Idea for a Movie
As I was starting to clean my room I started to brainstorm about a movie idea I had in the past. I think it's an interesting idea, but I'm afraid that it's too much like something else that may have failed. It's vague but I'll flesh it out...
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There's a guy who is a bit of an under achiever. He's in a go-nowhere job, with no love life, and is rather depressed. He lost his younger sibling (brother, for now) a decade earlier, and hasn't really gotten over it. For the first few years, he'd sit in his younger brother's past room and talk to him. He often felt he can hear him.

He's a big believer in spirits and and the paranormal, and has been studying it as much as he can. He feels a kinship with him; They're both lost.

When he hears about a film crew going to a supposedly haunted house to catch some footage, he volunteers to help. The crew is unable to find anything, and packs up to leave. The main character feels strongly that there is something here, and continues to explore the house while the crew moves out. Inside a bedroom he finds a little girl holding her dolly, and crying. She's a pale transparent green, and doesn't seem to notice him. He turns to go get the crew when the crying stops him. He takes a big breath, closes the door, and sits down next to the girl. She mumbles about missing someone. He tells her that everything will be ok, that he's here to help her. She looks at him with surprise, "You can see me?"

He nods, and attempts to put his hand on her shoulder. When his hand touches her shoulder, her image shudders, and she becomes seemingly solid. She's as surprised as he is. Without missing a beat, the girl takes advantage and crumbles into his arms crying. He holds her close, despite how cold she feels.
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I like the idea of a series better, with episodes. Each episode, this guy goes to a known haunted houses, and tries to interact with the spirits there. When he comes in physical contact with them, they become corporeal for a short time. As he becomes more successful, he tries to make a business out of it, without the media really jumping in.

I'm not a big fan of just scaring people with disfigured ghosts and loud sounds. That's not the point. The conflict comes with his need to help these ghosts, their inner conflicts, and the danger they pose to him and the inhabitants of the house when he makes they become solid. Which is evidently the only way to really get their attention, and help them towards the light.

Episode 1: Intro and little girl.
Episode 2: Victim of domestic disturbance gets violent with main character, giving him a black eye before he can calm them down. (This may be harder then he thought.)
Episode 3: Ghost is aware of the passage of time, and is watching over loved ones. By touching her, he allows the family to see each other once more, and come to term with the loss. ( Discovery that other people can see them)
Episode 4: Ghost is that of a violent robber. When he comes into corporeal form, he has a knife.
Episode 5: A mischievous ghost is having fun terrorizing a two family home. When the main character is looking around, the ghost comes up behind him and scares him like in the movies, with a big roar and a decrepit appearance. The main character immediately turns around and punches it in the face. The male ghost starts to whimper like a girl, wondering why he punched him for!
Episode 6: A young man had committed suicide in the house. When the main character finds him, he's pointing the gun at his head, reliving his suicide over and over. When the main character tries to break the loop by telling the boy what's going on, the boy can't believe he ever went through with it, and points the gun at the main character for telling lies.

I think this is an interesting idea because it's largely a drama, with some action to keep it lively. The main character can grow with each experience, even making mistakes. Maybe he can't help every spirit he runs across. Maybe he's unable to convince them to go into the light before he realizes something about himself. Maybe the current inhabitant of the house are involved. While the main character is partially empathic to the feelings of spirits, he still needs to do research on who died where.

At a certain point, when the excitement of what's going on where's off, he'll remember his lost younger brother, and will return to his childhood home once again to try to find him. (possibly as a part of episode 3, considering it's a mushy one) This would give him a new vigor for his new role, and eliminate the self doubt that plagued him earlier.

Ideas/Comments/Criticisms?

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wahoo!
I just thought of a cool name for my new vigilante!!! I got it from when I was writing this:

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Binoculars fill the screen.

BOX (CONT’D)
I should know. I’ve been watching.

When they drop, we see a man dressed in all black, hiding in the brush.

BOX (CONT’D)
I’m what you might call... a concerned citizen.

From behind the VIGILANTE, we see a few lights turn on simultaneously throughout the house.

BOX (CONT’D)
I think it’s time I said hello.
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I could call him Citizen. I forgot the name of the greek philosopher, but he believed that to create a utopian society you had to have peasants and citizens. The Citizens were well educated, physically fit, warrior-poets who were the ruling body of the greek city state. They led the government and fought the wars themselves, with the peasants being subservient to those who are clearly better than them. To be a citizen, you had to be the best of the best, but most importantly, you had to take personal responsibly for the well being of your state. I think that's perfect for this character. He's doing it because it's the right thing to do and others won't do it. Or, if your police, have too much red tape to do what needs to be done. It's fucking perfect!

