Links (new ones added after the pitches today are here and Trans Orbis was updated)
Pitch by: Cindy
The five sardines. Details to follow.
"Romancing the Sprite"/Title T.B.D.: An Anjewierden and Anjewierden production.
RtS is a romantic comedy blending machinima and traditional film.
(Machinima) We open with a couple on a (1st) date, at the doorstep. They say their goodbyes, and the girl enters her house.
(Real Life)We then cut to the woman in a chair, removing her VR gear.
--Title Credits--
(Machinima) Several shots are shown, with the couple doing various fantastic and amazing activities (flying around Everest, climbing the Eiffel Tower, etc.)
Throughout these shots the two never touch (and this fact is highlighted I.E. hand holding = clipping).
As the relationship progresses the girl repeatedly asks to meet "in RL" and the guy puts her off or makes silly excuses.
(Real Life) The girl decides to track him down anyway, and shows up at his room, where he is sitting in his VR chair.
She calls his name, and we show a shot of him looking around first in VR, then in RL. She removed his helmet, and the guy freaks out.
Eventually she silences him, exclaiming "You can't do this in VR!" and kisses him.
(Machinima) We fade from black to them back in VR, having a good time, quick cut to
(Real Life) one of their rooms, with both chairs side by side and the couple (with their visors on) holding hands.
The script writer (Jared) has done multiple machinima scripts and has a great deal of experience in machinima itself, and is willing to assist with the project for the entirety of development.
This lead to ideas developed with Machinima in mind, I.E. no touching of actors in VR, expansive/awesome set design allowed by hammer, etc.
The work will most likely be more Hammer heavy than Faceposer heavy, and someone will need to do the traditional filming (1 team member + 2 actors)
The project can be broken up into several small teams, one or two to make date scenes, one for Real Life, etc.
Contact info:
James.Anjewierden@gmail.com
Mr_Boffin@hotmail.com (Jared)
Machinima Pitch: The Three Trials (working title) by Alex H Johnstone
A story about the trials we put ourselves through to achieve something we desire.
The story will have one main character, based on the upgraded Alex in cinema tools.
Framing the story will be the voice of a British Narrator, he will be reading the myth.
The myth is not real, I will write it, but it will be based loosely on the myth of Sisyphus.
Sisyphus is the Greek guy who had to push a boulder up a mountain only to watch it roll down, and he would have to all over again. But what Camus, a French absurdist writer realized is, that in that moment when Sisyphus walks down base of the hill, he is truly happy.
So this is our absurdist life, we all challenge ourselves momentary happiness, only to throw ourselves into another challenge all over again.
The video wont be about a guy pushing a boulder up a mountain, that would be really boring to watch.
It's going to be a horror film, where the main character chooses to put herself through a series of three trials.
We wont be sure why she is doing this, but we will know that it is her choice. By the end of the film, after she succeeds these trials, she has a moment of happiness and contentment. Before curiosity again, sends her through the trials. The film ends there, a circular story.
The style: The film genre is Horror, and I want to capitalize on some of HL2's naturally scary environments. The film will be very dark, with minimal lighting. I want to utilize the first person view a bit, because it's naturally scary.
One major element of the film will be distorting reality. I want to play heavily with the world; things appearing, disappearing, moving by themselves, doors opening into completely different worlds.
Machinima gives us a huge ability to play with the reality, but it has to be done very carefully, and cant take the viewer out of the experience and make it too over the top.
I want to make it genuinely scary (not gory), which means really feeling for the main character, so a lot of time will be working with the model, creating some really sincere expressions, maybe some new gestures.
The main thing is to have a huge psychological element & play with what's real & what's an illusion.
Influences: Indiana Jones, 3 trials. Tomb Raider, main ch. Fear & Loathing, mind warping LSD. Myst, threat of the unknown & beautifully designed environments. Ravenholm level in HL2. Dream sequences in films. Time Bandits, that moment at the end "don't touch it, it's evil!" but they cant resist touching it.
Pitch by: team Sea Slug (Trevor Andersen, Becky Pennock, Tera Lockhart, Garret Allen).
The idea is to have a short film that parodies slasher flick cliches (like in Halloween, Friday the 13th, etc). Dumb teenagers camping in the middle of the woods, a killer who won't die no matter how many times they "kill" him, excessive tension-building music ("Don't go in the door!"), etc, etc. There are a million different things you can do - slasher movies always have a camera that takes the perspective of the killer, there's always a scene where one of the characters hears a disturbing noise and it turns out to be a cat (or something stupid like that), there's always an old guy who says things like "I'd stay away from that place if I were you," but the main characters never listen to him.
