Progress Update...Do I Finally Have an Idea???

    I think I finally have a pretty fleshed out idea of what I want my scene to eventually become which is SUCH a relief because I've be stressing about coming up with a concept for the past two weeks. I've had so many interesting ideas in my head that I've really liked on paper but would either not translate well on screen or I just couldn't flesh out the idea. I've decided to go with something a little simpler, and very common for horror films: a seance (I'm going to research folklore and old stories to come up with a more original background than like a Ouija board seance). For what it's worth, I'm going to try to add my own spin to the idea, so it doesn't feel like a re-hash of any other horror movie. 

    

    I got home today really excited to start storyboarding it until I realized that I am unfortunately a very bad artist. I got through about like maybe three slides, but I decided that the drawings just weren't going to translate my vision. I have the visual story almost entirely imagined, so, for now, I'll just type in everything until I can translate it into drawing. Also, I was thinking of shooting all the scenes with just me (no actors, script, mise-en-scene elements) just to get a clearer idea of how it would look and to prepare before even beginning production. 

  

    So, the scene would open with some establishing shots. It's a small get together, there's four friends playing cards in a basement (I'll have to film in my garage, so we'll see how I'm gonna pull this off). We see a half empty popcorn bowl, close-ups of hands with cards, the friends laughing, etc. The final establishing shot would be an overhead shot of everyone sitting in a circle, the table and cards in the middle and the title fades in. We cut to the door opening and the last friend comes in. He's immediately the life of the party, the camera follows him into the room, he sits down and pulls out some artifact type thing (still in the progress of this). The camera lingers on it for a bit. The friends ask him where he got it and he pulls out his phone camera and jokily tells a creepy story of his dead grandma. As he tells it, the camera rotates around the table to get a close-up of all their reactions. We land back to the artifact as he slides it over to the girl across from him. She's the quietest of the group. Initially she's reluctant to try it out, but eventually gives into the pressure. The boy explains that she has to ... (initially the idea was to spill her blood on the object but I'm not sure how I would do that), and she does. The tone is still carefree at this point but as soon as she ... something shifts. She recoils in horror like if she's seen something, and everyone starts laughing. She starts screaming loudly, by this point they realize something is wrong. Her hand shoots up and her eyes begin to roll to the back of her head, the lights are flickering, now everyone is screaming, chaos has ensued. This goes on for a few seconds before the lights go off. Lights come back on and we're focused on a close-up of the boy's face. In the background, we see and hear the friends go to check on the girl. He doesn't stand up, his breathing intensifies, a ringing noise comes on, and the scene ends. 

    

    So yeah, that's what I got for now.

Kendall Roy image to represent how I'm feeling now that I've finally visualized an idea.

Obviously, I'm just getting started on this and there's so much research, planning, and eventual production left, nut I feel really happy with my idea so far. I also have some other visual ideas that I want to incorporate into it. I want to use lighting. I've never worked with lighting before, but watching past projects, I feel like it is definitely underused and often forgotten in productions. I was thinking that red lighting and lighting from candles will help enhance the eerie vibe. I also want to have less editing and longer takes, I'll eventually see how the project comes out filmed, and this is just a personal preference of mine, but I prefer longer takes with camera movement. I just think it looks more "cooler".