Current Mood: subtext!

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uhhhhhh
Let's just say I want to pull Burgio's mask off during the upcoming movie..... what the hell am I going to do about his wacky hair??!?!?!

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VS
In class, we sat down and watched 2-3 of the better films from our Departments film festival. Two of them were about suicide, the 3rd about religion.

I've seen many other films from our current students about suicide. Are these people so lame that suicide is the only story they can think of besides "an author has writers block" , "I'm trying to make this girl like me" and "There's a mystery killer hunting someone"? Or do they really associate with suicide? Granted, many of them are asian, and we all know how asians love to kill themselves, but still, WTF?

I got into a conversation with Brunetti at college. I explained how suicide films are like whiny music, they just get you down and I can't associate myself with them. I tell him about power metal and how it's all about killing your enemies. How it's a positive message on defeating each obstacle in life and coming out stronger. That nothing will stop you.

Now of course, the GS has always known about the difference between emo and metal. but I had an interesting idea for a short:

You split the screen in half. We watch the day to day activities of two people. It just so happens that their lives are exactly the same. They both suck. However, when I say exactly, I mean exactly. They drive the same car to the same job and go to the same classes with the same teachers.

How is this interesting? Well, imagine watching two different people react to the same stimulus. They get fired. They find out their bf/gf has cheated on them. They get dumped. They trip and hurt their ankle, ect.

Now.... make one of them emo and the other metal.

Inbetween plot points we watch them listen to their music. The emo boy sings along "I'm not perfect!" and the metal head "I will rise up from the ashes!" ect.

We then begin to see how they deal with problems differently. The emo kid starts crying to the music. The metal head rocks harder. The emo kid complains to his friends about his life sucking. The metal head laughs with his friends about his bad luck.

You get the idea. It's an attack on emo, and the whiny-music that people listen to that only strengthens' their emotional weakness. It's a gratification (or introduction) to heavy metal, a genre that boasts strength and never giving up.

I think it's an awesome idea. Then maybe I can follow it up with a sequel with rap lol.

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Comical ideas.
Okay, I have a few ideas of movies that need to be "re-made".


Back to the Future - Rob can be Doc, and Kevin can be Marty.  I can be Biff. Since we don't have a suitable future car, we can decorate my ride-on lawn mower.
The Color Purple - Except since none of us are black, we can change the theme to "communism", and go with a Russian theme.
ET - I'm not sure who would be ET, but we can make Kaycee be Gertie because they both have pigtails.
GI Jane - Instead of having a female play the lead, we will just dress Burgio in drag.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre - I will be leatherface, and chase everyone with a lawnmower.  Just to be different.

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$14 Steady-Cam

Well it's not really a steadycam... it's more like a few metal pipes attached that allow for a weight on the bottom (to stabalize vertical motion) and a long handle for your other hand (to stabalize horizontil motion).

If you watch the examples, it does allow for shots close to the ground, which is cool.

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Character story
So I thought of a possible idea for the storyline and origin of the character. I wanted something different from usual characters so I did some thinking and came up with this.

There was a great man that dies and was sent to hell to wander in limbo for eternity b/c he wasn't fortunate enough to live during the time of Christ and be baptized. In limbo, his longing to learn drove him to desperation and he was going mad. Around this time Virgil and Dante make their journey through hell and this man sees Virgil with a living man (Dante). The man takes his chances b/c well....he really doesn't have much to lose at this point. So the man follows Virgil and Dante through all the layers of hell kind of like Gollum following the fellowship. Little did this man know that Beatrice had sent Virgil on this mission with Dante and had been watching the entire thing, so she couldn't help but notice this soul gone astray after them. Out of amusement she lets the man follow Virgil and Dante and watches anxiously to see if he can make the journey. Needless to say he does make the journey only to be confronted by Beatrice.

At this point she tells the man how amused she was at his actions and feels sympathy for the man and his longing to learn and have life again. B/c he made it to the end of his mission, Beatrice felt obligated to reward him. So she rewards him his wish of life and the ability to learn under certain rules though.

