily film without large setups the film ends up feeling quite expansive. In my memory it has a very large scope.

There was one good bit in Hell, when the main character has to go back to return the philosophers stone (yeah its a pretty ridiculous plot), this it is good because even though she's making the opposite of progress (something which would usually halt the plot) she is finally being active and seeing her go through the same challenges the characters have already faced is very entertaining because she returns to them with newfound knowledge and a sense of purpose. This kind of stuff is always entertaining in movies, it was also present in The Hills Have Eyes, when the character fights back and goes on a sprint/massacre type thing it's very entertaining and serves as the ultimate relief of tension. It's like a purge of emotion and is always the high point of any film, here it is unfortunately short lived and has constant halts in the action but it's still the best part of the film.

This wasn't a good movie, I like some of the ideas but I think it falls flat in execution. The writing is especially frustrating, it's the opposite of Saw where the characters always do or address what the audience is thinking. Here they frustratingly ignore problems  we can see  (the mole character being one that none of the characters properly acknowledge) and yet when they do solve riddles and move the plot forward we feel completely removed because they are drawing from a database of knowledge that we have no familiarity with.

It's a weird film to see now because it seems to ignore all the lessons in screenwriting that I've observed recently, not only the aforementioned Saw and Hills Have Eyes examples but also Tomb Raider - here the strong female protagonist is the best at everything and speaks five languages and solves all the problems they run in to. It's a character that was very hard to care for and her high point is deflated because she starts the film off with such a high status.
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I still think that the movie has a really great concept at its heart and would have loved to see a more interesting version of it.

I think an approach similar to Evil Dead II would work really well for this concept, especially towards the latter third of the film when the last survivor has to make his way out of hell.



The scene above from Evil Dead II sees Ash losing his sanity along with the demons in the cabin, it's a scene that I think is a lot of fun to watch but also a very interesting situation to see out protagonist in. When I first saw it I remember thinking it was an interesting idea that Ash belonged more with the supernatural forces than with the rest of humanity and that he may be destined to forever stay in this state of purgatory. It's torture for him but he seems to be able to persist through it much more than any other human being, as if he already is in hell. The demons laughing and not trying to kill him all the time also gives me the sense that they enjoy having him with them.

BSA 204 W4 : Saw (2004) Review

I don't know why it took me such a long time to see Saw, it's a movie that I missed out on when it first came out, because you know, I was 7 years old, but it had such a big impact that I can remember it clearly. It had a similar aura about it to something like The Human Centipede when it came out, but unlike that movie I would actually have loved to see it.




The greatest failure of Saw in my opinion is that, for a film so flashy and over the top, it doesn't milk the foot cutting scene at all. I would have loved to see it wrung for all it's worth, originally I actually anticipated a race between the two characters to see who could cut their foot off the fastest, which would have been a ton of fun. It's just such a big part of the film that feels so underutilized, I mean the whole movie builds up to it and the pay-off is just a bit limp.

Overall I think Saw's a really great movie, and somehow I actually feel it's severely underrated.

Screenwriting Lessons I Learnt:

Changing Genres (or sub-genres) is fun and keeps the audience engaged, crime to torture porn to supernatural thriller, these are all present in some form or another in Saw and results in an extremely entertaining film.

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James Wan and especially Leigh Whannell are really cool guys and I've loved watching interviews with them. They've done some really great things in the industry since, launching two more successful franchises (Insidious and The Conjuring Universe), their absence from the Saw sequels is a large factor in why I have no interest in ever actually watching them but I'm glad they moved on to bigger and better things, (although I do think Saw is still their best film).

BSA204 W4 : The Hills Have Eyes (2006) Review

This remake of Wes Craven's original sees a family get stranded in the desert that happens to be an old nuclear testing site and is inhabited by a family of deformed mutant cannibals - hilarity ensues.

I love these kinds of setups, it's like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) - also by Wes Craven - where a group of people go on some kind of road trip only to get stranded and be hunted down by a group of crazies. There must be a name for this sub-genre because there are plenty of examples and it's not just your average slasher film. I guess The Evil Dead (1981) and some other Cabin in the Woods movies are very similar.

For me this is a classic tale, something I grew up with but never actually got the chance to see - and until now never felt the need to return to. I absolutely love the setup, it's the perfect story for a movie. I first heard about this film back when it came out and some kids in the neighborhood or school or whatever in South Africa saw it and told me about it. It sounded so creepy and interesting and I would have loved to see it but back then horror movies were strictly prohibited. The best I got was the Alien movies or The Terminator, and these certainly didn't seem like horror to me. Yet my dad or friends would also tell me what horror movies that they saw were about and I loved the idea of these films. Later on I found their limited descriptions based on fading memories were way more intriguing and creepy than the films themselves usually turned out being, for this reason I avoided The Hills Have Eyes for a long time. It was such a wonderful concept and had such a unique tone in my head that I didn't want to ruin it for myself by seeing the mediocre reality of what they actually made. I am very happy to say The Hills Have Eyes was everything I could have hoped for albeit a bit different to my own preconceptions.

I had a lot of fun with this film, again the thing I always come back to to describe why I enjoyed a film, it's usually this and the unpredictability of the plot but I think that's where this one differs. The Hills Have Eyes didn't really subvert any of my expectations, other than the fact that it was better than I had anticipated. The plot points are quite generic and you can tell what's generally going to happen before they do, however unlike many films like this I enjoyed this one far more. This is because it's well executed and the film has fun with every aspect of its being.

The interesting thing with the main character in this film is that we don't really know who it is for a majority of the films' run time. 

The character who turns into the protagonist, this being his bloody rebirth scene

I think one of The Hills Have Eyes' greatest strengths is that it has a very strong basis of themes and imagery to pull from, you've got the 50's and nuclear war as a backdrop, combine this with a mining town and mutants and you've got an aesthetic that generates endless creativity. It's so good that I believe they could have done even more, but what is present is very enjoyable to be witness to.

