BSA 204 W8 : Crash and Burn

We delivered out presentations today:

I thought that the other presentations were actually really interesting this time, I especially like Caleb's idea of a man in a coma deciding whether or not he wants to live. He does two interesting things, the first is to represent death literally - it creates a tangible obstacle and real stakes that aren't always present in these types of surreal films. The second is the "oh shit" moment in which he talks to his wife on the phone while she is outside hanging the washing or whatever. This is actually his wife in real life talking to him while he's under, it's a great and creepy moment but also a very good way to deliver exposition and say that the guy is in a coma. 

Luqman's underground monsters idea was really cool because of the mystery, his title was immediately catching (Something Underneath I think it was), maybe it's just my taste but a detective looking for his missing wife in a small town haunted by this old evil sounds very appealing to me. 

Oisin's spy thriller idea isn't all my taste, but I thought his two characters will work very well, each learns something different (depending on others and being more independent) and this is something that I have experienced in my own life. When you spend a lot of time with a person these are themes that arise and provides a lot of time for conflict as well. 

Anyway here is my presentation:

Notes: 

  Hi, I am Bo Myburgh. *hold for applause* Thanks, we are a group of up and cumming young filmmakers. The project I am pitching to you today has the working title of "I Saw Hell", it is a horror self improvement series.​

My logline is : A deceitful criminal lawyer is officially declared dead during an operation after a drug overdose, in those three minutes his soul is transported to hell, an event that scares him enough to re-evaluate his entire life. His quest to rectify his sins is somewhat complicated by the demon that follows him back into the world of the living.

The medium I have chosen to work in is web series, these shorter episodes provide an opportunity to break up the story in an interesting manner, it doesn't have the limitation of a set 20 page limit for each episode, instead each intallment's length is determined by where the story needs to end up at the end of an episode. It gives more freedom for me as a writer and prevents unnescasary padding and avoids cutting important things out for time. I also feel that this is a niche that hasn't been filled in the medium. ​

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The genre is a unique mix between horror and self-improvement movies – where a character changes the way they live and as a result changes the way they live for the better. Some good examples of this are The 40-year old virgin or the Korean film  Castaway on the Moon (which is the go-to movie for me when it comes to thinking about this genre). Another example would be Yes Man. I think it's always interesting to blend together two different genres, the series will ideally result in the same satisfaction that you get from watching one of these movies where the protagonist changes for the better. There is also an element of vigilante or ciminal drama in the mix, because of the actions that the character has to taken and the problems that arise from this. A lot of the obstacles that come in his way is having to work illegally outside of the law.​

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The target audience is young adult males, the age where you leave school and discover some of the world, indulging in worldly pleasures. The message of the series is aimed directly at this demographic and the appeal of watching it lies in the character's somwhat relatable nature and the supernatural hook. Web series that I have seen don't much target this demographic so I think there is an opportunity to do so.​

The lawyer: Spent his life avoiding responsibility for his actions, and helping other escape the same justice. ​

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The character gains a sight for evildoers from the demon to help him in exacting his vigilante justice, these play in little vignettes where we see a part of their evil act. The husband is seen bringing dead baby inside, wife tells him to bury it again which he does in the back yard. Woman who plans niece's dissapearance is forging her leaving letter. 

The themes of the work are directly tied into the target audience towards which I'm marketing. At the age that people leave school they explore themselves a lot in relation to what the world has to offer, during this time an individual experiments with all of life's pleasures. The arc that everyone must go through is of finding who they believe themselves to be, and who they ideally want to be. Taking ownership of their own life and coming back to themselves, damaged and repaired. The story sees a man who has spent his life indulging in his vices, the story forces him to go further and over the edge before being able to come back and become the best version of  himself. It explores the idea of whether or not someone can truly change, the character goes from eliminating other evil doers to helping them change their life in the same way that he did.

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The thing I did wrong from the start was how I subtitled my title with 'a horror self improvement series', which just confused everyone because it's not at all what I'm making. When I was making the thing my brother thought it would be funny to make it sound like one of those self-help shows, I agreed at the time (keeping in mind I was severely sleep deprived), in hindsight this was a very poor way of communicating what I meant. 

This proved to be a problem overall, I was trying to say that I took inspiration from what I perceived as being a specific sub-genre, but should have just left it at horror drama or horror comedy. 

There was way too much detail and way too much confusion in my presentation, outlining all the characters for example wasn't really needed not helpful.

I didn't like how it went over and feels like my worst to date, don't even know if I'll do this idea yet, I just decided to make the idea a different one than last year so that it's at least still entertaining.

Make each episode more like a self-contained short film, exploring one specific theme or idea – the first for I Saw Hell can be about blaming others/avoiding responsibility. A guy wakes up and blames everyone around him for seeing hell, unable to pass on this responsibility to another he is confronted by a demon that can't leave him.

I am very much thinking of going back to the cursed objects idea, I even kinda filled in this roadmap for that instead:

Concept Roadmap

Title: Cursed Objects

Genre: Horror Adventure

Themes: Greed

Setting: Lakeside Town

Protagonist: Peter

Super-Objective: Wants to escape the small town and be successful unlike his parents before him

Outer-want (external objective): Get rich

Inner-need (internal objective): Feel important and make an impact

Inner conflict: Wants to be successful but seems incapable of doing so

External obstacle (or antagonist):  Leprechaun

Inciting Incident: Rich kid joins school, get job to clean out cabin

How does my Protagonist react to this obstacle?:

Further complications: More objects

Mid-point: Detention

“Dark Night of the Soul”/2TP: Attacked in Night-time

Character Arc: Learns to take responsibility

Resolution: Defeat leprechaun but more unleashed by their recklessness.

At the end of it all that idea is more well textured and I know it better, I was reading through what I wrote about it last time (in Week 1 - the spaghetti blog) and I still think that's very good, at the time of writing this blog I feel like the I Saw Hell idea is very bad and was misdirected for me.

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A Ghost in Sheets Clothing

I had an idea for a short film where a family makes contact with ghosts in their house, the ghosts appear under sheets and the clincher is that "we don't know who's under those sheets". dum dum dummm

This kind of careened off into something for research where I was trying to explore how to combine different genres of comedy in one film (this is it so far, still has a ways to go):