This could probably be accomplished with a team of 8 people.
Tutorial Day
A game tutorial (any type will do) from the perspective of the game character being controlled by an inept game player. This would require specific model types but would mine deeply into gamer cliche humor. There are two kinds of tutorial. The overbearing.. look here (wait) now more look (wait) and so on.
This is the overbearing type, ala Groundhog Day where when the character gets to the end, they always go back to the beginning of the tutorial. Cue scream of frustration and despair.
Approximate group requirements: 8 people
Pitch by: Michelle MacArt
Estimate of people needed: 7-10
My pitch is about a woman who hates her job, hates life itself, and wishes she lived in a dream world. Well,
her wish is granted as she is approached by a magical person/entity and trasnported to a different realm (possibly a musical realm). Here
she faces obsticals that gradually lets her appreciate life and her old home more.
Set designs and costumes are important for this story.
Pitch by: Tommy Daoheuang t.daoheuang@utah.edu and Dai Weiyun - h_matata@hotmail.com
Theme: An otherwise normal situation is depicted in a unusual state in the opening shot. The rest of the movie explains how the current situation came to be.
<insert actual plot here> -
6 people -<other team members>
Scheme Regime
Story: This is intended to bash on shady schemes and how they are misleading people.
Beginning: Business grad comes into dorm with degree and roommate says he already has a job lined up. Some men are there in suits, they show a cheesey vid, give a pitch, explain it's not a pyramid scheme but Multi Level Marketing (MLM). They literally show a pyramid on its side to make it seem different. Before you know it, he's hooked.
Middle: A montage shows that he keeps going online, opening checks by the mailbox, and investing more into more companies. We see him click on names like Bernie Madoff, Mary Kay, Avon, Amway, etc. etc. We see he gets an email or a letter saying he becomes and IBO (international business owner.) He winds up being the person that goes to people's houses pitching. It all seems great.
End: In reality, he loses big. He invests more than he gains and is getting royally screwed. Sick of being scammed and monthly paychecks only in the meager 100's…he pulls out. With a loan and the little he has left, he turns on them and runs his own online business and having global seminars informing people not to fall into the same traps and becomes a giant success.
I estimate I will need a group of 5-10 people.
Tasks:
-Composer of music and sound
-Face Poser Modeler
-Modeler
-Cinematographer
-Director
-Writer
-Editor
-Storyboard Artist
-Voice Actors
Cooking--the final frontier
These are the voyages of the middle class housewife
Her continuing mission: to feed 5 people by 6 pm
Explore strange new pies
To boldly whisk what no one has whisked before
Whisk Chick!
Start off with boring everyday life (very stepford), husband leaves to go to work.
The moment the door closes, woman's demeanor switches from meek/submissive to regimented and assertive (like a star fleet officer).
Woman begins monologing herself and with kitchen objects/utensils getting ready for a big dinner (acting like they're her crew).
The humor from here on out is basically thinly veiled star wars/trek references applied to cooking.
"Mr. microwave, set course for pot roast!"
"The cajun seasoning would be most approapriate for this dish" --(done in a warfish voice)
"Tonight's dish consists of a pot roast with optional [etc]" --(said by a notepad-menu; done in a data-ish voice)
"We have made contact with the neighboring households, the Robinsons and the Smiths; they are standing by as reinforcements should we need an additional cup of sugar."
She finds out there are more people coming than expected
Calls husband/someone "Luke, we're going to have company!"
Continue monologing with self/objects.
Goes to her 'ready room' (bathroom).
Power goes out, which sends her into a 'red alert' state.
Calls up landloard, who sounds like scotty, who is unable to fix the problem immediately.
After peace negotiations with the Robinsons, she runs a crazy extension chord from neighboring house across the driveway, lawn, and up 2 flights of stairs to her apartment (acting as though it is a reconnesance mission, so her movements are jerkish, deliberate, and quick).
After regaining power with chords strewn everywhere, she has trouble resetting the clock on the microwave (treated like an 'engineering' problem).
Some minor crisis happens and the stove gets switched from bake to broil without her noticing.
She has to eject the 'warp core pie' out the window so her guests aren't totaly repulsed.
Everything suddenly starts to go terribly wrong, but by some crazy means she's able to overcome it with dinner done just in the nick of time.