One of the mutants, the make-up effects here are amazing

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The more films I watch the more I realize what kind of stuff I want to make. The Hills Have Eyes is a movie I wish I could have made, if I did there would have been some changes although these seem minor. I love the structure of this film and the fun it provides, its the kind of thing I would love to make. I'm becoming more and more enamored with the horror genre, in a more intimate way than ever before. I think it's one of the most creative and fun genres out there and one that would be a blast to work in.

I think taking inspiration from some of the prolific filmmakers in the genre, like James Wan & Leigh Whannell, Peter Jackson and Sam Raimi is a good idea. They all went above and beyond to make what they wanted to see, I've got my own ideas for horror movies and while they seem unrealistic considering my situation they can become a reality if only I try hard enough.

I did have one idea while watching this film so here it is:

While watching this film I had a weird thought that it would be really cool if the mutants were somehow alternate versions of the main characters - like parallel dimension versions where they all turned out to be mutants or something. I don't know why and this thought was very quickly dismissed during my viewing of the film, but I found that it stuck around a bit and I developed it into something that I think could work.

Imagine Annihilation (2018) meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers:

I saw the Body Snatchers movie from 1956 years ago in school when I was doing a study of science fiction films from the cold war era and it has stuck with me forever since as a potential property to adapt or incorporate into my own work. I just love the idea and always thought it could be very creepy, it's just like other public domain IP's like Tarzan and Robin Hood everyone already knows the story too well to just remake, even though these probably deserve definitive film versions.



Annihilation on the other hand is one of my favourite movies of the year so far, that being said I came to use it as inspiration because I was trying to find a way to incorporate the mutated clone / alternate universe idea I had originally. In that film the characters enter a danger zone where an alien force has set up a force field type thing that works as a prism that mixes DNA.



Logline:

After some boys stray too far and go missing in the woods a search and rescue party sets out to find them, supernatural shenanigans ensue.

More specifically they enter a part of the forest where an alien presence resides, it's created a circumference in which it copies organisms and objects in an attempt to communicate back to the scientists who originally made contact with it.

Again for the advertising of the film itself I think the latter half should  be kept a secret, there should be enough creepiness to the basic concept to build mystery and interest from the potential audience, finding out the clone stuff during your first viewing of the film would be way more entertaining and rewarding than knowing that going in.

I think the reason Annihilation didn't work for mainstream audiences was that it was just a bit too vague and serious science fiction-y. I want to avoid this with my concept so what I've done is chosen just the most basic foundation of my idea and chosen to focus on that. At first while brainstorming I immediately thought about having the aliens duplicate things from the characters' minds and memories as well - implying they can't really tell the difference between the physical and metaphysical that well. It's a very science fiction-y idea and so I've decided I don't need it. Too vague and audiences might sign out, instead I've decided to focus purely on the idea that the Aliens duplicate physical things - including organisms.

I think there is enough to play with here to make the film entertaining and shouldn't really confuse audiences. It's also a bit cleaner and the limitation forces me to be creative with what I have, The Hills Have Eyes had a very simple foundation but had a lot of fun with it and anything more complicated would have become a chore to watch. I feel like The Hills Have Eyes has such a good concept that they could have done a lot more with it if they wanted but that's another subject entirely.

The movie would be set in a forest, which is great 'cause we've got a lot of that here in New Zealand.

Some of the interesting ideas I want to explore with this base idea are:

- The young boy changing into one of the other characters

I want them to find a clone of one of the boys (who they don't know is an alien invader at first)  who starts aging at a rapid pace right in front of them, slowly turning into one of the other characters.

- Forest of fetuses

I want the bodies that grow in the plant like manner in the ground to be like growing fetuses and there's a section of forest filled with these that the characters find. By the end of the film one of the characters can burn this forest with a flame thrower as the spine tingling shrieks fill the air.

- Character bonding with clone over music

I had this image in my head of one of the characters bonding with his alter ego, he can be established as being into music or karaoke or something and not having anyone else who shares his passion. There can be an awesomely weird sequence where he bonds with his (hopefully somewhat deformed) clone.

- Person born with disability that was fixed, clone's not fixed

One of the characters can be established as having been born with some kind of spinal disability or something and he can have a clone that still has this disability because only his DNA was replicated. This replicant can go full spine monster by the end of the film.

As per usual I've broken my idea into five parts with an intro:

Intro - Three boys are out in the woods looking for an abandoned town that one of them claims to have been to before, but they are taking a path through the woods with their bikes. Soon one of them finds something off - a broken bike and a child's body-like shape in the foliage.

ACT I - We open this sequence with a search and rescue party about to set off to find the boys who we learn have been missing for three days, some of the parents and friends are concerned and doubt the ability of the search and rescue team and insist on going with. They know where the boys went because of some other kids at school being told.

This Act sees the party set off, we get some development and our first bits of creepy supernatural activity. Weird things that they find in the forest, some creepy stories retold by the search and rescue officers and them getting lost when elements and landmarks start repeating.

ACT II - By the start of this Act the party is completely lost, it gets late and they have to camp out, they find an old research base and decide to do so there. Mystery starts unfolding as we find out about the attempted alien contact and there are some scary bumps in the night.

The chapter ends when they find one of the boys in the forest.

ACT III - This Act sees the group trying to find their way back, the boy starts showing weird signs, seemingly aging in front of their eyes. They find a scientists in the base who explains some of what's happening. The boy ages into one of the other characters.

ACT IV - This Act is where all hell starts going off and we get to explore all the crazy ideas, like the different types of clones and the fetus forest and things get violent.

ACT V - We lead into Act V with a montage type deal connecting the different story strands, the glue being the musical sequence with the one character bonding with the clone. The final act is the awesome and chaotic release of tension, full on craziness and action as the characters try to fight their way out.

I don't know if I'll ever get around to writing this, it's not one of my better ideas but it was fun to inhabit this story for a day. As it stands now I think it does a good job of emulating the feel of Annihilation, something which I think would definitely appeal to a certain group of people.

