POSSIBLE PLOT IDEAS

 Okay I think I have some sort of idea now. I had an idea before but its a lot more solid I think. 

I had that idea that my main character had some kind of constant de ja vu that was evolving throughout the film. Now I've altered it a little to superstition or visions. I want my character to see things before they happen, like deaths and accidents. She becomes hypersensitive to her surroundings and picks up on things that other people don't. The twist for that would be that if she tells anyone what she saw, something worse would happen in her life. It's the conflict between saving your own life and those around you or letting something tragic happen to anyone else.

Deja vu and superstition goes back to centuries ago with the idea of "already seen", or the sense of familiarity with something that is supposed to be brand new. This ties into other theories of reincarnation and having other sous tied to your own.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

 I wanted to play around with a type of character that I would love. I'm a fan of dystopian films and admire the main characters who seem to "outsmart" the system always. A perfect example would be Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games, who throughout the trilogy shows strength and courage. What I like especially about this character is that the audience knows she is stubborn and the most hard headed out of all of them, but her intentions come from the purest place. 

Name Ideas:

I'm not sure why I really like a mythological name, or maybe something that sounds foreign. I had leaned towards Diana, Luna or Nyx simply because I love the richness of it and how it sounds exquisite. I still want to look for a few other options that I might like more, so I'm trying to take inspiration from different places and books. 

Personality Type:

As I've been thinking before, my main character has to be a smart, protective type of girl. She has to be someone who cares about her society and wants to do something about it. My issue with this is that I still haven't found her motivation or her cause to fight. For Katniss, it was justice for children and most especially for her little sister Prim. Part of my plot problem is whether or not the main character is aware that she's reliving episodes over and over. I'm not sure if her knowing right away would give away too much information at once.

PSYCHO THRILLER RESEARCH

 PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER

From what I've read, seen and heard psychological thrillers are truly just made to leave an impression. For me, every psycho thriller has left me thinking or I've wanted to watch it again. I think it's such a unique genre because of the way that it plays with the human mind and the perception of the world. It distorts the storyteller's perspective at time and constantly makes you doubt whether their reality is a fantasy.

A great example and one of my top 5 movies is Black Swan. It is said for the main character to have developed signs of schizophrenia but is truly a twist on Swan Lake, the ballet. By playing with her sense of identity and creating suspense throughout the whole film, I was instantly in love with the film. Aronosfky did well by creating a parallel with one character who sees her worst parts in another actress.

I like the breakdown of the two different sides of someone. I'm just not sure how to relate that to my character or story. Since it's all very undefined I need to make sure to incorporate this in some kind of way.

Elements of Psychological Thrillers:

An unreliable narrator, like I mentioned before, is what makes these movies so elaborate. As a viewer, you always want to believe that the main character or storyteller is sane, but by losing credibility the plot is much more complex.

Plot Twists and unexpected scenes are key for the shock factor during viewing. Even though not all films have to be completely shocking, it helps to develop tensions and make it more interesting overall. 

Taboo concepts: There's often a lot of substance abuse, mental health concerns, infidelity, paranoia and crime involved in thrillers to reflect the most underground parts of society

LINKS FOR INSPIRATION:

https://www.looper.com/142377/the-ending-of-escape-room-explained/

https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-write-a-psychological-thriller#:~:text=Psychological%20thrillers%20often%20incorporate%20elements,of%20reality%2C%20and%20unreliable%20narrators.

https://www.scribd.com/doc/86003045/Conventions-of-the-Psychological-Thriller-Genre-AND-Synopsis-Analysis

THE BEGINNING

 WHERE TO START

It's been hard to come up with anything. I think I had creative block for so long that I haven't fully decided what to do. I chose to work with Keyllie because I wasn't sure if taking all the workload was the smartest thing, but she also had some block. I have an idea and something that resonates with me.

I started thinking about deja vu and paranoia, things that are strange but common. But why do these things happen? I really wanted to do some type of psycho thriller, simply because its what I find the most interesting and I would be most passionate doing. I think that I wouldn't be able to do a comedy properly, I find most rom-coms painful to watch and fantasy would require much more time than I have. Psycho thriller is the overall idea for now so I think that is what we want to stick with. 

