And so it begins...

Hello again!  Although we are still in the very early days of pre-production, our team has definitely made some headway.  Virginia and I have decided to add a third member to our group: Clara, whom I'm really excited to work with.  I've worked with Clara in the past, and I love the dynamic that we take on when we collaborate on an idea.  She and Virginia have also worked together multiple times in the past (as they are both in CBTV), and the three of us create a pretty strong team.  Although adding an extra member to our group is a risky decision (since the flow of three different ideas could potentially lead to roadblocks) I believe that the three of us have a very unified idea of the direction that we want this film to take, and more heads will be better considering the amount of work that we plan to take on.

The film we intend to make is a character study of a man whose need for online notoriety and "edginess" causes him to push himself to disgusting extents, to the point where even he acknowledges that he is too far gone.  Virginia and I are both fascinated by the phenomenon of "incel culture," and we want to center our story around a man who is deeply linked to this community, while also displaying the toxicity of these online groups.  However, our team understands the cheesiness associated with high school students who want to make a short film on the effects of social media.  Rather than focus on the dangers of the internet, we instead want to focus on the danger of this mentality, with social media being nothing more than a tool for our protagonist to become a horrible person.

So, what does our protagonist even say that's so controversial and scandalous that it initiates this whole chain of reaction?  Something so vulgar and cruel that it becomes an overnight sensation, so shocking and incredulous that he even gains supporters, and so shameless that he realizes how disgusting he has become? 

Well, he wants to f*** a monkey.

Yeah.  This bold claim will skyrocket him into internet infamy, a position both admirable but simultaneously deeply deplorable.  The film will follow his life, which mostly withers away as he stays in his room, and how it gets flipped upside down by the alarming amount of attention that he receives online.  Sure this is a little unrealistic, but after all, we do want to make a dark comedy.  Although our script has yet to be written, we have a solid idea of the progression of events.  Our protagonist will have recently been broken up with by his girlfriend, and this unnamed character will be significant to his self-understanding and final grand realization that he is a shitty person.

Mise-en-scene will also be extremely important for this production.  The bedroom, in which most of the film will take place, has to be perfectly representative of our character.  Similarly, the wardrobe needs to be able to display where his values lay.  This is an aspect of pre-production that I'm eager to take charge of, and will definitely be documenting progress in future blog posts.

As of now, we need to finish fleshing out this character and begin working on the script.  I'm super excited, and I can't wait to begin production.  However, there's still more research that needs to be done.  Keep an eye out, dear reader, as I'll be uploading more posts as the week progresses.