If I do write it at the very least it would be good practice.
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I've done a quick treatment-like thing for the intro:

EXT. FOREST, MID-DAY

Three boys walk their bikes along a dirt path through the forest. 

THEY DISCUSS WHERE THEY ARE GOING, THE LEADER INSISTS HE'S NOT ONLY ON THE RIGHT PATH BUT THAT IT'S A FASTER WAY TO GO THAN TAKING THE MAIN ROAD. ONE OF THEM SAYS THEY'RE LOST AND POINTS OUT THAT THEY'VE ALREADY BEEN PAST A CERTAIN TREE. ANOTHER DOUBTS HIS ABILITY TO NOTICE A SINGLE TREE, THE OTHER BOY AGREES THAT THE PLACE FEELS FAMILIAR AND WANTS TO GO BACK. HE SAYS THEY CAN JUST TAKE THE MAIN ROAD AGAIN THE NEXT DAY AND ACTUALLY ARRIVE AT THE GHOST TOWN THAT THEY'RE HEADING TOWARDS.

THE LEADER INSISTS HE TOOK THIS VERY PATH THE OTHER DAY, AND POINTS AT A STRUCTURE IN THE FOREST. THEY MOVE TOWARDS IT, SOMEWHAT RELUCTANT. ITS A RANDOM STAIRCASE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FOREST, THE LEADER SAYS "SEE, TOLD YOU, WE HAVEN'T PASSED THAT, HOW CAN YOU MISS SOMETHING LIKE THAT". ONE BOY IS SILENTLY SURVEYING THE AREA, THE OTHER WONDERS HOW A STAIRCASE GOT THERE IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, THE LEADER SAYS THAT'S WHAT THE GHOST TOWN'S LIKE, IT WAS ONLY HALF BUILT AND ABANDONED YEARS AGO. THE OTHER BOY SAYS HE HEARD THEY DID SCIENTIFIC TESTS OUT HERE, THAT'S WHY THE LEFT THE TOWN  IN THE FIRST PLACE.

THE SILENT BOY FINDS SOMETHING COLOURFUL IN THE BUSHES, ITS A BIKE AS WELL, IT'S BENT, IT LOOKS NEW, THE OTHER BOYS ARE CONSIDERING WHETHER OR NOT THEY SHOULD CLIMB THE STAIRCASE, ONE SAYS HE'LL TAKE A PHOTO OF THE OTHER IF HE DOES SO - THE SILENT BOY CALLS THE OTHERS BUT THEY ARE TOO BUSY, HE SEES SOMETHING ELSE BY THE BIKE, IT'S SOMETHING UNDER THE TREE. 

IT LOOKS LIKE THE BODY OF A CHILD, BUT ITS FEATURELESS LIKE A MANNEQUIN, THE OTHER BOY IS CLIMBING THE STAIRCASE, THE LEADER READYING HIS PHONE TO SNAP A PICTURE, HIS VOICE WEAK THE BOY BY THE BIKE CALLS OUT AGAIN TO HIS FRIENDS BUT NOW THEY ARE GONE, CUT TO BLACK.

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I should break the film down into the main themes like Duncan did for his thing, I should probably come up with some main themes, probably come up with some characters as well.

Some themes I could explore (quick brainstorm):

Regret and what could have been - this could be present with the guy born with a disability and whose now able to live a full life due to that being repaired, this could also be shown with a clone or something making better or different choices

Connecting with others and the separation we have from others because of always being in our own head - could be shown with dancing connection, this is something I think we all wonder (would I get along best with myself? Am I only attracted to people like me and how selfish is that?)

- Selfishness

-Communication

- Loneliness

Bringing up kids to be like you - little versions of ourselves?

- Reproduction

I think individuality and selfishness are becoming the prominent ideas I want to explore.

Characters:

- Rescue Officers

I definitely want a team of search and rescue officers, three should do. I'm thinking two male and one female.

- Mother

- Big Brother

BSA 231 W3 : Outline

Since I've given myself only two weeks for the script and animatic I really should get started on those, so here's my outline/beat sheet thing:

- Ball hits body, boy investigates
- Detective on the phone, walks out to where body is, people are arriving by the sidewalk, there's a parent pulling her son away from the body
- Detective yells at kids who are tampering with the body, asks policeman who's there where the forensics team is
- They keep going at it and he pushes one aside, someone across the field tries to get his attention - it's the constable in detective gear, the kid kicks a ball back at him, policeman takes kids away, parents arrive complaining
- People arrive in a car, it's the commissioner and his coneys, they discuss the case, the pretend detective trips randomly falling over not used to his leather jacket, they acknowledge this
------------------------- FINISH LATER!!!

EXT. SOCCER FIELD


Some kids are playing football in the distance, but the camera is zooming in on the under bush of a hedge other side of the fence. We keep moving in to something that looks like hair. The ball violently smashes into the hair and reveals a face, blood starts dripping down it - it’s a girl. She’s not moving, one of the boys investigate


INT. BATHROOM
Our main character stands at the sink taking a pill, he’s talking on the phone to a significant other of some kind expressing his anxiety about the case and general frustration with the team.
He takes the pill and it has an effect on him, we get a voice over establishing what the general setup is - that the world has become addicted to a new drug that is so good its been legalized.


