Hello! Welcome to my website and your one-stop-shop for all info on my upcoming film. Not only will I be sharing my progress, but also I’ll be posting extra little drawings and lore tid-bits about the characters in the film. 

For a very brief overview of what I plan to achieve is a very visually interesting, fast paced, blood-pumping experience of a film. I want the audience to feel pumped and excited when watching it for the first or second time and for the people watching it a lot, there will be environmental storytelling and small character details to imply the relationships and feelings of the characters. 

I’ll be animating the song, Final Girl by Graveyardguy, which is quite obvious about the story it's telling. The lyrics paint a very clear picture of a serial killer trying to kill a girl, the typical 80’s slasher kind of vibe. I’m using this to my advantage as I won’t need to focus as heavily on the story aspects and instead can focus on the style of the film. 

With the general stuff mostly out of the way, I’ll now dive into some extra little details about me, what I want for this film and more information about my characters. (Click towards the right side of the second image to see his up-to-date reference. ->)

The first character introduced in my film is Kevin H. Grainer. I originally created him in 2017 and have since updated, re-designed and overhauled his entire character. He originally was a rather bland, borderline rip-off of Kevin Crumb from Split. I have always had a curiosity and fascination with psychology, but more specifically the psychology of criminals and killers. When I first saw Split, it really pushed me over the edge and I fell down a rabbit hole of mental health, illnesses and how people handle such things. I did a lot of research on DID and wrote little stories about Kevin until I realized how little I enjoyed his character. It was hard writing a single character, let alone multiple in one body. So, I decided to focus on just one of his personalities and branch from there. By the time I decided to focus on one character, I had already diagnosed Kevin with a more fitting mental illness, ASPD (Anti-Social Personality Disorder). 

My main inspirations for this ‘new’ Kevin came from both fiction and reality with people such as Ted Bundy, Pee Wee Gaskins, Jack the Ripper, to characters like Dexter Morgan, Enji Todoroki, and probably more that I’m currently blanking on. I nuzzled myself deep into a blend of reality and fiction, just as I wanted to be. I’m a huge fan of ARGs and little hidden mysteries in media, so giving my creation a bit of actual truth gets people interested and makes them want to do research as well. Or, I suppose that’s the hope.

This current version of Kevin, to me, is much different than the one I made all those years ago. I’ve come to let some of my own sarcasm and dark humor seep into my writing when I use him as a focus. As someone who is rather “desensitized” to the horrors of the world, my coping method has always been to try and lighten the mood with laughter and jokes. I laugh when I’m nervous, hurt, or just uncomfortable, so making dark jokes is something that is just part of me. Though, I don’t want that to be the focus of this film anyways. This just adds a bit of depth to Kevin as a character. 

In the film, Kevin will not succeed in killing his ‘final girl.’ Apologies for the spoilers. His ‘final girl’ is actually a ‘final BOY’, a young male named Canterbury Jones. CJ was actually created by my current boyfriend. As we both enjoyed drawing and designing characters, we started to intertwine our characters' stories together. Kevin and CJ’s story doesn’t have a clear ending, rather an implied toxic relationship that either ends with one killing the other or they just vibe until the end. I’ve always fought with the idea of allowing Kevin a more emotional connection to CJ, but I also don’t believe he’s a character that should be redeemed. He’s a conscious killer, he does it to feed his own inner desire, his adrenaline rush. 

During my research, I found out that ASPD has been linked to both childhood trauma and genetics, so I used that to my advantage. To flesh him out while staying true to the facts, I created his backstory to explain why he is the way he is. His father, William Grainer, was the head of their town police department and his mother, Lorri Grainer, was diagnosed with stomach cancer when Kevin was 8. His life began to deteriorate due to his mother’s sickness and the effects it had on the family. Kevin’s father began to drink and would take out his frustrations from work and his life on Kevin. 

Of course, I could continue on, but none of Kevin’s backstory is truly needed for this film. I just like to gush about my favorite OC. I do also think his backstory and my way of creating him is helpful for those of you looking to critique the work as I make it to hopefully make the hints about the characters more clear. 

The main differences between the two characters come from their opposite personalities and their visual differences. Kevin is much taller, more muscular and seems more determined to win the fight. Canterbury on the other hand is short, frail, and is at his breaking point. He plans to summon a demon even before he’s aware of Kevin in his house. Kevin happens to arrive just after the demon has entered Canterbury, so the boy still has most of the control, but as the battle continues the demon takes more of him over. The demon is what equals out the fight, making it a draw rather than a quick kill like Kevin anticipates. 

Moving on from characters for a bit, I do have a few inspirations and styles I’m looking to re-create and give my own flair to. One particular video is this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HskKKavlu0o I really enjoy the lack of colors to raise the contrast and the symbolism of the predator and prey animals. I like the idea of presenting the two as a shadowy wolf and a white bunny that gets corrupted respectively to further get across the progression of the fight. Beginning with just the bunny and wolf, then we see the bunny turn black like the wolf and finally we see the black rabbit fighting back, just like Canterbury does in ‘real life.’ 

This commercial - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w90PUm6iVyg also inspired me to try more action-packed, fast movement. This commercial really brings out a raw, exciting energy even for it being an ad for a bike. This is the feeling I want to instill in my audience. 
And finally - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZvfTyS1qb8 this animated music video is just insane. Again, I like the pace and how smooth the animation is on this one, though I know something that flashy and long would probably be too much for my current project. I plan on using editing techniques on top of animation to create my film, so I will most likely be using some shortcuts when it comes to animating movement. I still plan on animating most of the film, but for scenes that don’t involve fighting or character movement, I will probably use more puppetting.