How many people needed to make this:
At least 5.
What's needed to make this:
requires a solid kitchen set, variety of props
robinson house.
staircase to her apartment
outside her apartment.
2-3 different skins of the model (pre-cooking chaos, post cooking chaos)
show different personas via camera angles/shoulder shifting since she would do most of the acting (good shot planning)
funny script absolutely riddled with references.
voice actor for the woman, 'scotty,' husband, and Mrs. Robinson.
My idea is a action hero genre. It is about a man who leads a very simple normal life. After his father and mother's sudden and mysterious deaths our hero starts to investigate and unwind a sinister plot. As he starts to discover truths about things that going on around him, he is confronted. He is forced to make a choice. Leave town and resume his normal life, or push his limits and learn all he can to face this evil. Will he be able to avenge his parents and stop evil?
I estimate that this would take 8 people
I have not talk to anyone else about this pitch.
Pitch by:
Kevin Smith kps84094@yahoo.com
Sarah Ripley sripley68@gmail.com
NUMBER OF PEOPLE:
4-6
OTHER POSSIBLE PEOPLE
Nick Rasband
Ben Turner
Pace Sims
William Thammavong
PITCH:
We are thinking about doing something along the lines of our previous western silent film since there are not characters that will work for any of the other ideas that we had (Old McDonald the Musical, 1920's video, Salem Witch Trials, Sesame Street Episode, Animal Love Story, etc.)
Since everything about Hammer is comical, we want to keep our sanity by creating something that we can laugh at. Our story begins with a man walking across the street. He does not notice that a horse or wagon is headed straight for him because it is a silent film. A girl then yells for him to get out of the way as a horse or wagon is headed straight for him. The guy offers to buy the girl dinner for saving his life. The girl accepts. The guy then falls in love with her. He follows the girl around and does lots of things that girls hate. The girl gets sick of him and tries to poison him with a drink. The guy spills the drink. The girl then tries to blow the guy up with dynamite. The guy is not in the building/shack. The girl either ties the guy up on the train tracks and the train goes by on a different set of tracks, or the girl ties her self up on the tracks, the guy tries to rescue her even though she wants to die just to get away from the guy, and a train never comes. The girl keeps trying to do away with the guy but nothing works. She then decides to try a different approach. She leads the guy back out into the street as a horse/wagon is coming. Another girl yells out and warns him. The guy falls in love with the new girl and it all begins again.
This is just a rough idea and the story will most likely change significantly as we come up with ideas.
Name : Colby Paul
Email : cdp_lanky_gunner@yahoo.com
Group size : 8-12
People interested : Probably the guys who were in my last group, Landon, Tommy, and Weiyun
Story : I picked an idea where it can be written to be a serious drama or a hillarious parody, if done correctly.
A man is stricken with an addiction. Not drugs, but something small enough to not cause bodily harm, but big enough to cause a hinderance in his life. Seperation from his family and friends. This object is taken away from him. Due to its addictive nature, he reaches the brink of insanity. He vows revenge against those who took it from him, but due to being insane, he uses unconventional methods for revenge.
With this type of story, you can make any kind of ending depending on the tone. You can have a good ending where he wins the day and even gets past his addiction, or an ending where he gets his revenge, but still succumbs to his addiction, or he just loses it and never learns his lesson.
Pitch by: First pitch by: Seamus A. Houchins Connor, Dustin Marks, Petro Gretchanei, James Bowman
The Cask of Amontillado
This would be an adaptation of the classic Edgar Allen Poe story The Cask of Amontillado. For this portion of the project, we will be finishing the second half of the story. This project will work well for 4-8 people. There really is no limit to how much this can be refined.
Contact Info
TAKEN
Pitch Transcript
By: Ryan Clark
TAKEN is a science fiction thriller modeled after supposedly real human experiences. It's about a man that went on a hunting trip by himself. While he was gone he had a very paranormal experience that he was almost unaware of. The only thing he knows for sure is that one of the days during his hunting trip he had a bizarre episode of missing time, in which there were several daylight hours unaccounted for. Ever since that day he has been having unusual and terrifying nightmares. Finally, in an effort to put his mind at peace he decides to go in for hypnotic regression, only to uncover the horrifying truth about what actually happened.
