Second Initial Idea

The idea is for a comedy short film or a music video about a drummer who turns into a satanic rock god.

Target Audience:

Like my other ideas this idea has many target audiences through the demographics of all sorts, for example;

• Fans of rock music and the culture of rock, this short film represents rock culture with the drums obviously, rock clubs and themes and iconography of satanic rituals that you see in sub genres of rock music such as death metal, heavy metal and scream rock.

• Fans of heavy metal, death metal and screamo rock.

• People who are a drummer in a band as it is somewhat relatable for them and they gain some familiarity and warmth and compassion with the main character achieving his goals and blossoming throughout his shaping experiences.

Idea

The comedy short film or music video with comedy narrative throughout is about a guy called Dan who has a deep passion for drumming, he looks like one of the most unlikely drummers an audience will ever see, he is attached to a group of friends who consist of a fellow drummer and some other people, he is often ridiculed by his friends for not being a good drummer or not looking like a good drummer or not looking natural, when he invited his friends over to his house or to one of his bands gigs at a concert (undecided), he proves all of his friends wrong by turning into a satanic rock god when he drums, he sets everything on fire and levitates in the air etc. In the end his friends are shocked and leave the house in terror, they look back on the house to see that it is on fire and main character Dan is levitating above the house, he looks down at his friends and they are shocked and he is looking down extremely proud of what he has done.

Another idea was to have Dan post online an advertisement for the club/pub he is playing in with the advertisement saying “best drummer in the world comes to (pub name) and have a news presenter and a big crowd (the big crowd will most probably consist of stock footage from) and the news presenter will be in front of the club/pub on a green screen describing what is going on in the background.

I also had an idea of having a slow motion shot of the people running away at the end with a voiceover from Dan which I would apply sound editing to make the voice go deep at some points, it will be an inspirational voiceover which will describe the journey he has took to get to the place where he has come from to being the satanic rock god he is now. The themes of this music video and iconography come from things such as a caterpillar blossoming into a butterfly and I was thinking about having some visuals at the end of something growing and mutating into something else using simple motion graphics techniques such as masking and double exposure to cover up the simpleness of the idea, this will probably be on when the ending credits are rolling.

Strengths

• It’s got a great storyline which is funny because of the whole a drummer turning into a satanic rock god element, experimental due to its rapid storyline changes, witty, but also could be seen as a hard hitting drama as you see these boys dreams put down by others.

• With the visual effect I could do using after effects with filmed elements and creative elements to make it look like he is surrounded by fire all the time with explosions, it could look really professional.

• I can make this look really professional by doing experiments with devil make up; I will most probably test out some vfx make up before actually shooting the short film.

• I came up with the idea when having a conversation with my friends so I and they have our hearts in it if I decide to go forth with this idea.

• It is possible to complete the newsreader scene with a green screen and stock footage.

• It could also look really professional if I considered locations properly, did some location scouting to see if there is a pub or a venue which would let me film there for little money or for free.

• Using effects such as double exposure and ultra-keying for some green screen visual effects will make this project look extremely professional, this could potentially be a strength if perfected in the right way, going over the top and making it a bit psychedelic could also be a good way of making it look good but I will have to do some editing experiment, I will probably do some test footage just to see which colours go best with what fire and if I can do some cool lighting effects and stuff.

Weaknesses

• The storyline of the idea needs a bit of finishing touches like figuring out if the drummer invites his friends to his house or to one of his shows/concerts somewhere, within this I actually need to find these locations.

• I don’t want to use too much stock footage to make it a big unoriginal but I am going to try and film as much original footage as I can and get as many actors on board as I can. The only scene which may be a little hard is getting a crowd of people together for the scene with the newsreader outside the club that the drummer is playing in, so if I can’t get a crew of extras about then I will have to use a bit of stock footage but not much.

• Trying to make the story have some sort of comedic element at the beginning when Dan the main character is getting ridiculed and at the end when the drummer turns into a satanic rock god could be a weakness, so with further idea development I might get rid of the comedic element I designed it to have and just have it as a short film which involves drama and horror with a psychedelic style instead of having it as comedy as a main genre.

• If I had the drummer playing in a venue, it would be hard to get a lot of extras in, so instead of filming it with the extras in the shot, I might just do it so that he shows his friends whilst all of these people are outside to overcome this weakness.

Opportunities

• Camera equipment in the form of Sony HXR cameras, Canon DSLR cameras or Black Magic Cameras

• Tripod equipment in form of Libec Tripod

• Some lighting equipment in the form of a flolight with a flolight stand, I might need multiple flolights or other lighting so that I can experiment further with how I want the mise-en-scene to look.

• The green screen studio located in the Hive at college as well as some mobile green screening.

• Possibly a camera crew if I decide to do it multi camera, I will also need someone on the crew to sort out lighting and just some assistance in general.

• I will need about 4/5 actors to be part of the group of friends as well as the drummer as well.

• Maybe some extras for crowds of people in the newsreader scene if it happens and in the venue he is playing at.

• Some good locations, a venue/club/pub for the drummer to play in as well as an establishment where all of the friends are hanging out before he is ridiculed, the outside of a club/pub with a newsreader outside the chosen location.

• I need some really heavy rock music which will either come from the rock sub genres of death metal or screamo rock, I will get in contact with an unsigned band who produces music like this and see if I can get permission to use one of their songs for the video and fade it in and out for certain bits.

• Access to the Adobe creative suite in the form of Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe After Effects.

Threats/barriers

• A threat could be getting a crew of extras together to be in the scenes in my short film, I’m going to overcome this by either getting in a load of extras off the street to complete the newsreader scene and then I will do the same for if I decide to film the drumming scene within the club/pub, another way of overcoming this would be to get a few people and green screen them and duplicate them so that it looks like lots of people when really there’s not that many actually there. Another way I could overcome this would be to use some stock footage of a big crowd as well as using my own footage, duplicate it all so that it mixes in with each other and have a crowd in this way.

• I have some confirmed actors who are willing to be in it, but a potential threat is always them dropping out last minute

• Getting permission from a location such as a pub/venue/club so that I can film someone drumming with a crowd, my actors and my camera crew could be quite a hard thing to pull off but it is possible by contacting all of the venues.

• Making the fire and explosion effects could be very timely and very hard to make without using much stock footage but I can overcome this if it is taking a long time by using some of my own footage and some stock footage mixed together. I will probably do some test footage/test animation to see what I can actually make in preparation for the final short film.

• Getting the right lighting in the correct way in the green screen studio could be a threat if I do the lighting wrong and the ultra key doesn’t go very well within after effects, to overcome this I am going to do some test footage to prevent this from happening so that I can use the same lighting when filming the actual short film.