Getting Actors

Our film opening requires the participation of two actors. Given the violent and twisted nature of the piece, we understood that getting any friends or family to act would be difficult, so we decided to turn to a very helpful resource for finding actors called Backstage.com.

I have posted casting calls on here before for past projects and it has worked out pretty well. Most of the submissions are not very good, but there are always one or two hidden gems who are very talented and committed.

By posting a casting call and using aspiring actors in our film, we can ensure that the people on screen are motivated and have a certain degree of understanding in the craft.

The casting calls can get a little pricey for high school students but I found a coupon online that gave us 50% off, which made the price very manageable.

After making an account, we filled out a casting call sheet that asked for a description of the project and the details of production.

We also had to give descriptions for the characters and the kind of people we were looking for.

Overall, Backstage.com is a great resource for filmmakers and actors alike. Despite living in area where there isn't a big film or theater presence, we still are given access to great talent.

Coming up with a Title.

Now that the script is done, we have to actually come up wth a title. A perfect title is integral to selling a film because it needs to be either short and cool like Inception or Memento, or it can be long and poetic like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

A lot of the very popular films within the realm of our genre, psychological thriller or slasher films, usually have very short one-or-two-word titles, for example...

• Split
• American Psycho
• Taxi Driver
• Zodiac 
• Saw
• The Machinist
• Shutter Island

One of the most notable exceptions being...

The Silence of the Lambs

I prefer the longer more poetic names that have a lot of deep meaning. I find them more intriguing, despite most of the movies within this genre being more succinct.

"When We Keep Silent"

We decided to pull our title from a poem written by Stéphane Mallarmé. This poem was originally written in French and I understand that a lot of the original meaning may have gotten lost in translation, but the english version spoke to me.

Although this is just one stanza, the whole poem touches upon the fact that we can never understand ourselves and the world around us because there is nothing is ever truly understandable. Every aspect of life has so much complexity that it makes it impossible. This ties to the theme of blurring the line between good and bad because it is so hard to find reason behind the actions of Trevor and also the actions of everyone else in the film, including the politician.

Aside from being an interesting title by itself, it carries a lot of weight because it is open to many more interpretations. 

I WROTE A SCRIPT! (New and Improved)

So after creating the plot for the movie and identifying intentions for the whole movie, we were able to piece together a script that is a better representation of our goals.

This introduction is a huge improvement from the last one because it is a lot shorter and plausible, but it also introduces the movie revealing themes and foreshadowing.

QUICK SUMMARY: Trevor Mazzini is in his bathroom doing his business when the shower curtain ruffles next to him. Inside the shower is a bloodied person tied to the faucet. Instead of harming him, Trevor shares an intimate moment with his hostage. The guy calms down a little bit, and then Trevor realizes he can't really keep him in here forever and then kills him.

This is a lot better because it introduces the character and his personality: an empathetic killer. It is clear Trevor cares about the guy, but his violent tendencies make him act in a horrendously immoral way. This feeds into our theme of blurring the lines between good and bad. 

A Plot and a Theme Walk into a Bar...

Although it is not required to create a complete plot for the film since we will only be creating an opening, I think creating a more intricate plot and developing themes for the movie is going to make the opening more purposeful and realistic. In this way it will flow better into the story that will (unfortunately) never actually be developed into a feature.

LOGLINE: During the height of the Vietnam war, A lonely projectionist with extremely violent behaviors falls in love with and kills the daughter of a prominent politician. Believed to be a politically motivated act, the projectionist is placed at the mercy of a fearful and unforgiving government and public.

The idea of a lonely projectionist losing his mind is a pretty interesting concept because it is someone who sits in a dark room all day and watching the same movies over and over again. He is consistently exposed to movies and media that are glamorized representations of reality. Movies can glamorize love and romance, but also can glamorize violence. When the majority of your life is spent looking at the world through a movie screen, your world view is definitely shifted.

He envies the people in the movies, desperately wanting to have the amount of human connection as they do.

This is more symbolic of the media we consume on a daily basis.  If somebody back in the 50's could go insane from just movies, then the amount of mental instability must be magnified in this day and age. Over consumption of media does not inherently lead to becoming a serial killer, but one could argue that it does have a profound effect on the human psyche.

Another theme that our movie touches upon is how we justify violence. The Cold War was a time of controversial wars for the United States, especially in Asia. Many believed it was the only way to protect a free and democratic world, while others saw them as pointless wars that were killing too many American soldiers.