Act one
Barney is walking through the forest in his pursuit for live game. It's a cloudy day, so it's hard to tell where the sun is. He checks his watch to see how many hours of daylight he has left before he has to head back to camp. He sees that he has about five hours till dusk. Suddenly, as he's looking at his watch, not paying attention to where he's walking, he trips and falls. Then, he gets up and suddenly feeling very strange, continues on his way. As he's walking, he notices a sharp pain up inside his groin, and determines that he must have pulled a muscle when he fell.
As Barney's walking, he notices that the sky isn't as bright as it should be for this time of day. Again, barney checks his watch. To his disbelief, he sees that he has only about half an hour before dusk. Feeling very bewildered, he starts back to camp.
Act two
A couple months later, Barney is at his home in the city hanging out with a friend. He then tells his friend about his hunting trip. He tells him that it was a pretty good trip, except that he had a very strange experience. He tells him about the missing time incident, and that ever since that day he's been having severe anxiety attacks and insomnia. He says that whenever he does manage to sleep, he wakes up in the middle of a very strange recurring nightmare. His friend suggests that he call a hypnotherapist for help to uncover the underlying cause of all this. Barney decides to take his friends advice. He calls and schedules a meeting with therapist Bob.
Act three
Barney meets with the hypnotherapist at the scheduled time for his appointment. The therapist asks barney to have a seat. The therapist then asks Barney to tell a little bit about himself and what he's been going through. Barney explains that he lost track of several hours during his hunting trip and that ever since then he's been having sever anxiety attacks and recurring nightmares.
The therapist instructs Barney to go ahead and relax in the chair while he begins the procedure. The therapist then begins with a standard procedure to induce hypnosis on Barney. Once barney is into deep a hypnotic trance, the therapist begins asking questions. He asks Barney to try and recall what happened on the day of which he had lost track of time.
Barney's recollection of the events include falling, but instead of getting up like he had previously thought, a sequence of terrifying events took place. Upon falling he felt paralyzed. He was then taken aboard an alien space craft. He found himself still paralyzed, bound to an operating table in a brightly lit room surrounded by strange looking humanoid creatures. They were speaking to him telepathically, telling him not to be afraid. However, Barney remained terrified.
Barney then told the hypnotherapist that these creatures began to operate on him. As he was able to move his head, he was able to see what they were doing to him. Barney then tells the therapist in detail about the experiments and operations were being done to him, one of which includes having an object implanted into his groin.
Barney then explains to the therapist that after they were finished with him, he was put back into the original position and place from which he was taken.
The therapist then performs a standard procedure to revive Barney from the hypnotic trance.
The therapist plays a recording of the session for Barney to listen to. Barney listens to the tape in near disbelief. He then has a realization that his life will never be the same.
Pitch:
I was thinking that it would be cool to take advantage of the very clean graphics of Team Fortress 2. I like Half Life 2 a lot but it gets very tiresome looking at those "realistic" models. I really love cartoony and very sharp clean images such as those in Team Fortress 2. I think it would be really cool to make some sort of "TV series" using Team Fortress 2 or even make an intense action movie. I dont know how hard the transition would be from Half Life 2 to Team Fortress 2. But a James Bond- type movie filmed with this very cartoony graphics and high octane action would be a different but very unique achievement.
I feel that this would definitely need a Director, Technical Artist, Script/Animatics Artist, and Animator/Design. I would assume about 4 people would be needed but maybe 5 or 6 would make it a lot better. I would think making new animations for the characters would be nice as well as Costumes.
I am one of those people that really like a more "at ease" look and feel and even though Half Life 2 can be manipulated in many ways, I feel that it just wouldn't have the same appeal as Team Fortress 2 can pull off.
Pitch by: Jason Butcher: silverfoxjwb18@yahoo.com and Wesley Simon: wsimon@gmail.com
Battle of the Bulge
A fictional tale of a man who wanted desperately to serve his country during WWII, but because of his size(to small) he is repeatedly denied. He eventually convinces the government to let him join(or maybe he puts lifts in his shoes and weights in his pockets?). During the war he has the opportunity to be a part of the famous Battle of the Bulge of which Winston Churchill said was ".. undoubtedly the greatest American battle of the war and will, I believe, be regarded as an ever-famous American victory". He
plays a pivotal part in fending off the initial German assault, as a member of the U.S. 99th Infantry Divisions. He dies during this battle as he holds off a small platoon of German soldiers and allows his platoon to get better position on the oncoming troops. Inspired by his sacrifice his platoon plays a pivotal role in holding of the Sixth SS Panzer Army Infantry Division.