EXT. SOCCER FIELD
The detective walks out, draping his detective coat over his shoulders, he’s tired.
There is commotion outside, some police officers are already on the scene and there are bystanders, as the detective walks we pan to reveal the body in the distance. It’s surrounded by curious kids, a police officer is trying to keep them at bay but not doing a very good job.
Detective yells at kids who are tampering with the body, asks policeman who's there where the forensics team is
- They keep going at it and he pushes one aside, someone across the field tries to get his attention - it's the constable in detective gear, the kid kicks a ball back at him, policeman takes kids away, parents arrive complaining
- People arrive in a car, it's the commissioner and his coneys, they discuss the case, the pretend detective trips randomly falling over not being accustomed to his new leather jacket, they acknowledge this
-
INT. HALLS
The characters all enter the building, glad to be rid of the cold, they immediately start making themselves comfortable. One of the officers is tasked with interviewing a potential witness
We cut from this to the main meeting:


INT. LOCKER ROOM
The officer interviews the man, who is a chicken farmer, a proud breeder of cocks,


INT. CONFERENCE ROOM
They discuss it with the Head of Police and the family (who include a father, mother, older brother and younger sister)

I'm thinking about reincorporating the original idea I had where the whole thing is set in an alternate universe or future wherein drugs have been made legal and everyone is taking them, maybe one specific drug that's so good and has so little health risks attached that everyone takes it. TIhis would make the dialogue and stuff more interesting, but the reason that I curbed this idea back during the formation of my proposal is two-fold:

1) No authority on the subject

One of my chiefs concern with the dealing of this subject is that I have like no experience with drugs or what people are like on drugs and thus no real authority to write about them and their effect on my characters. That being said it is a fictional drug and I can have it do anything to anyone that I want.

2) Extra texture not needed

It adds another layer to the film that I originally felt was unneeded and could potentially affect the clarity of the project in a negative manner.

Now I am thinking of bringing it back though, reason for this is because I am thinking of using David Cage (the game developer) as an inspiration.

The BIGGER PICTURE:

The idea of this project is to make something that is representative of a bigger project, an advocate for a feature and not really a complete piece in an of itself. So what is the idea for the feature as it stands?

BSA204 W3 : The Chaser (2008) Review

Because of enjoying I Saw The Devil (2010) so much I decided to watch a couple more prominent South Korean films that I have yet to see. The most enjoyable part of my experience with these films is that I haven't seen them and know next to nothing about them. This means the experience is truly fresh, instead of what I often find with Hollywood movies that I haven't seen before where I have heard a lot about them, seen interviews with the directors or the films are just too safe and generic that they have nothing new to offer, all of which result in a less unpredictable experience.

The synopses of these films and their advertising never reveal much and its always so different to watch the movies themselves than what I assume they'll be upon first contact.



The Chaser (2008) is written and directed by Na Hong-jin and its his debut feature. The film has a very odd setup: An ex police detective turned pimp investigates the disappearance of his prostitutes who have had the unfortune of serving a deranged serial killer.

It's a movie that immediately puts itself at the odd disadvantage of making it's protagonist somewhat despicable. He is a pimp and acts like one, not being particularly soft on his workers, yet it wasn't hard to relate to him and support him in his mission. I think there are three reasons why this is:

1) Contrasted with an even nastier individual

The protagonist, who could be seen as a bad person, is made to look better because he's placed next to the serial killer, a much worse human being. This is I think a common technique, although I can't exactly recall the other popular examples.

2) Seen protecting girls

He is seen acting as a bodyguard to one of the girls, a big part of his job as a pimp, even though this is still despicable in some way it comes off as if he cares for those less well off. He stands up for those less fortunate than him in a twisted kind of way. This is another common technique to make us like a hero.

3) Played off normally - it's just his job

His immoral occupation isn't represented as such, it's presented as just being a job that he does. Kind of like how hitmen or assassin's are often represented. This also implies it's not for pleasure that he's really doing it, more just because he has to. If it was shown that he does it because of greed or a reason similar to that we wouldn't sympathize, he does it because he's forced into the situation and if he had a choice he probably wouldn't.

The reason for this is briefly mentioned later in the film when he talks to some of his old cop buddies, although it came a bit too late in the story in my opinion. This kind of information should have been provided upfront to the audience in order for us to care. By the time it does come around we no longer really care and am just along for the ride, a similar complaint to the one I had about I Saw The Devil when that film tried analyzing the protagonists' motivations. Be more consistent with this stuff, or more up front or at the very least build more mystery and suspense before the reveal.

The Chaser himself on the job

The weirdest thing about The Chaser and something that I feel is quite relevant after the session with Duncan the other day is that it seems to completely lack a coherent structure. It feels like the writer just went with the flow and let the story lead itself. This is interesting and results in a very entertaining and unpredictable film, but it does mean that it at times feels like a first draft and that a lot of potentially great narrative avenues remain unexplored.

One of these is the brief team-up between the protagonist and the villain, and when I say brief I really mean brief. In the film The Chaser catches the serial killer, cuffs him and takes him into custody, at this point I remember getting excited because I thought they would be teamed up and a portion of the film would act as a buddy comedy or odd couple situation. Instead this potential is immediately squandered when they are both arrested and spend their time at the police station mostly separated.

This happens again and at a more extreme level later in the film (spoilers) when the detective takes the daughter of the kidnapped prostitute along with him during his investigation. This one is explored a bit more and we spend more time with these two characters together but it feels like the writer didn't see the potential here and teamed them up simply due to circumstance. It doesn't feel like he milked the situation for what it was worth.

There are a couple of examples like this and all disappoint because they are good, interesting setups filled with potential conflict and character development.

The Serial Killer Chased by The Chaser

There is one amazingly well written scene that I have to point out (spoilers). One of the girls goes with the serial killer, who the detective has by now figured out is up to some dodgy business. She is informed to call the detective once she's inside his house and give the detective the address. Once she's inside though she realizes there's no signal. This ups the ante a bit, but we're still somewhat at ease, the real shocker comes when she tries to get better reception by pointing her phone out the window - that's when she realizes there is no window, it's bricked up. Then she realizes how dirty the room is, and the blood on the tiles and the piece of hair and scalp in the shower. And now she's stuck in the house...

 It's just a really fun horror scene that escalates brilliantly. The moment she sees the brick is priceless, the whole thing is just very tense and engaging and has that classic horror sense of dreadful realization. The best scene in the film I think and it milks the situation for all it's worth.