Trevor and the politician both act as two different examples of this theme. Trevor is a deeply emotional guy who is just trying to seek affection from anyone that will give it to him, but he is also not able to cope with rejection and has a limited perspective on life, causing him to lash out in violent ways. It is almost as if he kills his victims out of love, not wanting to see them go from his life.

The politician is a strong supporter of the Korean War, which means he supports shipping off thousands of American soldiers to die in a war they cannot win.

Both of these men have a lot of blood on their hands. The only difference is that when Trevor is discovered to be a killer, it is hard for the public to understand and empathize with his motives.

WHY THIS MOVIE MATTERS:

Recently, a lot of movies that have come out in the last three or four years have been politically charged because of the extreme political movements happening around the world, particularly in the United States. These movies are highly popular and trendy, taking home the vast majority of the Academy awards the last couple of years, so we think by making a film that includes elements of the United States' political history, we are better able to connect with audiences of today. Some examples of some recent films with heavy political commentary are...

I WROTE A SCRIPT! it sucked...

I really enjoy screenwriting and it is very easy for me to get carried away. Usually a the rule is that one page of script is the equivalent of one minute of screen time.

So after doing some complicated math, I would have needed to write a two-pager to fit in the two minutes. Well... I accidentally wrote five.


I understand it is implausible to turn a five-page script into a two-minute film, but I was mainly focused on developing and completing the idea







I obviously don't expect anyone reading to actually read the script, but the gist of it was that Trevor (the main character and killer) began to creep on his neighbor (Lily) and then pretended a mannequin was her, and then pretended to be her dog and killed her.

It's strange and convoluted, I know.

Aside from it being way too long for the purpose of our project, it also did not stay true to the story my partner and I wanted to tell. The character was too creepy and the story did not have the same weight as movies we drew our inspiration from like Taxi Driver or Nightcrawler.

Trevor (the name I gave to the main character and also the killer) he was too concrete in his approach. He just narrowed his focus on his neighbor and killed her without any real thematic implications and there wasn't any nuance in his actions. There was no contemplation or did not have any believable sympathy for his victims.

It also lacked direction since it gave zero insight as to would happen in the rest of movie, all it did was introduce the character with the wrong intent.

Retrospectively, I definitely should have written this script with way more intent, but I guess it is a good lesson for the future. Back to the drawing board!

Constructing character

TREVOR MAZZANTI: An emotive killer.

We drew a lot of inspiration from Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver....

Yes... that Travis Bickle.

He has become quite the inspiration because of the complexity of his persona. As I mentioned in the previous post, his motives and actions do not align in terms of morality.

With Trevor, we are planning to make him a very emotive character. We want him to kill his victims, not because of a twisted desire to "wear people's faces" like in Silence of the Lambs, but out of his love for his victims.

I had an idea where Trevor would tear up his victims into little pieces and store them in boxes, lbelled with a name and photo. He would keep them as if they were his friends, so he essentially believes that by killing them, he is able to be friends with them forever.

He is twisted and evil, but we need to be able to express that despite his horrible actions, his actions are rooted in profound insecurities and good intentions.

The Kubrick Stare and Other Cheesy Psychos

In my last post, I briefly touched upon Patrick Bateman in American Psycho and how I did not want my protagonist to be like him because I wanted my character to be more serious and pensive, not comedic and showy.

After a bit more research into the characters of psychological thrillers, I stumbled into none other than Stanley Kubrick. He has three movies that are very obvious psychological thrillers, but I always found his movies to be a little more funny than scary, and I think I found out what it is...

IT'S THE STARE!

I have never really liked any of Kubrick's movies. I always felt like the actors were trying to hard and overacting, and I think I was able to pinpoint the root of the problem in the Kubrick Stare. And as it turns out, I am not the only one that shares this sentiment.

Apparently the Kubrick Stare is a popular term and has become almost synonymous with cheesy serial killers in movies.

Cheesiness is something I want to try to avoid in my film opening. I want to adhere to a lot of genre conventions like having one main protagonist (most likely a male), making him mentally disturbed, and use physical violence to evoke psychological responses from his victims or from himself.

I kind of want my film to be a lot more serious than American Psycho, but films like The Shining aren't supposed to be funny, yet I find them so brutally cheesy that I cannot help but have a laugh. So, I have to avoid overacting or things like the Kubrick Stare, so I can have more tonal control throughout the opening and not confuse audience as to whether they should be terrified or cracking up.