The evil that spawns from Satan is corrupting the mortals and turning the world into hell (no pun intended). The man must rid the world of these evil mortals and in return will be paid with life. However, if the man is killed then he will return to limbo with no other chance of life, not even by the word of god himself.

So the character pretty much lives again and roams around killing "bad guys" and reading a lot. I thought it would be an interesting touch to have the character reading books as he's killing his victims and spurting out quotes such as "Through me the way to the city of woe, through me the way to eternal pain, through me the way among the lost. Abandon all hope." etc etc etc.

Now all this storyline won’t be in the movie of course. So I was thinking of a narrator/voice over in the beginning kind of like in Conan and lotr explaining basically what happened.

For those of you familiar with The Inferno, Purgatorio, or Paradisio, you will understand this.

Current Mood: creative

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movie this summer
I think I might have thought up a name for the movie/character for the movie I want to write and film this summer.

I was thinking of the name Logan. But after thinking about it, I thought it would be a cheesy yet unique and interesting twist if I made it "LoGun". This way it could be used for the name of the movie as well, and it captures the type of character he is.

Current Mood: contemplative

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Abandoned Sites for Zombie movie

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Potential Credits for Justice II

Starring:
Chris as Justice
Dan
Breimann
Cory
Bobell

Director, DP: John
Assistant Director: Jack
Choreography: Burgio, Bobell

Location Sound: Jack
Booming: Kevin

Key Grip?: Cory
PA: Craig, Alan

Special thanks to: Juliann F


that should be everyone

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Drop the clip and lay down the gun!
When we have free time we should shoot Solid 2! Continue it where it left off! lol

So he kills a bunch of thugs with ASSAULT rifles dressed in coats, shorts, and flannel shirts lol. I guess the bad guys would have to be a gang in on something lucrative like drugs because I can't image why guys dressed like that would have such heavy weapons. :-)

We should make up a new bad guy.... cause I don't see Mr. Brown being there...

so it would start off with the interior of my house. Some guy notices that the light goes off outside; opens the door, and looks around to see nothing. Then Solid shoots him with his silenced pistol that doesn't have a silencer like he did to cory lol

Then he can go in my house... considering how many films we've shot here.... we've never gone in my house besides my basment and upstairs room. [although we did once... the footage was ruined when my last camera died :-( ]

Current Mood: amused

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Justice 2
So far the script for Justice 2 is to be written by us when we shoot it. Here's the general idea though:

Bunch of thugs break into house, Justice stealthily stops about half of them by using a similar technique. When he tries to use this technique on the next guy, it fails, and power levels are reversed: Justice finds himself very vulnerable. He then has to find his way out of a sticky situation.

What this does for us is that it becomes more then just a scene. It's a story because it has a beginning, a reversal, struggle, then a resolution.

Now I'd like to give justice a little character development.

Lets' say we find Justice with a bloody nose on the floor surrounded by punks. They'll probably taunt him and question what he's doing. What would he say back?

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We were talking about me going to the Pub....
Kevin:
Hell that would make a good priceless commercial:

Bar Cover Charge: $8

Soda at Bar $3

Look on your friends face when you don't spontaneously combust:: Priceless.
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What would be your GuadSquad Priceless commercial?

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Justice had a stick in the first movie..... we can do better then that.

What melee weapon would you give justice?

I'm thinking tonfa :-)

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nuttin else to do.....
So I've been looking all over for the Hunted 2 script, which is on a disc...somewhere around here....

I wanted to continue writing the damn thing, I've pretty much completed the storyline in my head and need to commit it to paper, but I wanna read the damn thing again so I can get a feel as to where I was going before, and continue it. But in the meantime I've also brainstormed a few awesome ideas for fight scenes, backed with some hardcore heavy metal and drama! (I think Jack's gonna break the bank on this one).

If I fail to find that fucking disc I'll need to get it from the old comp's hard drive, yet another project. I mean, eventually when I care enough, there is still stuff i want off it.

Current Mood: aggravated

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Mob Movie...
Putting the link here so I don't forget:

http://www.livejournal.com/community/filmmakers/77055.html

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Filming and DVD authoring
Ok, I'm gonna get off the aggression band wagaon for now.

I don't know if anyone in the cousin's feel it, but the squad does. The end of the summer is coming, and we haven't filmed anything. Part of this had to do with John helping my parents everyday from when he wakes up until 5-7PM, EVERYDAY. (Unless it rains) So that pretty much fucks any kind of decent shooting shceduale. Of course we could shoot at night I guess....