This scene is pretty brutal and the film isn't shy to show off

The strengths of the film is in it's constant ability to stay fresh, I think this has a direct correlation with the films weaknesses though - that it feels underdeveloped. There's a big plot point at the end of the film involving a grocery store, and yet this location is never established at any point prior. Because of what happens here it makes the film feel like it relies on coincidence and makes it feel poorly planned, this could have so easily been fixed in an earlier scene just by establishing that the villain visits the store often. This would have also added more tension and engaged the audience more when it becomes relevant.

I think it's a good film, but one that, especially from a narrative point of view, could have been much better and felt unrefined.

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I think I would have done the film very differently if I had to make or remake it. Firstly I think those plot lines that showed good narrative potential but was never expanded upon should get a fair shot - specifically teaming up the killer and detective and doubling up on the detective and young girl dynamic.

I thought about how I would do it and I think I would keep most of the first couple of scenes the same, right up until The Chaser captures the serial killer. This is also the best part of the film. At this point I would have the two spend some time together, with the detective trying to solve the crime with the man with all the answers right next to him. I'd lead this straight into the scene where he takes the little girl along, but this time it would be a trio, him, the killer and the girl.

I like this dynamic, it's like two surrogate parents, except neither is equipped to take care of a young girl, one is trying to investigate the secrets of the other and one is responsible for the murder of the young girl they're looking after. In the film I thought it would be great to see how the killer interacts with the daughter of his latest victim.

I would have this dynamic take up about half the film and have the two main characters separated for the second half up until the very end, this way there is a tension and anticipation built up for their next meeting which would come at the end of the film. That's something else I think the actual movie made a mistake with - having the killer and investigator come face to face halfway through the second half. This should be built up and when The Chaser finds out that he is indeed a serial killer they shouldn't see each other immediately. Milk the most out of that tension I say, makes the ending that much more satisfying.

Their time together would allow for them to learn eachother's tricks and a parenting theme can exist with the presence of the young girl. Again there is a lot of great narrative potential in this film, it's just not really taken advantage of. If I did remake it, it would be a very different, but I think better, film.

It sits in an odd spot where I can't remake it even if I had the rights because it would be too different and yet I can't make it into an original film because then I'd be plagiarizing. Sadly there's too much and too little that needs changing.

BSA204 W3 : Emu Script

I started writing a quick treatment/half script thing for what the opening scene of that Emu film might be, here's what i came up with: FADE IN: EXT. A girl is sitting by the corn field, the sun is low and she's driving toy cars up and down the slow rise and fall of the belly of an old hound. THE DAD IS YELLING FOR HIS SON, A YOUNGER SHEEP DOG RUNS OUT OF THE FIELD AND GREETS HIM, HE ACKNOWLEDGES THAT THIS DOG WAS WITH HIS SON AND ASKS IT WHERE HIS SON IS NOW HE GOES OVER TO HIS DAUGHTER AND ASK HER, HE WAS INSIDE THE CORN FIELD, HE DIDN'T COME OUT THE DAD GOES LOOKING, THE YOUNG DOG ACCOMPANIES HIM The girl keeps playing idly, one of her toy cars crash into the other, suddenly the dog sits up, it's ears pricked. The girl stops playing The dad is moving through the field calling the boy's name, it's time to come in he says, he looks tired. He tells the dog to find the boy, it is of no help to him He hears something moving among the stems and turns around, he asks the boy's name The girl is looking intently at the field, the camera is slowly zooming in on her and where she's looking, there's an eerie opening in the corn stems, it's completely dark in there. She doesn't move, just stares at the void Two silver shapes appear floating in the void, they look like eyes, the girl afraid to move says dad, voice stuck in her throat SUDDENLY the dog jumps up and starts barking, she screams and yells DAD! Tried to go for a horror thing, I think it works well. Feels like Signs to me.

BSA227 W3 : Green Screen Key

Today we went over using simple keying to incorporate a green screen subject into another environment/background:

First we dragged the footage into our program, we didn't start a new composition because the comp automatically takes on the properties of the footage when we drag it into our timeline.

Once we've dragged in the desired green screen footage we can key out the green by typing in "key" into effects and presets and then applying the Keylight (1.2) effect

Once this is applied the green can be keyed out with the effects controls:

Using the screen colour tool we can use the eye dropper and select the green (close to the person themselves) and get rid of the green.

Next we inserted the background:

We put this layer underneath the green screen layer, now we have to key it in properly because there is some problems with black line around the subject as well as some areas that aren't transparent. We do this by adjusting the clip white, clip back and screen shrink.grow options under screen matte.

We can also change the view to screen matte to see the green screen footage in B&W to make it easier to edit:

We tried ridding this image of the grey areas - both in black and white parts of the image

We then have to fix the green screen spill that we're getting on our image so we change the despill bias, select a piece-a-skin that doesn't have green screen spill and it will somewhat correct the image

Now we have to fit the person in with the environment for which we apply curves:

Beautiful

BSA 203 S2W3 : Cover Letter

- Time Consuming (?)

- Leads into CV
- Demonstrates Communication Skills

- Abstract, less academic

- Who you are as a person

- You want a job

- Talking directly to the person

- State what you have to offer e.g. it's all about them

- Who you sending it to

- Position Description 

- What the business is looking for

- What the company is about

- No informal language, get the company name right

1) Dear mr/mrs, if someone gives you their first name use it, I would (Dear Mr. Assuming My Gender)

Re: Computer programmer or whatever, # (What is this letter referring to?)

2) Who you are/why you are applying (what you can do for them)

3) Expland in greater detail with direct reference to your own experience and skills

4) Conclude: Available for interview, your CV's attached, are you looking for a paid or unpaid internship, thank them for their consideration, reaffirmation of main argument - a sentence along those lines in your concluding paragraph

Kathryn suggested that I can contact professional, businesses in Invercargill and offer my services for things they need like advertising or such. 

