Group Meeting #1 Review

 Group Meeting #1

On Monday my teacher divided the class up into groups to set up our first group meeting. The main goal of the meeting was to share each of our story ideas, receive feedback from the other students, and learn from each other's ideas and approaches. I was placed in a group with the following students that are listed below, with each member presenting their story in that exact order.

Group Members and Story Feedback

Manuella - Genre: Psychological Thriller

Manuella was the first one in our group to present her idea, which followed a story about a family that is having dinner with their son, despite the fact that their son died in an accident. This story fit well within the psychological thriller genre as it was extremely unsettling. She was a little unsure on how to clearly portray that the son was dead, so different members of the group offered suggestions. I suggested showing a framed photograph of the son being placed face down or include some white flowers near the framed photo to signify and symbolically represent that he had died. 

Andreina - Genre: Horror/Thriller

Andreina's story was about a teenage girl who's experiencing supernatural events in her home. that are caused by a ghost/entity. I initially didn't understand, but she clarified that the paranormal occurrences were intentional and that she was going to link it to an unknown motive. I believed her plot to already be strong, so the main suggestion I gave was for her to focus on developing the entity's backstory and motive for its actions.

Andres(Me) -Genre: Mystery/Action

I presented my idea after Andreina and explained my story to the rest of the group and told them that I was struggling with the setting for the antagonist's introduction. My original idea involved it taking place in a museum, where the antagonist would steal a necklace that would act as a MacGuffin for the story, but the location was unideal. One group member suggested changing the setting to a house, which would make it more realistic and a lot easier to film. This also solved another issue I had, as the necklace could be stored inside a safe or a jewelry box instead of being displayed on a mannequin.

Left image was my original idea for setting but much darker and had a glowing stand at the end that had the image on the right inside of it.

Sebas - Genre: Horror/Thriller

Sebas shared his story to the rest of the group that was about one or more characters inside a parking lot stumbling upon a mysterious bag that contained an object or entity that places them into a trance and would make them seemingly disappear. I suggested that he make it so that only one person gets placed into a trance as it would make more sense narratively and easier to portray to the audience.

Julia - Genre: Drama

Julia presented and explained her idea to the rest of the group. She didn't have a full idea but she did know that it was going to be about a woman experiencing grief. Although, she didn't know over whether to have stem from the loss of a family member or a lover. The group helped her clarify her idea, and I suggested to her to represent the death of the woman's lover/family through a picture frame and white flowers to represent the loss without the use of dialogue.

Juan - Genre: Action/Thriller

Juan stated that he wanted to incorporate a fight scene and a flashback, but he did not have the narrative of the story. He initially, was going to start with the flashback, but I suggested that he start with the fight scene and transition it into the flashback later, I used the opening of Deadpool as an example. This would help provide clearer context and avoid any confusion about what was happening. I also suggested that he clearly identifies who the antagonist is during the fight scene.

Camilla - Genre: Drama

Camilla's story was about a girl in her bedroom hallucinating her dead sister. She struggled on how to reveal that the girl wasn't real. I suggested using a panning shot that shows both of the sisters together at the start, then reveals that the protagonist is alone as the camera moves behind her, which would confirm the fact that she is hallucinating.

Taryn - Genre: Sci-fi

Taryn's idea was centered around two sisters surviving in a forest on a post-apocalyptic world. She acknowledged the fact that creating a film in this genre was going to be difficult but that she would try.  One of her issues was that she was unsure on how to show that an apocalypse had occurred and that there were few survivors. I suggested using props like a skeleton to imply death and a lack of survivors, although she mentioned that she might explore any alternative methods as well.