Plot

    Hello blog. After researching genre characteristics of our now definitive genre(s), I wanted to prioritize (other than the approach/film opening research), the plot. In last weeks blog post "Social Experiment- Intro", I stated a possible plot idea that originated from an 8th grade script writing assignment. As I stated before, I'm thankful for my 13 year old's boredom as she was stuck indoors, clearly searching for escapism and entertainment as she began to conjure up a fictional storm of experimentation and action. Anyways, Isabel and I have come a long way this week developing elements of the plot, so I decided to dedicate this post to sharing the progress we've made, and also to show that there are still many blank spots waiting to be filled in!

 

In-class Development

    As discussed in the previous blog, the original plot consisted of the teenage male protagonist Tucan, who has multiple siblings with additionally rather unique names, who all speak different languages than one another. Beth, their mom, is the founder/ manager of a social experimentation company, in which she includes her kids in the company's doings. As Tucan gets older, he's "of age" to go into the world. What he doesn't know is that his mom isn't giving him free access to a once restricted world, but rather exposing him to people to test how his abnormalities react with them. The rest of the story would include his journey, with some help, into finding out his moms true intentions, etc... 

    With that as our foundation, we talked in class about what could be included in our actual opening, lighting a match in me to truly find our story, as I would much prefer to know the whole story to drive the opening and make intentional production choices that support that story. We thought of new plot elements in between making choices for editing, taking inspiration from the openings we watched in class last weeks, which I talked about in last week's blog called "Choosing our genre". We decided on specific elements from the openings, ranging from audience relationship to editing styles. I will get more into our intentions specifically regarding the audience and what we plan to do to fulfill that specific relationship in another blog post.

     

     We realized while bouncing off of each other in class and after individual brainstorming that this should be our storyline...

Storyline

    The main character/protagonist of our film “The Lost File” (Isabel came up with name; this is all tentative to possible future changes)’s name is Doran. The name is of Irish origin, which means stranger, warrior, and wanderer. He is a part of his moms secret company, which he escapes at the age of 12 out of curiosity for the external world. He is chased by agents in the company, and ends up suffering a concussion out of a fall in a secluded area while running away. He is found by his then adopted parents, and ends up having amnesia, forgetting about his “past life” of a childhood. The film would be called "The Lost File" because when he ran away, the company began to consider him/ call him "the lost file", which later on his journey to uncover his past/ figure out the truth, he is met with the challenge of deciphering what those files are. Although he believes they are the files he's sent in the opening, the phrase refers to the experimentation company's way of calling Doran, not a discussion about real files. This also demonstrates how children are seen as objects, and storage of useful information for the adults of the society (will discuss more in the next blog.) We have a lot of other ideas, but the opening would relate back to his childhood, and show the audience the video files that are recorded and stored of him and his siblings being presented in the experimentation studies.

     Below is are pictures of in class and at home notes that relate to our plot, character, and overall ideas.