In any case, that pressing feeling of not having shot anything at all is pressuring upon us. Not only to film something that is fun, but something for I-CON and something slightly more professional looking so that it could possibly put into other independant film festivals, or perhaps even public access cable....

For anyone coming for the film disscussion tonight:

I have recently purchased a new Sony DV cam, that I will be using to shoot RZ2:HOE. John also wants to use it shoot his new movie ideas, if I decide to let him use my brand new camera ::shudders::

The camera is amazing and has a 3.5 inch LCD which is touchscreen! Thats expensive to break! I already shot some stuff on it, and it looks amazing, we will just have to watch out whites and light areas during shooting.

I will also have for show tonight, the final version of my TRANSFORMATION: Special Edition DVD. This was a more professional version of the original compeletly redone in DVD Studio Pro. I want peoples opinion's on it, since I will probably do a simialr "special edition" to Resident Zombies 1. (I haven't figured out how I would distrube RZ1 to people who want a copy. I think I'm gonna charge about 4 bucks since I will be spending like more than a week doing it, providing media, and case, and case design etc.)

I'll post once it's finished so that if you want a copy you can tell me to burn it for you.

Current Mood: none

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More Filming Idea's
SUPER CAMPY BURGION: DESTROY ALL CLONES!

Critique on super powerful/fast matrix heroes who can do anything.

Get Burgio, cause he's the icon of action movies, and give him one pistol. Little storyline, he just starts up a fight against Mr. Brown, who has an army of clones! Burgio fights all the clones but in super campy mood!
(perhaps someone stole the keys to his cool car)

-Spins around with his arms out, ala Chow Yun Fat, releasing the clip which flies out of the gun and hitting a clone in the face. While the clone is stunned, Burgio shoots them with the remanning clip in the barrel.

-A clone begins to open a door behind burgio, so burgio releases his clip from the gun and kicks it into the clone's face. The clip bounces off the clone and back into Burgio's gun, whereas he spines around and shoots someone else. (camera zooms into Burgio's clip, acting like the flying clip)

-Turn gun around in hand so you use it like it were a knife in a knife fight, proceed to beat up clones.

-Can bounce bullets off wood. (without hurting original surface!)

-When doing kicks, boots come off and hit clones. Always land up and just steps back into boot.

-Shiny Belt Buckle Blinds enemies. Belt, used as a whip, is used to fend off enemies.

-Clone shows up behind Burgio with a gun to his back.
Clone: "Dont' move."
Burgio, stuck with his gun pointing forward, fires and ricochets' the bullet off wood to kill the guy behind him.
Burgio, "You didn't say not to shoot" (CAMP)

-Parries bullets with barrel of gun. (shhh ---ping!)

-Gun should be special: Fires full auto and never runs out of ammo.

-Stand off against Mr. Brown and Burgio.
A) Burgio ricochets' a bullet off the ground to kill Brown.

B) Brown: "You get the first shot."
Burgio fires up in air, on an angle.
Brown: " What the hell was that?"
:::long pause as both characters put hands on hips and wait:::
Burgio: "Making up for wind velocity."
Bullet comes back down and Burgio does "Burgio Kick" to Kick the bullet and Mr. Brown. It sparks off of his shoe.
Burgio: :::80's scream::: STEAL TOE!!!! (shot of burgio's boot)

Another Mr. Brown pops out from behind the house and yells, "haha! That was just a clone!" Immediately, Burgio's steal toe boot hits that brown in the face and he falls out of Frame. Another Mr. Brown shows up and says something funny.

-Burgio disarms a clone in front of him, but there's another clone coming up to his side. He spins the gun around, places the hammer side of the gun up against the clone's temple. When he fires, the bullet hits the clone behind him, and the action of the slide hits the closer clone in the temple.

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Mercenaries2 and a hacker movie?
Mercenaries 2:

synopsis:
10 years after the first movie:

Rob and Kevin, hackers, are teamed of with Jack and Burgio. Kevin and Rob have their own reasons for going after mister brown (probably a dead family member) and when they find a new lead for the whereabout of Mr. Brown, they call in Burgio and JAck for help.


