Idea Development
1. At the end of last year, my project was as follows:
"I want to create a short 2D animation that focuses on the jumpy, defensive, paranoid state of being we enter when our minds are put under stress in a frightful situation. The short will follow a young girl, who awakens terrified from a nightmare and believes that her room is full of paranormal figures that begin tormenting her.
The short is aiming to demonstrate that our imaginations alone can sometimes be the cause of what we think we see, when reality often has little or no part to play."
After careful consideration over the summer months, my film is now aiming to focus on the power of dream. I want the audience to question reality throughout my film, for a response similar to 'wait, what the fuck just happened?' to be achieved.
There are several possible avenues that I could progress down, my trouble is deciding what I want the overall outcome of my film to be. Once I make a finalised decision on the message (if there is one) then i will be able to know to what needs to happen in order to convey this.
Talking to one of my tutors on Friday, he raised an interesting point - that if there is no message behind the idea of a film, then it turns into a piece of artwork, rather than a justifiable piece of media being used to raise a point.
This got me thinking (rarely a good thing...) Did I just want to make a film for the sake of making a film - are the aesthetics and the storyline simply a vessel I am using to make a piece of art that I, myself finds en captivating and enjoyable. Or did I want to reach deeper into the possibilities, draw upon experiences, thoughts and science to make a film that carried with it a thought provoking and fact laden message. Did I want to make others to be able to to find connections within my film and their own lives, providing an empathic portrayal of real issues or did I just want to merely entertain them... Who is my audience??
2. One of the main issues with my plot at the moment, is the lack of an ending. As the actions in my film all take place within a 'dream', my task is to write an inventive and somewhat original way of introducing the end of a dream. It was brought to my attention that sometimes when it is revealed to the audience that the sequence they just watched was 'only a dream' they lose any sympathy they might have had for the character - because they hadn't actually being suffering, they had only imagined it, creating an "Oh its fine, it was just a dream!" response.
I want to break away from this way of thinking. I don't want my film to be 'just a dream', I want to be able to portray another way of expressing dreams.
Shall this character be suffering from a recurring nightmare, throughout her entire life?
If so, how can I show this?
Will she grow older throughout the dream?
Should she have a signature feature that shows she's the same person?
Instead, could she be stuck in a never ending nightmare?
Could she be buried within several layers of the same dream?
Does she have to escape from these bindings several times, every night?
If so, how can I show this?
Can the ending of the film be identical to the beginning of the film?
Would that show that she's stuck in a looped nightmare?
Will the audience understand this?
3.Possible perspective - she is chasing herself throughout the dream, but we don't realise until the end. The message - getting stuck in your own mindset, getting scared and convincing yourself that something is real when it isn't - a literal representation of scaring yourself.