Number of members needed: 6-10
Names of those who want to be in our group(ours names also included):
My idea is to make a parody of Star Trek: The Original Series. The idea is to go through what might be a typical episode of Star Trek, but to point out all the funny tendencies of the series (such as the crew always seeming to find earth-like planets where there are other human-like beings, the main characters always survive after each episode but the non-essential characters always seem to be killed off, the Enterprise is supposed to be a futuristic ship, but they use computers which look obsolete by today's standards.) Of course we would use different names for the main characters, but it would be obvious that they are supposed to resemble characters from Star Trek.
I'm thinking that the best way to make this parody funny is to have all the characters except the Captain carry along as if it was a normal Star Trek episode. The captain, on the other hand, will start questioning certain aspects of their situation, or make funny remarks about it. Here is a potential example of what might be seen:
(They are in orbit above a planet that they are exploring)
Spock: Curious, Captain. It appears that this planet's atmosphere and surface are nearly identical to that of Earth.
Captain: How convenient! Let's prepare a landing party and beam down to see what we can find!
(they beam down)
Spock: According to my sensors, this planet is inhabited by primitive human-like creatures.
Captain: Wow, really? What are the odds of that? Well, let's see if we can communicate with them. If it's anything like the last three planets we visited, they will already be able to speak English.
(They are attacked by the inhabitants, and everybody but the main characters die.)
Captain: Oh no, not again! Why does everybody except us always die on these missions? Maybe we should just go alone from now on.
Anyway, here's the other info I'm supposed to provide:
Nathan Swenson
superblockio@me.com
(I'm the only one doing this pitch)
We'll probably need around 8 people to make this film good.
Pitch by: Michael Goleniewski (Patches2008@msn.com) and Zach Adams (zrajazz@gmail.com):
AIR (horror/sci-fi):
A group of custodians are being trained at a colony on another planet. The colony's purpose to them is unknown, although a training video tells them that the air outside is dangerous to their health, and they therefore have to be closed off from it. It is also very empty, presumably being used by researchers. They settle in but the main character begins to hallucinate. We'll utilize many Hammer techniques to give creepy hallucinations, like a person staring back through a mirror, stepping out of a room to find a dark cavern with creatures, only to blink eyes and it's back to the colony hallway.
Essentially, their hallucinations start killing them off. They find a small leak in the colony and patch it up, but fear the air may have affected them and it's too late. Eventually, the main character is the only one left, and he resorts to blowing up a wall, letting all the outside air in the colony. All the monsters disappear. His guess was right: it wasn't the air outside that was infected, it was the air inside, and he was being researched with his response to it. He escapes and the scene pans out to reveal a security monitor watching him in a room with a bunch of researchers.
Number of Members: 6-9
Name of those who would want to be in group (including our names):
(All members made The Rise & Fall of the Snickerdoodle)
1. Zach Adams
2. Michael Goleniewski
3. Jason Butcher
4. Wesley Simon
Pitch by: Cristine Baggerly and Russel Bloomdale
Title: TransOrbis
Genre: Science Fiction
Pitched by: Cristine Baggerly, Russel Bloomdale, and Angelique Wray
Estimated # people needed: 8
People who will likely join our group: Leif Johnson
Our Goal: To creatively combine live action with machinima in order to create a film that's really cool and unique.
Plot Summary:
The story begins with the main character, who is unhappy with his life, riding the trax train (live action). He falls asleep and misses his stop but wakes up to find that the train has stopped in another world (created entirely using machinima). The machinima world offers an exciting escape from his problems and he comes to forget that anything else exists. However, something's not quite right about this fabricated world. Flashes of memories from the real world begin to emerge until he finally remembers where he came from and decides to return. This realization is symbolized by him transforming into a real/live action person (machinima + live action).
Models/Special effects:
1. Character: we will need to find a model that matches the actor to use in the machinima world. We also want to try retexturing the model's face to make it look just like him.
2. The train: The trax train will work well for the live action part and we plan on filming only the inside so that when the character enters the machinima world, we will just have to recreate the inside with hammer.
3. transformation: this will require using a green screen to combine live action with machinima.
What we will need:
Our plot has good potential but there are details of our story that still need to be filled in, such as the events that will take place in the machinima world. If our idea is chosen, the members of our group will be able to add their creative input in order to complete the story. We are also hoping that the team who made the previous live action film will give us some pointers to using the green screen as we have never used it before.