BSA 204 W3 : Tomb Raider (2018) Review

Over the holidays I saw the new Tomb Raider movie, I went in with very low expectations and it's mere mediocrity exceeded these expectations leaving me with a surprisingly positive experience. Video game movies never seem to work, this combined with my own personal connection to the series all coloured my outlook before going into the film. See I grew up with the original games, and even now I still think they are really good - better than all the times they have tried to reboot the series. The Angelina Jolie movies are in my mind some of the worst things ever put to the silver screen, especially the second one which seems hard to beat in terms of how pure trash it is. The new games have taken a much more cinematic approach and while I am not a fan of this in video game form, I did think it work much better for a movie. Seeing them going with this new style and aesthetic with the new film seemed to be a good sign, even now after seeing the film I still feel that the game from 2013 somehow manages to have a better story and execution, but I found myself shutting down my brain and really enjoying the film.


Having said that, now I have to analyse it and see what worked and what didn't:

What surprised me the most about Tomb Raider was Tomb Raider herself. Going in I was expecting the generic female empowerment type character, the bad-ass woman who can do no wrong and that's not at all what I got. She isn't a particularly well fleshed out character or anything and her motivations aren't that convincing, but it's refreshing to see a vulnerable heroin for once. The fact that Lara Croft doesn't win every fight she's in and the fact that she can take a beating makes it much easier to care about her. I very quickly forgot I was watching a female empowerment thing, a barrier which usually stays up for the duration of a film. It made it incredibly easy to root for her and pay attention to the adventure at hand.

Characters who take a beating and get back up are much more likable than those who never lose. Take note: if you're writing a strong female character make her human.

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My Idea

I did have an idea for a movie while I was watching this, it's an evolution upon something I had thought before but also very much a bi-product of my experience with this film. I like watching movies that either aren't that good or that are plain bad, because it's easy to see areas of improvement and I find myself thinking of alternate routes the story could have taken or different ways in which it could be done as I watch the scenes unfold. This often leads to new ideas that I think can work on their own.

The idea I built upon:

A while back I saw Saw for the first time (another film I intend to do a review on) and it was my first real exposure of that genre (namely torture porn). Now that film in and of itself didn't really fit that description and was very tame in what it showed, but because of it I looked a bit more into its sequels and the rest of the genre and understood the appeal that that type of movie holds. Around the same time the first Indiana Jones movie was put on Netflix and the traps and situations the character find himself in seemed similar to the torture porn situations (like the snake pit). It's a stretch but I imagined a hybrid of these two genres where an adventure movie is represented, maybe not more realistically, but more violently. The booby trips and puzzles and stuff can be played off more like a thriller than a campy b-movie. This would also obviously require a larger cast so that some could be killed off, so maybe an adventure flick with multiple characters who find themselves in these tense situations. The section in Tomb Raider where Lara has to find the right colours as the floor falls out from under everyone is very similar in structure to a Saw trap for example.

The new idea:

I remember after playing Uncharted for the first time, I had to go to work and was sweeping the floors and wondering if someone could actually transform their life in a way that they became an adventure type like Nathan Drake or Indiana Jones. That life seems so much more exciting than what most people actually achieve in their lives, of course in real life things would work out much differently and be more dangerous, but that doesn't mean its not possible, you'd probably just have to leave your ethics at the door. This thought came back to me as I was watching Tomb Raider and throughout the movie I tried to imagine what each scene would look like if it was real life, for example the guards on the island would be much worse to Lara if it was real life.

These two base concepts led into the formation of a new idea, but I didn't have time to write it down
:(


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BSA204 W3 : Duncan Workshop - Structure

This week we had Duncan come down and teach us some screenwriting, we focused specifically on TV and web-series structure, he took us through the development of one of his own recent projects.

He does this thing where he plans out the whole script in a leit-motif fashion, where each sentence of line of dialogue correlates with a list of themes that he's written up.

One of the things that Duncan does when developing the structure for his own projects is to colour code the breakdown into what themes each part is dealing with.

In class we did an exercise where we had to plan out the structure for a film, we planned a series in which the Emu population rises to an insane degree again, become a pest and a farmer has to take it into his own hands to fix this - by killing Emus of course. It's like a modern emu war and I love it.

We did an exercise where we created little cue cards with characters and themes and laid them out in a structure-like fashion.

BSA204 W2 : I Saw The Devil (2010) Review

I watched a South Korean movie called I Saw The Devil, I had actually started watching it last week and over that period of time slowly got through it in increments when I could find the time to do so. I actually quite enjoy watching movies in this fashion, it's perfect when I don't have any proper time to sit down and enjoy a film in its entirety and becomes an episodic thing that I look forward to.



Korean crime movies have a very particular tone and feel to them, I think as a country they've done a great job at establishing a unique voice and separating themselves from Hollywood. It's the type of movie I can't find somewhere else, one day I felt like watching one in that vein and remembered that I hadn't seen I Saw The Devil, one that made quite a bit of noise when it originally came out. This is also the first film I've seen from the director (Kim Jee-woon), one of the big three Korean directors who made his Hollywood debut with The Last Stand in 2013 alongside Bong Joon-ho's Snowpiercer and Park Chan-wook's Stoker.

A serial killer makes a mistake when he murders the pregnant wife of a cop who holds a grudge and has a very unique sense of vengeance. The movie sees the detective playing with his prey as he continuously catches, tortures and lets the serial killer go again until he re-offends. 

It's a very unique concept, hard to sell but watching it you never know exactly where the story is going. At first I thought the finding of the killer would take longer and found it weird that they revealed him from the start, by the thirty minute mark the two are already fighting though and it becomes much more a rivalry than a manhunt.

I really enjoyed the film, although I do feel that a concept this fun could have been made, well, more fun. It's quite dark in tone and takes itself surprisingly seriously. Of course I didn't now what the concept exactly was going on, I was only aware that it was horror - or some form of it - and that it would have a theme of revenge. I was pleasantly surprised by the movie, it's only in hindsight that I feel it could have had a lot more fun with it's concept.

Technically the movie is extremely well made, but more so in the quieter scenes. Unfortunately the fighting scenes, which should be the highlight, were less well done and felt a bit unorganized.

