It's Finally Slowly Starting to Come Together

What these past couple of weeks have felt like.

        

    So, I realized that I'm about to enter the fourth week of production and I still don't have a defined storyline for the actual film. I figured that as long as I knew what my opening would be, then I didn't need a full film, but now seeing my peers' groups and reevaluating my own progress, I'm beginning to understand that a "film opening" doesn't work without an actual "film". All of my previous research on horror, screenwriting, and storytelling has led me to one point: write what you know. And so, I am choosing to center my film around a theme of obsession. I don't consider myself to be an "obsessive" person (and this theme may not even be reflected in my opening), but I am aware that when I'm passionate about something, I can become quite...intense. So here it is:

    We open a little bit differently than I had intended. It's still a small get together of friends, but this time it's being recorded by one of them. The entire group is part of the seance. Like the original idea, it will go wrong, a girl gets possessed, the lights will begin to flicker, and when they come back on, she is dead. Then the camera will pan out, revealing that this footage is being watched by someone. The rest of the opening will be a collection of mise-en-scene elements to develop the character. We learn that he is a wanna-be filmmaker who has been researching this incident for a while. This is developed through shots of his surroundings: post-it notes, dvds, and papers. The scene ends with him contacting the person who posted the video, claiming that he is interested in doing an investigative documentary on the incident. End of opening. I literally came up with this idea a couple minutes ago, so it's possible I wake up tomorrow morning, absolutely HATE it, and revert to square one. Since my idea has changed quite a bit, I'm considering doing a bit more research on the topic, but luckily my idea hasn't changed enough for my previous research to have been for nothing. So far, I'm kinda basing my idea off Benny's Video, a movie about a kid so obsessed with video that he loses sense of reality and commits a horrific act, and We're All Going to the World's Fair. I haven't personally seen this Benny's Video (I will now though), but it's been in my watchlist for a while. I'm mostly interested in the set design elements during the opening that develop Benny's character. 

Stills from the opening sequence of Benny's Video

Stills from We're All Going to the World's Fair

    Rest of the movie: he gets into contact with the original poster of the video (who is actually in the opening sequence, we'll call them Riley), and begins to record a documentary surrounding the mysterious, unexplainable events of that night. At one point during filming, they have to re-do a seance scene, this time, nothing as drastic as the opening occurs. He isn't involved in it, only films it, but he begins to become very curious and takes the object before anyone notices. At this point, it's clear that this obsession isn't healthy, even though the documentary process so far may indicate this all being a hoax. He tries out the ritual (this is the climax), and becomes convinced that he is possessed. Riley begins to get worried at his deteriorating mental health and confesses that the original video was a fraud for popularity. However, he doesn't believe him and he continues to spiral. The film ends with him filming the final scene of the documentary: a murder that the "spirit" influenced him to do. 

Like I said, it's very possible that I'll scrap the idea by tomorrow morning, but for now, I really like this storyline and would totally watch a movie about this actually! Now to re-do my script and storyboard :(