Pitch by: Leif Johnson and Angelique Wray
Need 8 to 10 people
Psychological Thriller/Horror "The Spore"
The story focuses on a brother and sister. They are twins and have been very close since their mom died many years ago. The sister is very independent and doesn't mind doing things on her own, but she is also very careful, and doesn't like to take unnecessary risks. The brother likes having fun and taking risks, but he is extremely co-dependent on his sister. He won't do anything without her, and hates to go anywhere or do anything unless she is with him. When the story begins the twins are both about to graduate from high school. The sister has been accepted into a prestigious college, and she plans on leaving right away. The brother was not accepted into that college, and he feels very conflicted because he knows he and his sister will be separated very soon. Mycologist.
The film will begin by showing old photos of the brother and sister when they were kids. While the camera pans over the old photos a voice over of a young brother and sister talking can be heard. The brother asks his sister "Can you tell me a story... something with a happy ending." The sister begins telling a story, "Once upon a time there was a brother and sister. They always played together in the mountains by their house to avoid their evil step-father..."
The film then cuts to the twins hiking up into the mountains. They are conversing about the sister going away to college. It is obvious from their conversation that the brother does not want her to leave. As they hike, the brother decides to do something reckless (walking to close to the side of a cliff or something) and he falls off of a cliff. He hits the ground and lands in a bed of mushrooms and other strange fungi. The sister rushes down to help him. When she gets there, he's unconscious, breathing deeply and surrounded by a haze of yellow spores in the air. The brother wakes up at home in bed. His sister is on one side and his father is on the other. The sister tells him he needs to rest, because he took quite a big hit on the head.
In the next scene, the sister walks into the father's lab. The father is a mycologist (he studies fungus). He is studying some of the fungus that the brother fell into and says he's never seen anything quite like it before. The sister is uninterested in mycology and she decides to go to bed.
On her way to bed, she hears a crash. She rushes to her brother's room, and finds him standing near a broken window, he is holding a rock in his hand. The brother says that someone from outside just threw a rock through the window. But the sister notes that there is no glass inside the room.
The next morning the sister goes outside and sees that all the glass landed outside the brother's window. She also notices a cluster of mushrooms growing where the glass landed. From that point on, strange things begin to happen. The brother stays in bed during the day, because he says he feels sick. But the sister keeps finding him wandering the halls at night muttering crazy things to himself. The sister also finds other strange things. Such as a dead cat, stabbed to death. Lots of fungus growing inside and outside the house. Yellow-eyed ravens outside that try to attack her. The brother standing by the father's bedroom door holding a knife. Etc. I'll have to limit these down to a few key events obviously.
So as the story progresses I want the lighting and the camera angles to get progressively more and more surreal. The voices of the young brother and sister will also continue to narrate their fairytale story off and on, and it will loosely match what's going on in real life.
At one point, the family dog attacks the sister. It has yellow eyes. The father and sister subdue the dog. The father studies the dog in his lab and notes that it seems to be hallucinating. There seems to be some kind of parasitic, hallucinogenic fungus growing inside the dog's body. The father suggests that this could be why the brother is acting so strangely. The father finds out that the fungus seems to be sensitive to electricity and proposes that they might be able to destroy the fungus from the brother's body through the use of electricity.
The father starts setting up something they can use to shock the brother. He keeps talking about destroying "the fungus." The brother attacks jumps into the room and attacks them. They manage to subdue the brother and hook him up to the electric device the father created. The father pumps up the output on his electric device saying "this will kill the fungus for sure." It is at that point that the sister realizes that the father is referring to her brother as "the fungus" and he has no plans of saving the brother, but is just planning on killing him along with the fungus. The sister rushes to stop her father.
At that point, the brother breaks free, grabs a knife (or other sharp object) and kills the father. He offers his hand to the sister and begs him to come with her. He says they could run away to the mountains and live there forever happily. At this point the sister realizes her brother is truly crazy. She hugs him, and furtively hooks the electrodes back onto him. Then, still hugging him, she turns the electricity on.
They are both shocked by electricty. The brother takes most of it and dies immediately. The sister wakes up all dazed and confused. She picks her brother's body up and walks out the door.
The film cuts to a new scene of a bunch of police at the house. The police are all wearing gas masks. A detective shows up and is informed by one of the officers that there appears to be a homicide at the house. "The dad was stabbed to death. And neighbors say they saw the sister walking into the mountains carrying the brother." The detective asks about why everyone is wearing gas masks.