I very clearly recall signing out at one point and taking note of this, it happened when the father figure character was telling the protagonist to stop his vengeful rampage, touching upon the fact that he's gone too far and that he is turning into a monster himself. The scene served as commentary on the situation, as well as establishing motivation, but I felt it came too late and what it had to say was a bit too shallow. By this point in the film we're just along for the ride and want to see what happens next, this felt like the plot was quickly trying to play catch-up and simply put it wasn't progressing. Should have had this earlier and clearer.

My overall opinion of the film is that it's good, but that it's concept is way better than what it actually delivers. There's a lot here that I would like to see expanded upon or simply done a bit better. Things like the action scenes, the setups/payoffs and character motivations could all use improvement. I think my overly positive view on the film stems mainly from the fact that it is such a great idea and that it was so unpredictable to watch. I find that in film, especially nowadays, the unexpected is extremely valuable to me.
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My idea:

This film stuck with me, maybe because I watched it incrementally for so long that it felt weird when it was finished, but the idea of mortal combat waged with the technique of torture porn ate away at me and I formed a quick concept that I think would work for a film.

I needed a setup that would allow me to have to characters engage in a form of combat that involved torture porn techniques, so of course I thought of films like Saw and Seven. Here's the logline as it stands now:

Two serial killers with methods and motivations akin to those in Saw and Seven start a relationship when the police mistake their crimes to be the same case, they soon realize they have very different outlooks on life (and death) and engage in a torture porn based form of mortal combat.

I think structure wise I'll have to play it off like a subversion of a rom-com thing for the first half, and have the two turn against each other during the second half, with it going full action in the last third.

There's a dynamism missing from my concept that is present in I Saw the Devil, especially related to the character motivations and relationships, but it's just a very quick and rough idea. Obviously I formulated this as being a feature, but I do think it's possible to translate into a TV series or short film.

Especially a short, which could show off all the fun ways that torture porn can be used as a form of combat.
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BSA231 W3 : Proposal Presentation

My basic concept was originally going to set the murder mystery in a universe where a specific drug is so good, and has so few negative side effects, that the government has legalized it and now everyone is on it, especially the cops and families in the vicinity of the crime. The more I planned the scene out in my head the more I liked the idea, but I felt like I don't have any authority on drugs in general and making a film with that as its centerpiece would be inaccurate.

Instead I decided to just make it a very incompetent group of people, and have the actors just overact anyway. This makes sense considering New Zealand has never had a proper serial killer and it would be utter chaos if there were to be one. Of course I'll be playing this up a lot in my film.

The idea I had was never for a standalone short film, instead as a feature or even longer format narrative. For the project we have to make something that is short form though, and since I came up with no other idea before the hand in date for my proposal I just decided to go with the same idea and say that it's just one scene or excerpt.

I had thought about this before, specifically last year when a number of third year film students produced trailers for their third year projects instead of full short films. The idea with these were that they could use the trailers as a teaser for a longer narrative and entice producers with the concept/tone of what they've produced. I don't think this really worked, for one the trailers weren't very good trailers, and two, they felt very small scale and were (in my mind) misrepresentative of what a feature length movie would actually look like.

Back then I already thought that they should have just produced one good scene from their film each, this achieves the same results in providing a good idea of what the feature would be like as well as entice producers. Making one scene also means it wouldn't be that weird to have it set in just one location with a small crew.

So for mine I've decided to just make the opening scene of my film.

I don't know how well I communicated this in the actual presentation since the questions people asked indicated to me that they weren't sure what format my film would exactly take the form of.

I have a very particular idea in my head of how the scene should play, and the tone and feel that it should have. In the presentation the best that I could do was just explain what it would look like to people and describe it in simple terms - such as a comedic subversion of the genre.

Choosing one main emotion/idea such as chaos was a good idea I think as it really helped communicate what I was going for and will inform a lot of how I make the film itself.

The scene as it is opens with a soccer field, it's a fade in most likely, and we slowly zoom into a corner of the field where a hedge lays. It becomes very soon apparent that there is something laying there, while it is still hard to tell a ball soon hits it and reveals to be the body of a young girl. A boy comes over the reclaim the ball and stops when he sees what he hit, fade out again into title (?).

The opening is very slow and I think takes a lot of inspiration from the South Korean movies I am using as my artist models. It is realistic, grounded, and I imagine it without any music, just the sound design of the kids playing. I say in this slide I want to stylistically go for more fun and colourful camerawork (something like The Lovely Bones in my mind), but this is very reserved and steady. Zooming in and out is something I plan on incorporating as a technique though, to show whether they are getting closer to solving the crime or further away. It's just an idea at the moment though.

The rest of the scene is the real meat of what I want to do, we start with a detective in the bathroom, he's talking to someone on the phone (his significant other most likely) and displaying his frustration and boredom with the job, illustrating that he's overall just unhappy with his position and job. He says that he's "tired of this place and these people", an emotion I'm sure everyone can relate to. I want him to describe it as utter chaos and then go ahead and have that come true.

He walks out to where the body is and while the specifics have yet to be decided upon I want the scene to play out like a murder investigation usually does but with complete incompetency displayed by the police force. The example I used in my presentation was like how there are too many people on set sometimes, it feels crowded, there's a lot of miscommunication and everything takes ten times longer to do than they should. In the film there will be too many cops and stuff around, as well as bystanders and the victim's family and yet the forensics team is late to set, people are close to the body and all types of other shenanigans.

My idea is to simulate chaos with people just falling over each other and a thousand different things happening at once.

I did a quick breakdown of my time frame, I simply looked at when what was due and built this around that. It's very rough and not nearly as detailed as what I saw in some of the other people's presentations but it helps me a bit and I think does what it was intended to.

I used these as my practitioners for two reasons:

1) The way the characters in these films, especially those by Bong Joon-ho, react to their environment and peers and the physical comedy that arises from that is something that directly inspired the vision I have for my own work.

