Starting out this blog, I’ve been pretty lazy so I don’t have too much new stuff to show/talk about. Though, I do have my completed first treatment. 

“The screen zooms into an old, 80’s style box tv as the screen buzzes on. ‘Final Girl’ appears on screen as the title. A shadowy figure flashes on the screen before it goes black. Outside a small house in the woods, a silhouette of a man makes his way towards the home. A scared, white rabbit appears and lowers its ears before being eaten by a dark wolf. We see the man again, now breaking open a window and climbing into the house. He scans the house as he tries to find his way around in dim light. He finds a door and opens it to reveal stairs into the basement. He smirks before heading down them, spotting a breaker box. He grabs the lever and pulls it, shutting off the power. 

Just before the power cuts, another boy is in the house, unaware of the danger. He’s busy with a ritual, but the power cuts mid-way through. The boy continues to read with candle light and completes the ritual. A reddish black void appears and consumes the boy, turning his eyes black. As he recovers, suddenly, the bedroom door is kicked in. The man from before finally managed to find the boy and raises his axe to start fighting him. He swings wildly, missing the smaller boy who dodges him. The man manages to cut the smaller boy’s cheek, enraging him. A giant black hand rips from the boy’s back to push away the attacker. The wall cracks and breaks as the killer is thrown against it, but he still gets up. He slashes at the black arm, cutting it off before getting another cut on the boy’s shoulder. As the black arm begins bubbling, the boy and the man get close. With weapons to their throats, they both pause. They look at each other for a moment, the boy’s eyes return to their blue color and the taller man smirks at him.”

This treatment is a very rough outline of how I want the story to go for now, but I’m more than open to new ideas. The core aspects I want to keep are the song, characters and overall style. The story can shift if needed, but again, I’m not hyper focused on it or anything. 

In class, I was beginning to think about the dynamic between the two main characters, Kevin and CJ, more. I want it to be clear to the audience that Kevin is enjoying himself/is having fun while Canterbury is terrified at first, only to gain confidence once he sees what his demon is capable of. By the end, I want it to make sense and to heavily imply that there is a love-hate relationship going on. It’s a toxic relationship, so while they mostly have their downs, there are occasional ups. 

For the ending, I really want the two to come together in one way or another. The song I’m using and hopefully the character acting will convey this underlying sexual tone to the film. I want to use this little lead to create a clearer picture of the two. I want people to question not the fact that they got together in the end, but what will come next. Will Kevin kill CJ? Will CJ kill Kevin? Do they really love each other or are they just using each other? Things like that, not so much, ‘wait what they’re gay? That came outta left field.’ 

I think it’s going to be important for me to spread the seeds of the underlying story/tones in every possible way I can. Through character acting, environmental storytelling and possibly more. 

Next, I have very basic story beats. I wanted to trim it down as much as I could so I could see the ‘back-bone’ I’m working with. If I have a strong spine, I can add tons of ‘fluff’ too.

1.) Kevin is stalking and approaching a home. 

2.) He breaks into the home.

3.) He finds and shuts off the power.

4.) Canterbury gets interrupted and made aware of the danger.

5.) CJ gets possessed. 

6.) Kevin fights him.

7.) The fight turns out in a tie.

Lastly, another inspiration that I completely blanked on, but definitely want to include is Persona5. I have a few links to give an idea of what I want to emulate with my film. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7z1Ny1kc6g - From this, I mostly just really enjoy the transitions and special effects, the character animation is good, but not what I’m looking for in this film. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jm8nnHqx80 - Again, I love the effects and transitions, but I also like the staging and how the backgrounds are a mix of just blocks of color and actually detailed things. I also enjoy the shaky text, so I’ll probably add it to my film too.

To finish on a more creative note, I will explain why Kevin uses an ice axe. When designing him originally, I wanted something to set him apart from other killer OCs. I did this slightly by making him more ‘attractive’, but I mainly focused on his weapon. A cool fight can only get better when a unique or ‘special’ weapon is used after all. I decided on an ice axe simply because I thought they were interesting and would certainly be an eye-catcher. I dove in a bit and did some research, found out the difference between an ice axe and an ice pick, but also what they were truly used for. Shockingly, I don’t do a lot of outdoor activities, so ice climbing as a hobby was more of a fairytale than anything. I had seen and been rock-climbing, but who the hell is doing that in the freezing cold? Kevin. He is. 

After watching some info videos on ice climbing and the axes themselves, I already had a link from the axe to Kevin. Kevin looks for anything that can get his heart pumping, so it would make sense for him to enjoy climbing, especially the much more dangerous ice climbing. It’s simply a thrill to him, no different from killing someone. That’s unfortunately how he views the world. 

Ice climbing is also what led me to base his story in a place like Colorado. Part of my real family actually lives out there and I love visiting. It’s a gorgeous place, but also happens to kind of be famous for its mountains, which is very convenient for me.