The officer explains that a huge amount of hallucinogenic spores have been found in the air. They say they found evidence that the father (a mycologist) was experimenting making new kinds of hallucinogens to sell as drugs. It's possible that some of the spores escaped and the whole family has been hallucinating for the past few days. They probably just went crazy cuz of the hallucinogens and killed each other.
Cut to a scene of the girl walking off into the mountains carrying her brother's body. The voice-over of the the young boy and girl comes back on. The young boy asks "what happened to the brother and sister in the end?" The girl replies, "They ran away to the mountains together, and lived happily ever after."
Okay that turned out longer than I thought it would. Obviously it'll have to be cut down. As for people I'm working with I think all the people from my last group (Russel, Angel, Cristine) wanted to work with me still. We'd definitely need someone who's good at sound design, because psychological horror doesn't work without good sound design.
Pitch by: Wilson Bateman and Jason Thummel
For the final project we'd like to make a more complete adaptation of the short story "The Bicenntenial man. We already have one scene, but it needs a lot of work. On the plus side, we learned a lot. We'll be focusing on tightening up the script significantly - cutting out long talking parts and stepping up the pace of the action/shots. We also plan on concentrating on getting better recordings for the voice, which was a major flaw in our original scene.
We will need to create several more maps as well to house the various scenes, and possibly some new animations as well.
In the end we are hoping to make a meaningful point about the rights of individuals and pursuits of equality.
Wilson Bateman - mmenrobuel@hotmail.com
Jason Thummel - jason.thummel@gmail.com
I think we will need 8 to 10 people. We could use people with experience writing good dialogue, skilled with sound(especially voice recording), or with a good eye for shot composition.
The technical aspects of this project should not be huge and, since we'd like it to have an emotional impact, the more people skilled with film we have the better.
Pitch by: Landon Mann
landon.mann@utah.edu
Night in the labs
My story is where a bunch of cs a students get stuck in the lab all night trying to finish a project. but crazy stuff happens to them throughout the night. For example say the computer cache gets overloaded and they can't find a operator, one guy starts hallucinating and goes crazy on the other members of the team, or if we would really want to go crazy the students find a secret alien research facility in the basement of of the engineering building. I don't have much planned out yet. I want the idea open for improvement. and the story feel a little generic right now but what I like is that it's a story that could go anywhere and would be really fun to make.
Number of people : 8-10
Pitch by: Troy Briggs
Space Rebellion (Working title)
My idea is for a spoof of the original Star Wars movie. It would mostly focus on the events in the latter half of the movie (at least that's what most of my ideas for jokes are for). A couple of twists might include Leia going to kiss Luke when he rescues her from prison, but Luke getting grossed out cuz their siblings, a debate between two storm troopers over the morality of working in the empire, and definitely some kind of twist ending. I was thinking perhaps Vader shoots down Luke and the empire wipes out the rebellion, or maybe Luke misses the shot, then you see him really depressed afterward, perhaps committing suicide, or getting drunk in a bar years later.
I'm not sure how many people it would take to make this, I'm guessing a team of like 4-6 people.
While I'm okay with pretty much any position, most of my experience has been with the more technical issues, like setting up the paths and triggers for sequences, and tweaking models. I guess I see myself as sort of the choreographer, with some experience with sound editing and cinematography.
Pitch by: Name: Keeyon Ebrahimi
I was thinking for the final to do something like an interactive adventure. Where throughout the story the main characters have to make a decision, such as run away or try to save a friend. And whatever the audience chooses it will then go to the video of that choice. So We would have footage of both choices and you see if you can make it to the ending. Its hard to explain but I will show it to you. Its a new Idea thats barely come out and there is nothing of this sort done yet in machinima. So if we were to do this it would be the first ones to ever do this with machinima
To better understand what I am talking about please check out this video. At the end of the video click which decision you want the hero's to make.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDn0ow8EzcU
Pitch by: LEE ANGEL ESCAMILLA <Lee.Escamilla@m.cc.utah.edu> (Screenwriting student)
"Midnight Circus" is a hostage crisis situation about a retired bounty hunter who after his teenage daughter is abducted, is invited to seek her freedom by returning to the circus after hours. The situation becomes increasingly difficult because our hero isn't sure who is holding her or where she's being held. Against a circus themed backdrop, our hero will investigate and encounter increasingly difficult obstacles and complications before ultimately facing someone from his past which culminates in a battle for his daughter's life.