This clip demonstrates what I mean, it's a sad scene in theory but the way its executed makes it funny:

2) The South-Korean film industry has done a good job at establishing their own voice. They make crime thriller mystery type films but have done a great job at giving it their own spin in such a way that they are completely unique and separate from what Hollywood has to offer. Their films can come only from them and because of this I find myself craving their specific type of crime drama. The comedy present with the people, the torture and violence and aspects of action are all unique to their crime films, I think New Zealand films can achieve something similar, Taking established genres and giving them our own twist is, I think, a very good idea.

I read these out pretty much as they are written here, obviously there are other things to consider (like transport and catering, like everyone else mentioned), considering the time limit I didn't think these were worth going over and stuck just with the ethical stuff - which I feel are more interesting to discuss.

A big consideration that I failed to mention was that I will be using a young girl as the victim - the ethical and legal problems this brings up are countless but you can fill in the blanks yourself. Hitting her in the head with a soccer ball is also problematic. Okay the whole thing is problematic, I'll see how it goes.

I have lots of reason to explore this idea and I feel that this section was one of the strongest in my presentation.

One of the big reasons I want to explore this subject matter is because I think murder mysteries and crime dramas are a very good genre for small time filmmakers to use. Like horror it's low budget but interesting and can usually accumulate quite a large audience. One of the big skills I need is to work with a large cast, this is something that I've always desired to see and something that other student films rarely, if ever, explore.

The thing I like about my idea is that there is very little pressure on the actors to deliver good performances, it's comedic and I'll probably even have them overact, There also isn't a lot of pressure on each because it is an ensemble thing, this will hopefully result in a fun set the likes of something like Guy Ritchies' films.
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I only did this hours before the presentation delivery and decided on the idea only the night before, during this period of brainstorming I did have two other notable ideas though, but it has to be said that neither work in the short form format.

1) Kiwi exploitation heist thing

I was watching Good Time (2017) and wondered what kind of NZ film I could make that is similar to that in execution. I had half an idea and combined it with an older half idea and came up with something that might work for a film.

The old idea was how the organised crime community in New Zealand might operate. This idea originally originated when I thought about how small the NZ film industry really is and how weird it is that we can be one or two people away from some of the biggest names like Taika or Peter Jackson.

I crafted a small scene in my head which left some strands for potential ways a story could go. This scene was a simple get together at someone's house like you would find anywhere in NZ, but the small gathering of people here were all criminals and the main character finds how easily he is connected to some of the biggest faces of crime in NZ.

The new idea came from the pace and structure of Good Time combined with pure exploitation: a heist movie (in New Zealand) where the thing they have to steal is a kiwi bird.

So the story would go as follows:

- On a job

The movie starts with a classic getaway driver situation where we meet the main character and he has to prove himself by fleeing the scene of the crime and getting his associates out of there (e.g Drive, Baby Driver / both of which I think steals this from The Driver), the twist of course being that it's in little old New Zealand.

- After Party (meeting buyer)

A small gathering of criminals celebrating a job well done, the main character meets someone who either knows or themselves buy exotic animals and then illegally sell them to certain rich individuals. Kiwis are of course very valuable and the park close to our protag has one of those.

- Heist Planning

- Heist Execution

- Selling and sale gone wrong, maybe (?)

The ending I'm still very unsure about, but I think it's a good foundation that provides a lot of freedom for where the plot could possibly go.

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All the ideas I had for this project are rooted in the crime genre, I think this is because what I mentioned before about its similarities to horror, but also I think because it's automatically more interesting than just a drama. It's true that putting a gun in a story doesn't immediately make it better or more interesting but for us, where we are and what people generally produce here, I think making a crime thing is a good idea to not only stand out but also engage people.

As demonstrated by South Korea this is also a great genre with which to kick-start a film industry.
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2) Killer VS Killer thing

The other idea I also got from watching another movie, specifically I Saw the Devil - one of those films I still ended up mentioning in my presentation.

In that film the two opposing characters fight in a very violent way, that at times reminded me of the torture porn genre. I thought it would have been cool if they took the idea even further and went all out with it, so I formulated an idea of my own (kind of) that would be able to fully embrace this.

I needed a setup that would allow me to have to characters engage in a form of combat that involved torture porn techniques, so of course I thought of films like Saw and Seven. Here's the logline as it stands now:

Two serial killers with methods and motivations akin to those in Saw and Seven start a relationship when the police mistake their crimes to be the same case, they soon realize they have very different outlooks on life (and death) and engage in a torture porn based form of mortal combat.

I think structure wise I'll have to play it off like a subversion of a rom-com thing for the first half, and have the two turn against each other during the second half, with it going full action in the last third.

BSA227 W1 : After Effects Introduction

We started learning the very basics of After Effects this week, I've tried to cover as best I can the steps we took. This stuff is very basic tutorial level but after that we had some freedom to experiment, I've covered my experimentation in the second part of this blog.

First we created the project ("new composition"), we went for 25 frames per second and also changed the duration from the default 30 seconds to 12, I assume just to get us used to the workflow.

Next we added a white solid to our blank (black) canvas ( layer > new > solid ), changing the dimension to 100 x 100 pixels 

The white solid has been added to our layers, pressing the small arrow expands the tab to reveal more settings (below)

Keyframes can be added by pressing the little stopwatch icon

The timeline shows where our keyframes are positioned and to what value they are attributed, here I have changed the scale and position of the white solid to make it move across the screen and change shape as it does so.

We added test by selecting the 'T' icon and simply clicking on the black canvas, as with photoshop we are able to change the font and size of the text

We added a mask by selecting the square shape icon and dragging it out to our preferred size

The mask too can be keyframed to move.

I think After Effects so far translates well from photoshop in some places, like the manipulation of text, and even keyframes are quite similar to Premiere Pro. It is however still a lot of new to take in, the experiment below took much longer than it would for someone experienced with the program and I have come to realize that I will have to pool a lot of time into After Effects for me to become sufficiently proficient with it. I have already found some tutorials and intend to do them on a daily basis in order for it to become second nature, similar to the relationship I've developed with other Adobe programs.