Group meeting and inspirations

   Yesterday during class I had a group meeting with some of my peers to discuss our projects, bounce ideas off of each other and get some help on things we may be stuck on in the planning process. It went really well! Some areas I mentioned that I have been stuck on mainly throughout this whole thing so far is coming up with the main plot so that I can thoroughly plan out filming dates, locations, as well as draw out a storyboard of my shot ideas and write up a script. I got a few good ideas that I think I plan on sticking with.

  One of my peers mentioned something that I didn't even think of. It was that if I'm casting three people, instead of having the third represent either a mixed episode/stable period/transition between manic and depressive episodes, I could instead have that be the person experiencing bipolar disorder, and have one of the other two people act as a personification of the manic episode, and the other person act as the personification of the depressive episode. 

  This immediately made me think of something similar in the Netflix show Haunting of Bly Manor (spoilers ahead, sort of.) This show is the second season of the show Haunting of Hill House, they both have a different plot entirely with different characters but they are played by almost entirely the same actors. Both are horror/psychological thrillers that basically take the concept of trauma and mental illness and make it abstract using these genres, because they are both very abstract things to deal with. In the show Haunting of Bly Manor, it's about a young American woman who moves to England and gets a job as a nanny for two wealthy children who recently lost their parents. They have an uncle who hired this woman, and this is important to know in just a second. This uncle was having an affair with the mother of these children for a while up until they had both died. Just before they died, his brother, the father, found out about this affair (and also found out that his youngest child, the daughter, wasn't actually his child but was his brothers) and forbade the two from ever seeing each other, meaning he could never step foot onto Bly Manor again. He calls him a monster with a, and this is quoted from the episode where he finds out, "with a shit eating grin." Right after this, the parents leave on a trip to India where an accident happens and they die.

  The uncle is grieving and filled with guilt, so he doesn't take care of the children because his daughter who believes she is his niece is a reminder of her mother and the events that took place, and refuses to go to Bly Manor (taking his brother's words quite literally.) So he hires a nanny to take his place. He becomes an alcoholic who uses alcohol and work to keep himself occupied, spending most of his time in his office where we are introduced to another character that appears to him only at night. Except he is identical to him, because he's another version of him. He is all of the guilt and the traits he doesn't like about himself packed into one person. He taunts him at night by making him insecure and makes him have flashbacks to traumatic memories he doesn't want to remember, and he does it all with a horrible grin on his face. He's meant to be the part of the character that is the "monster with a shit eating grin".

  So when one of my peers brought up that idea, it was kind of like the whole angel on one shoulder and the devil on another type of thing except both are the devil in this case. But I immediately thought of that concept that is used in Haunting of Bly Manor. I may not be able to find two people who look exactly alike and I don't have the tools to be able to just make that happen with one actor but that kind of concept is what I want to go for.

  Other ideas my peers brought up were for shot types just to help get some ideas flowing for me and it definitely worked. They mentioned how for the depression scenes I could do different shots showing the state of the room. Also to portray the thought patterns of someone with the disorder and still personify the episodes I can do close ups of them whispering in the person with the disorder's ear. Then, as for general plot of the short film, I can make it someone who suffers with the disorder going about a regular day that for people without the disorder would find something so simple and easy to do. The person would go about the same day but the way the day went would depend on what symptoms they are experiencing. I plan on drawing up a storyboard soon which I will share in a future blog post.