INVESTMENTS

 This is something I'm seriously debating and very unsure about. I want to name it something simple but not something that will give too much way. Since I decided to play on the feelings of paranoia and deja vu, I'd like for my title to reflect that. For me, a movie title is something that can draw people in and make them curious. A movie is an investment. An investment of time. As a producer/director, I want to think: What would make my audience invest in me?

When I was thinking about concepts and stumbled across my deja vu, I realized it was very similar to 4 pieces of media that I wanted to combine into one: The Truman Show, Escape Room, The Game and Fifteen Million Merits (Black Mirror). Each piece had something that I wanted to incorporate into my project but make it very unique at the same time 

BLOCK

 I’ve been “suffering” with a block. Suffering?? I’m not sure what word to use but I’ve been racking my brain for ideas lately. It seems everything I come up with has a start but no end or an end but no start. I like my deja vu idea but it feels like something in the concept is seriously missing. I pushed away the idea of a coming of age film because I knew it was really similar to my music video and I wanted to make something original instead of leaning on an old piece.

I watched escape room a couple of years back and enjoyed the final plot twist where the characters realized the game was fatal and they were being watched on screens. I want that same effect for my project, where you wonder various things. My main points for the audience is:

Who is controlling?

Why are they controlling?

How did the main character get chosen to control?

The concept I came up with was following a girl through her day and watching her make choices. The catch is that sometimes the clips rewind and she makes a different choice, as if reeboting. The audience until this point will be unaware of what's going on, but when the title comes up, our main character will be seen on monitors controlled by our gamemaker. 

MUSIC MARKETING PROJECT

 IRIS 

MARKETING PROJECT

THE BEGINNING 

When we started off our project I was excited with who I was working with right off the bat. After just talking the first day it was clear that we all heard our ideas, the good and the bad, and were able to take the best parts of them. We chose my lucky number 11 to get our song and got extremely lucky with the song 'Electric Feel' by MGMT. Both Sophia and I listen to this alternative genre and were able to really connect with that track the most. 

HOW IRIS CAME TO BE

We decided to just say the first things that came to mind and started playing around with words. Isaac and I went on google to start finding ideas of where we wanted our project to be headed towards. I liked the idea of incorporating some type of mythology in the back of our explanation since our song gave such a mystical and almost spiritual feel. After looking through a list of Greek gods and goddesses, we stopped at Iris because we thought it incapsulated the image we wanted for the artist. A figure that represents color and the strange nature of dreams. Instead of reaching too far out to get a complicated name for the song title, we went to the root of the music and looked at the lyrics. We couldn't use the original name of the song but settled on 'Circuits' since the word had been used once. The way it's related to electricity allowed us to connect it back to our main idea of color and eccentric style.

LOGO AND BRANDING

Since we played around with the name Iris, it was only fitting to use the eye as a representation. Originally we had thought about using a drawing or something creative, but after skimming through some photos we all fell in love with a psychedelic eye. It instantly drew attention and had cool and warm tones that fit exactly what we wanted. Instead of creating our brand and then finding an image, we did the process backwards. I was in charge of our WIX website and used our main color scheme around that eye image. 

BANG COLLABORATION

Isaac and Sophia worked out the logistics of merch, small virtual events for our artist, and ideas for collaborations. Our Bang collaboration came spontaneously from the fact that I brought one to school that day. I was talking about how they really do give me the extra kick I need sometimes after long nights doing homework. Isaac had been eager about doing a collaboration and as a joke mentioned it, but we decided to tie it in to our branding to give it a more multi-faceted feel. Although our artists had just been starting out, we wanted something that would push him further into the spotlight and gain him recognition.