All 4 of the characters are tracking a car down DPA on broad daylight. Shows scenes of Jack driving while talking into a cell phone, shot of the car being followed, shot of kevin in his car around the corner with binoculars watching the car make a turn, cut to Burgio dressed up has homeless guy looking at car as it drives by with a microphone jutting out from under his hat and so on. The car parks, the people inside go to the post office, and leave. The characters say to themselves that this is the 3rd time this has happened, it's a pattern, and they're sure where Mr Browns hideout is now.

(alternate beginning, The merc's finish a short, unrelated job to movie credits and go to their employer to be payed. Knowing about their vendetta with Mr. Brown, the employer tells them about rob and kevin who have found his po box. Cut to tracking scene.)

As the characters return home the small discussion revels that Kevin and Rob's reasons for involvement, how they tracked the PO box where Brown picks up his money for weeks, and how they plan to hack into the security camera's at Mr. Brown's hideout through they're cable modem.

Kevin and Rob hack into Mr browns security system consisting of video cameras and establish guard rotations. Burgio and Jack assault the house, led by Rob and Kevin via radio as they look at the security systems at base. They find that the info is false and are forced to retreat when they are outgunned.

Retuning to base, the heroes find themselves wondering why the plan didn't' work out and why the camera' lied to them. Rob and Kevin theorize that there must be someone on the other end working against them.

Breimann, Mr. Brown's own hacker, reports that he was right about someone spying on their camera's. Mr brown responds that he was happy they ran fake video in it's place... and asks if Breimann can track them in return. Breimann responds that he already has.

Inter-cut scenes of the heroes Bs'ing...... possibly revealing why Rob and KEvin joined up for this with scenes of Mr. Brown's men getting ready to storm their base. Sneaking up to the house, his men bust in the door to find an empty house with a lone computer. It's screen saver laughing at them.

"Well that answers our question" Rob says. The group walks over to the computer to see Mr. Brown's men falling for the decoy computer they had set up to bounce they're signal off of to hack into Mr. Brown's base. (webcam)

Grey area: Should the merc's be waiting for Mr. Brown's men at the decoy area? should they quickly go there to dispatch them? Should they quickly head to Mr. Brown's while his men are away? Should there be an explosive waiting on the server case for Mr. Brown's men?

Either way, the last fight scene is the merc's assault on Brown's base again where they run into Bobell! A cool scene ensues where I am going to guess bobell is finally defeated and Mr. Brown is able to escape again. The only problem with that idea is that I can't think of anything Bmann, Kevin, and Rob can do.... with Bmann messing up the security system, Kevin and rob can't do much for Burgio and Jack. This may not be so bad, because I'd like to make an offshoot movie just for them.



------Hackers-------
We tossed around the idea of Kevin and Rob playing two hackers who, while messing around with some of their hosting sites at their jobs they discover some sort of crime that gets them involved in some kind of gang war none of them are prepared for. I don't know if we want to use mr brown again, or create a new bad guy. IT would defnintly be an action-comedy.

idea#1: They intercept what they believe to be a message to a gang leaders' hiding place for some big stash. The message says where it is, implies it's extreme importance, and gives a time for pick up. Hoping it's money, the two hackers show up ahead of time to steal it. (location: parking lot behind that weekend suit-store by adventure land..... a big open lot with roller coasters in the background) They find a lone car, and inside the truck is a tied up laura!

Better idea #2: They have to break into a house (comical) and find only a car in the basement. Opening the truck, they find laura and release her just in time for the gang members to show up early too! While in hiding, they remember that there is a computer by the entrance to the house and find a way to IM it while the crooks are nearby. After finding the lock busted, the weapons totting gang is freaked out by the mysterious im's of another player in the game who wants money for Laura's safe return! They fall for it and leave the house to meet this mystery person..... stopping their search right before they would have found the hackers upstairs, hiding in closet with a laptop and cat5 running from a nearby router.

-----------------------------

I'd really love some feed back on all this. I know it's alot but with everyone's help we can pull off some awesome stuff here! So please through a few ideas in! I now there are some gray area's!

Current Mood: hopeful

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Filming Idea
So chris was mentioning how he wanted to do something different beside Justice or Mercenaries... so then I thought of a short about hit-men. You know...... work for a mob and kill people. Well that wasn't really all that different from what we were doing..... especially because I'd probably have us killing other bad guys anyway.

But what if it was a comedic hit man movie? Like some of the hit-men are REAL stupid...... everything goes wrong..... and the people they have to kill are ridiculous.... It's kind of beyond my writing capability...... what do you guys think?

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