Task 13 - Evaluation Question: 1 - In what ways does your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The Script:
In my A2 Advanced Portfolio, specifically on my blog, I uploaded several posts discussing the ideas to implement a specific scene from Gia Coppola's “Palo Alto” (2013). In seeing the Coming of Age style movie, the monologue of the character Fred around the topic of a girl who tends to get too drunk and promiscuous at parties gave me great influence for the 1-2 minute opening flashback, for the character of Contestant 2.

Personally, what I felt Coppola achieved in Palo Alto was the juxtaposition of the dialogue, demeaning this girl, against the on-screen visuals of her being on a swing-set and playing in the garden. Comparatively, in my production Snap, Snap, Bang, I feel as though the ominous presence of the “Club” is dauntingly built towards; as the character of Contestant 2 hopelessly walks around a graveyard, late at night.

In my research stages of my A2, I looked in Lady Gaga and specifically her videos: Paparazzi (2008), Bad Romance (2009) and Born This Way (2011). Initially, it didn’t seem possible to tie the music industry hypocrisy and prejudice into either my AS or A2 but the subtle allusions to a higher or Supernatural power, were incorporated in both the Demonic Antagonist in my AS, and again in my A2 with the looming feel of the Club and what it represented in my 5 minute short film.

A fair amount of research was dedicated to the understanding of B movies, such as Sharknado (2013) or Birdemic (2010). Focusing on Asylum Studios for my A2 blog which I wrote various essays on surrounding how I wanted to create an authentic, cheap, B-movie feel to my thriller-flick and not have it appear to be cheesy or untrue to the convention.

In creating my first few drafts for my A2 script, I had a particular shot in my mind and drafted out on paper. The shot would essentially consist of following Contestant 2 going down the steps, down through the layers of concrete and underground tunnels, portraying both his journey to the “Club” and the passage of time. This idea spawned form what I believed came from Carter Smith’s The Ruins (2008), leaving the shot of the Amazonian party life and tracking down to a woman screaming and crying inside an underground bunker. Despite the imagery haunting me when I felt saw it, I could not specifically source where the scene came from and it proved to be too aspiration within eh time constraints; and so was scrapped.

My main goals in creating an authentic “underground club” was to ensure it sounded and felt like a real underground bunker. In doing so, I sourced footage onto my blog from David Fincher’s Fight Club (1999). The saw I embedded was the character of Tyler Durden first establishing the rules of Fight Club. Taking influence from the décor, I also sourced sound effects that felt like echoes – thus enlarging the room audibly. I went as far as to spray olive oil mixed with water onto the walls to create the feeling of damp on the walls – an idea which spawned from the production of The Ruins to simulate sweat.

 The emotional anchor and protagonist Contestant 2 in Snap, was designed based on the research I conducted through my target research. The decision here was to not only create a sense of familiarity between the audience and the character but to allow for easier emotional connection. The familiarities in characteristics also allowed for some believably in the choices to which the Contestant 2 made, further adding believability and making the character less of a blank slate.