Project Development

Development.

In order to show development within the project, I'm going to break down my initial ideas, where they originated and how they led to what the script is today. 

My notes

I used a Onenote notebook to collate all of my original ideas into one place. This was a useful tool to digitise my ideas, make them easily accessible and easily customisable.

Breaking down my ideas

Idea 1: Friendship

My very first idea was about a pair of friends at university, trying to do as much as they could together before they moved away from each other at the end of their academic year. This was obviously based off of my own experience, because it's something I'm particularly worried about when it comes to the end of this year. I'll have to move away from some really close friends, and keeping in touch is really important to me.

This was inspired by Somerstown and the friendship addressed in that film, but also the scene towards the end of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, where Charlie (logan Lermann) and Sam (Emma Watson) have to part ways when she goes to uni. This scene has always hit home for me even before I went to university, because parting ways with close friends is something that I know I'll have to deal with at different stages in my life.

The personal connection to this story was a definite initial drive and the connection that both Esme and myself had to it referring to each other also made it even more personal.

However, this idea didn't develop because of the viability. The plot idea for the story was for it to be revolving around the friends discovering themselves as adults whilst on a roadtrip. We realised this had too much resemblance to The End of the F***ing World and I was concerned of the costs behind finding enough locations to mimic a roadtrip. 

I did try to develop the plot to add more conflict as there wasn't much in the story as it was. I considered that one of the characters might not want to return home after university because they're gay and don't want to come out to their parents, so the friend takes them on a roadtrip to give them a positive end to that part of their life before they move onto the next. This is maybe something I could develop in the future, but it didn't call to me as something I wanted to make for this project.

In the end, we discarded the idea, but the idea of the pair of friends with a developing relationship stuck.

Idea 2: Stalker/ photographer

My next idea was one revolving around a photographer taking a photo of something they shouldn't have. This idea was more unique than the last and also more viable, however, this was an idea of a plot device rather than an actual plot. I didn't know what I wanted to happen in terms of the action and I found this difficult to take further than the plot device. When I tried to develop it, it turned into adding more plot devices, such as podcasts, instead of actual story and plot development.

The idea was that the film would be focused around a photographer, or someone who acts like a stalker towards someone else, but reveals through their photographs that they're actually trying to help or protect the other person. The idea of the podcasts was set more in an 80s/90s aesthetic of old tape recorders and the photographer documenting the movements of the other person (seeming creepy) but as they move further they become more concerned for the wellbeing of the other person, and end up getting into trouble with someone else (such as an abusive boyfriend of the other person) because they have a photo of the boyfriend abusing the person. I had inspiration from the aesthetics and mise-en-scene of Sex Education and Stranger Things, with a similar writing style as You. 

This plot was messy and hard to describe, and I didn't really know where I wanted to go with it. It could have been good had I had time to really develop it, but by this point, it was getting late into the project and I was struggling to rationalise the idea. The viability was good, but the development went no further than this, because I could tell my heart wasn't in it.

Idea 3: Prisoner's friend

In the notebook, this is the idea I ended up developing into the script I have now. However, it started off quite different.

Initially, I considered someone who has just left prison, trying to readjust to life. However, a 'fan' of the prisoner tries to befriend them with poor intentions, having an obsession with the prisoner because of what they did to get arrested.

This idea was loosely based off of Misery, the film taken from the Stephen King novel of the same name. The film revolves around a writer who crashed his car outside the house of his 'biggest fan', who proceeds to lock him in her room and force him to write another novel to her standards, because she didn't like aspects of the last one he released.

I was inspired by the plot of this film (and novel), but also inspired by the culture of 'Hybristophilia'. Hybristophilia is when a person (usually a young woman) is infatuated with someone known to have committed serious crimes such as murder. This has a huge audience on social media, people proclaiming themselves to be 'fans', retweeting actual photos of murdered women (source), and idolising serial killers.

This topic is fascinating to me. How can anyone 'love' a serial killer? Well, they do, they have a cross-platform community, and they hate on anyone who disagrees with them (whom they call 'antis'). The account I have pictured here is just the first one I clicked on out of MANY that are easy to find on Twitter, just by searching the name Jeffery Dahmer.

This is something that I think could make an interesting film or documentary. However, because of the difficult, controversial, and sensitive nature of the topic, I was concerned of mis-representing the movement as something positive. I really didn't want to come across as supporting or romanticising the idea, so I felt that it would be best to simplify it. I also felt that if the topic of my film was more personal, I'd be able to connect to it more and the writing process would come easier to me.

Having familial connections to people being in prison, I certainly had a place to develop from, both emotionally and factually. I took my own experiences and thought about how I felt in those situations. I found it interesting that people usually ask "what did they do?" rather than "how did that affect you?". People's curiosity has never offended me, and it's something that was years ago and I've been able to move on from. This was another reason it could be used as a source of information, because I could refer back to my own experience without it being upsetting to me.

I also thought it could be interesting to look at a father and son's relationship. This then further separates it from my own experience, but I was also curious to develop more male characters and challenge myself a bit more, just because for obvious reasons I'm able to connect more to female characters, but I didn't want this to be a film about me, I wanted it to be able that son and that father.

In my own experience, my family member treated the situation in a relatively narcissistic way. It was very much a case of 'this is something that happened to me and I was the one who had to go to prison so I'm deserving of pity'. It didn't feel like they had faced their demons, more just normalised the event to make it easier to deal with. Although I really didn't want the father to be narcissistic, I definitely took elements of this, particularly relating to Martin's resistance to treatment for his alcoholism. He decides early that he wants to finish with AA, not taking into account that it's not just helping him but it's helping his son just to know he's facing his demons. It was a huge part of the project to think about how things that happen to Martin will affect Rob, such as his best friends not wanting to hang out with him, and wanting his dad to actually apologise rather than buy his forgiveness.

This is how the ideas for the project have developed and I'm really happy with where the project is now. I'm proud of all of my ideas but of course, not all of them were developed enough or had enough of a plot backbone. Where the script is now is heading in the right direction and it's been really beneficial in the initial stages to take inspiration from other films and TV shows, but ultimately find a topic I feel is unique and low-key.