Entry #3: Constructive Criticism

Mood: Pensive

Well, let's just dive into it. A lot of things have happened since I last posted. Firstly, Srishti and I decided that for our film opening we would show a scene that takes place in a sketchy, woodsy area. We had thought about shooting at Markham Park, a place near us that has woodsy areas that would look fantastic for our creepy scene of the main characters discovering... something. We wanted to make this creepy scene cut off right before viewers could see anything and then put up a title that says *two weeks earlier*. I've always liked films where "the beginning is the ending" and vice versa because I feel like they create a sense of suspense and evoke curiosity, enough that people will keep watching. Overall, a majority of our original intro idea was based upon getting viewers to want to continue watching.

As we continued to evaluate our ideas, we started to realize that a lot of movies and TV shows utilize this method and began questioning whether our film was going down the road to being totally cliché, an obvious horror. I still loved our overall plot (people find different objects with the same symbol in their houses, band together, become close friends, journey together to solve the mystery, and uncover the reasons for this mystifying occurrence), so I knew we only needed to alter what would be included in our 2-minute film opening.

Yesterday, my media class went to the cyber lounge (the school's fancy way of saying media center with cool gadgets), and we separated into groups to present our project ideas to fellow classmates. My peers brought up the same concerns I had, our intro possibly being too cliché, so my mind began to run wild with new intro ideas.

After combining some suggestions and discussing ideas with my partner, we came up with an idea that we agree would be intriguing enough to captivate an audience. Instead of starting with the oh-so-mysterious woods scene, we want to begin by introducing the main story of our enigmatic character, the girl on the edge. In this introduction, the importance of the infamous symbol will be explained so that the audience's interest will be piqued once it is revealed in the main character's house. 

My vision for this film is that the audience isn't struggling to figure out who the mysterious character is. Instead, I want the focus to be on why the character is doing what she is doing: Making a group of students go on a wild chase to understand the symbol and who left it. The true mystery is not in the identity of this girl, but in her character and the factors that drove her to this madness. To me, it feels like too many films and TV shows are focused on discovering who did this and who did that and not enough on what drives people to commit such actions; I have always longed to watch a production that goes deeper and focuses on the character rather than the action because I find it more interesting.