CREATIVE BRANDING 

Since I was most excited about the branding of the artist and the creative part, my team gave me full creative control of the concepts. We would all pitch ideas and I brought the visuals to life. The colors were already a handful so I thought a simple but bold font would complement the nature of the branding. While designing the website, I looked over at other artists in this genre and checked out how they market themselves. Since they have more recognition and fame it was clear that their websites reflected that and sold all their products. Since IRIS is an up and coming artist who's just making his way into the music industry, I wanted to focus the most on the music video and our new single since it's what we had to offer. After doing research on a few artists, I studied Daft Punk closely and decided to incorporate one of the marketing methods. It is clear that nowadays most artists shove their branding down people's throats, but Daft Punk just wants to sell the music. This is why I thought that promoting the music and the creative part is what would appeal more to an audience. Few pictures of the artist are included in the website, so the fans know who to recognize and who to admire are concerts, yet the music was put above all else. 

MUSIC VIDEO BRAINSTORMING

Hands down, this was my favorite part of the project. We thought our song represented a coming of age and also finding your own identity. A common way for one to know who they really are is after a break up or tough loss, yet we didn't want the sad part of it. We did a break up spinoff by focusing more on the positive changes and the euphoric feel that comes with being set free. Initially, the video as supposed to star Sophia as the main character with her boyfriend, showing the entirety of the breakup. After really studying the way we wanted to present our brand, we went with a storytelling video that only included her, and a few promotional clips of Isaac as our artist. We were all excited and anxious to shoot but the ideas all came together almost too easily. It was great to work in a group where we could build off of a base instead of clashing with too many elaborate things at once. So we kept it simple.

MUSIC VIDEO PRODUCTION

Okay now this is my favorite part. My passion for photography and beautiful shots really came through for me in this project. Before this music video, I had never really filmed anything with my camera, since I had always focused on just taking pictures. Sophia and I got to film at her house and at a few places around Weston. I was so grateful with both Isaac and Sophia for trusting me with my own artistic part of the project and letting it all come to life. We were able to film quickly and beautifully and I was so proud of the outcome. The editing came easy and the final product was definitely worth it in the end. I got to play around with angles, zoom and a gorgeous sunset that came through right at the perfect time. Sophia did phenomenal and took my direction so well that it was clear in the video. Most of our shots were me telling her to improvise some movements and I would track her. She did incredible and was exactly what we wanted Circuits to look like. Isaac filmed separate from us but we were strategic with each detail. We carefully planned a more indie look for him with the baggy jeans and muted colors. He came up with the idea of using a tie as a scarf and it gave us that color pop we needed in the video, and also a humorous aspect of the production.

ARTIST PITCH IN CLASS

I thought our presentation went really smoothly in class. We relied heavily on knowing our information and all being on the same page. We decided to play with who was more comfortable with certain things. Isaac, as we know, is a humorous guy who can bring a smile to the audience and make them feel comfortable. I enjoy public speaking and was confident about the information so I balanced it out with a little more seriousness. Sophia had told us she wasn't comfortable with public speaking but knew her slides and case study well and she came off as relaxed and bright. All 3 of us together sold our artist as best as we could. When it came to answering questions, we would glance at each other to know who would take the lead. The key to answering was being cool and confident to be able to seem knowledgeable and have a good explanation ready. 

For the aesthetic look of it, I went ahead and made some changes. Isaac and Sophia both put all the information we needed ready on the slides. After we were done, I made our presentation match our website with the orange, teal and lavender tones that kept our look cohesive. Bold letters were presented and little words were on the screen. This helped for the audience to keep the attention away from the wordy presentation and to listen to us to get the explanation of it. 

REFLECTION

I feel like I learned so much about myself and my group members in this. I was able to take a step back and incorporate other people's ideas. Sometimes it's hard to listen since we think we know it best and have such a clear vision, but it was all 3 of our ideas that made the project as great as it actually was. For me, I discovered a passion and something to pursue. I've already known for a while that marketing and advertising are my paths for college and hopefully as a job later on. Even though it is a more minor project in comparison to the portfolio, its a step towards completing it. It showed how I have to eb responsible with deadlines, I need to have a cohesive look and feel to a presentation and that I have to be proud of my work. I learned a lot while filming the music video about feeling a connection with the art and knowing what the best shots are. I'm excited to see how this new creativity plays out in the next few months and to see how I surprise myself by creating something that I could not have come up with months ago. I'm grateful to have an actual video and website to show to my parents and my friends who heard how much I wanted to work on this. Please Vanessa from the future, make something good of this talent.