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THE SECOND TEST OF HDC IDOL 2008-09


For the second Test, the common theme chosen is - ALTERNATIVE REALITY.


Here are your tasks, Goblins :-


- Alkytrio666 : Visual media is non-existent. The only popular medium which people use to get entertained is the radio. You are in charge of a local horror radio station and desperately need listeners to tune into your broadcasts. What can you possibly do to get people tuned into your station's wavelengths and make it a popular one?

Originally Posted by alkytrio666

Old-time radio (for those who didn't know) is one of my dearest interests, and I spend a lot of time visiting the golden age of the living room box via radio stars like Jack Benny and Vincent Price.

Radio was a fantastic medium for entertainment because of its obvious restrictions- a listener could not see anything, so one relied entirely on the power of storytelling, and many broadcasts are still regarded as some of the finest pieces of entertainment of all time.

The obvious example is Orson Welles' dramatization of H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds" on radio's premium drama program Mystery Theatre on the Air. Orson realized in 1938 what filmmakers today are just discovering- that horror really becomes terrifying when it is told in a non-fiction manner. Radio was the world's form of communication, and there was a kind of literal blind trust between the citizens of the world and that brown box that sat on their mantels- the radio held them together. That is, until Mr. Welles put on the most sucessful trick in history.

For those unfamiliar with the broadcast, Orson acted as though regular programming was interrupted so that he could announce to the world that martians had landed in Van Nest Park- and they weren;t interested in making friends.

Chaos exploded as panic-stricken families called friends and families to decide what to do in the heat of this apocalypse. For 60 short minutes, Orson Welles held the world in the palm of his hand as he transformed the freedom of the airwaves into a totally three-dimensional mode of storytelling.

Adolf Hitler was cited as calling this "evidence of the decadence and corrupt condition of democracy". I call it the beauty of free speech and the power of imagination.

If it were up to me, radio would continue to supply entertainment on a more widespread level. Like in the golden age, stars could make radio a second form of expression, really utilize the power of speech rather than visualization.

As a radio station specializing in the art of horror storytelling, I think I'd bring things back to the basics, the way they were so long ago now. First of all, if I learned anything from radio shows like Suspense it's that sometimes silence can be the most terrifying element of a thriller. Unfortunately, horror movies today have gained such a strong focus on noise that it seems like an audience needs to be cheaply deafened with a bang rather than startled with a creative scare. If a story is built well enough and characters are developed on an honest level, than a climax can hook listeners in the most powerful way- via a chilling, quiet finale.

More important an element than silence is the inescapable feeling of the presence of something evil but not being able to see it with your own eyes. In the golden age of radio, imaginations were exercized far more often. If movies like Alien have taught us anything, it is that more is less- the more of the monster we see, the less we fear it. Americans fear the unknown, through fiction and war, past and future. Simply re-introducing the power of this method would hook horror fans old and young alike.

Radio is an underrated form of entertainment and expression, one that has influenced movies from Psycho to Cloverfield, and I would love to see a re-emergence of it in the world of horror.

- ChronoGrl : Several critically-acclaimed flicks have failed miserably at the BO - Night of the Living Dead, The Exorcist, Jaws etc. all have been flushed down the toilets. For some reason, the audiences arent willing to accept any of those horror flicks. You are a talented and eccentric filmmaker who is hellbent on making the audiences turn towards horror. What ideas can you use to conquer such hard-headed audiences of the world?


- FerretChucker : The world in which you have grown up is one without sound. People get their share of entertainment by silent, fast-moving pictures projected by huge projectors in theaters. As a horror picture-maker, you have a really awesome idea which you foresee as a potential world-wide phenomenon in horror silents. What would be your pitch to big studios, and how would you go ahead with making it?

Originally Posted by ferretchucker

Here goes.

Obviously the key point of this challenge is the fact that my world is without sound. Now, other than the fact that I will have to try to get the story across to the audiences without sound, there are several other problems this poses.

The first of these problems being that I must present the possible story to the studio. This will be especially difficult considering unlike the audiences, the executives have no moving pictures to aid them in understanding the story. To get around this, I would get together a group of friends who are artistically talented and ask them to help me create storyboards. With these simple images giving a rough idea of things, and a written outline of the story, I'm confident I would be able to get across my message to them, giving them a good enough idea of what the product should be like.

As for my story, there is another problem. As all Horror fans will know, the soundtrack is equally as important as the images, providing suspense more than anything. For this reason, I feel my film would have to be a very fast moving one, full of visually surprising and shocking elements.

Yet another problem to conquer is the characters, for without speech of some sort it will be next to impossible to give them real depth, with actions doing all the talking for them. Yes, actions do show a lot about a person but to get a good understanding of them in such a short time without sound would be very difficult. Because of this, I would try to make it full of actions and physical events. My story too would have to be quite simple, almost self explanatory.

The story itself would be something like this:

A solar eclipse causes a terrible event. After it happens, strange creatures begin climbing out of the ground and attacking people. The film would be the story of one town's attempt to survive against these creatures.

I would present my story to the studio as I said. To give you an idea of how this would go, I'll give you a brief extract of what the pitch may seem like.

I show a story board. The first few images are of ordinary people walking around. Then it shows a man and his son playing catch in the back garden. A dramatic solar eclipse happens. Afterwards, the child misses a catch. He goes to get the ball and as he does, a tentacle reaches out of the ground and grab his arm, and a serrated tube like thing reaches up to his face. This image would be a large, A2 size picture. The description would say something like:

"An unprecedented solar eclipse happens above a small town. A man and his son are playing catch and witness this phenomenon. The eclipse would be a dramatic, visually stunning image with shots of space thrown in. The son drops the ball and as he goes to retrieve it, a grotesque, slimy, terrifying part of a creature appears and brutally kills him.

The film, as I said, would be full of visual effects and visually shocking images of brutal killings, blood, flashing lights, fast moving scenes of pure action. There would be very few scenes without some action. This would be to keep the audience hooked. Also, a large part would be that without sound, nobody can help you if you are attacked, for they do not know unless they see it. This would hopefully make the audience relate to it and increase the fear they feel.

To go about making the film, I would go to many different investors, getting the biggest possible sum of money. With this I would approach ILM (assuming they exist) for the effects. Actors would have to be visually recognizable so they can be remembered throughout the film, each one looking very different from others. I think I would approach Brendon Fraiser as a main character as he can handle the action stunts and portray emotion through his facial features very well, and has experience working with "nothing", when he has to pretend something is there that will only be added in post production.

For directors, I would have to go with one who I feel could take the challenge of a fast paced yet silent film. I think Clive barker would have to be my first choice, knowing how to make things grotesque and visually shocking, and I'm confident he could pull of the action scenes.

As for a setting, I think I would have to use mainly sets, but shots of a real town for some scenes. For this I would send out scouts into America to find a small, nice looking town willing to cooperate with the film.


Hopefully, with all of this my film would work well, having elements of it the viewer can relate to and enough terror and action to keep them watching the screen, with the finished product of...

THE UPRISING

In the absence of sound, this whole process would be difficult, but I feel that wouldn't hinder the audience as they would no nothing different and so it wouldn't seem to strange to them. That is all I can come up with. Hopefully it is satisfactory.

Thankyou for your time.

(Contd.)