If I was there to speak to the group I would say: I think the visuals for this story line could be vivid and wildly colorful. Also, so many potential characters could be introduced because of the carnival aspect (clowns, sideshow freaks, ring leaders, animals, etc...). And the action could be insane because of the rides and our hero's arsenal of weapons. It could be visually fun real quick!
OR
We could go the route of building up suspense where our lead character carefully plods through the circus being frightened by the occasional mis-step (Like accidently coming face to face with a caged tiger) until the ending conflict ensues. This is fun too because the lead character is a little more careful in his approach resulting in more dramatic altercations.
Pitch by: LEE ANGEL ESCAMILLA <Lee.Escamilla@m.cc.utah.edu> (Second idea from Screenwriting student)
"Babysitter Blues" is a physical comedy about a babysitter who accidentally misplaces the baby she's caring for. This sets off a series of wild events in which she frantically looks for the child. Her goal is to locate and return the child unharmed and in time before the parents return home. The wackiness ensues because she has to retrace her steps to exactly when and where the child went missing, BUT ultimately she forgot the child in the crib to begin with! Defeated, the babysitter returns home just as the parents do. And before the babysitter can speak, the parents thank the babysitter for doing an amazing job. Here's a sample of the intro.
INT. LIVING ROOM - DAY
BOB
We really appreciate you doing this on such short notice.
SHELLEY
(texting on phone)
It's really no problem Mr. Atkins. When's the last time you've been out anyways?
BOB
Actually, never. This is the first time since Tina's been born.
SHELLEY
(still texting)
Well, you have nothing to worry about. I'm the oldest of six kids and I've pretty much seen it all.
BOB
(looking annoyed)
I'm sure you have. Come on Helen! I don't want to be late for my own award ceremony. Listen to me Shelley, don't ever fall in love.
SHELLEY
(giggling)
Ewwww, gross! I won't.
HELEN
(walking down the stairs)
How do I look Bob?
BOB
Like fifty bucks. Can we please go now?
HELEN
Not until you say something nice first.
BOB
We don't have time. Seriously, we gotta go!
HELEN
I will march right back up those stairs and embarrass you.
BOB
(incoherent voice)
HELEN
What? You're mumbling again Bob. What did you say?
BOB
(speaking slowly)
I like your shoes, dear.
HELEN
(hand held out)
You may now escort me to the banquet. Did you give Shelley the list?
BOB
(solemn tone)
Yes, dear.
HELEN
(Yelling)
Then let's go Bob. Move your butt!
Pitch by: Nick Rasband
Email: n.rasband@utah.edu
Class: CS3660
Assignment: Final Movie Pitch
Group size: 6
Possible team members: Ben Turner, Sarah Ripley, Kevin Smith, William Thammavong, Pace
I think that having a rich environment can really add to the power of a movie and how much it draws
people into the story. As others have mentioned on the pitch page, it seems that humorous movies seem
to be most appropriate for machinima, so I would like to create a humorous jungle adventure story. This
would allow for both a rich, immersive environment and a funny, enjoyable to watch movie. The story could
be something like the following:
A small group of people are on their way to a tropical island resort. They are flying in a small airplane
and a storm or engine troubles or something causes their plane to crash. They all survive the crash landing,
if it can even be called a landing, and after some discussion, decide that they will still try to make it to
the resort, because they believe that they are on the same island. As they begin hiking through the jungle
some of the humor will be generated by the conflict between the vacationers, who will have very distinct personalities.
Some of the humor will also be created by mishaps that occur such as falling into pits, being attacked by wild animals,
one of the characters going insane, or whatever other funny situations could be created in Machinima. The story could end
one of several ways. They might find the resort, with everyone being dirty and exhausted and decide that they have had enough
of this tropical paradise, so they just go home. As they are flying home, they could crash on the return flight, and that could
be the end, left open to the viewer's imagination whether or not they survived, and if they did survive, what misadventures they
might have.
Obviously there is a lot of detail lacking in this story, such as the individual events that happen in the jungle and
how it definitely ends, but I think that there is a lot of potential in this story and that it would be possible to create it
in Machinima. I have already found some jungle maps on Garry's Mod.
6-10 People
We propose to remake a classic 1960's Twilight Zone episode. We want to twist the story to involve the University of Utah and other noticeable things from Utah such as the Utah Trax line. There are a lot of good episodes that we could look at such as "A Stop at Willoughby, "The Hitch-Hiker" or "To Serve Man". All of these episodes are classic and usually end with an awesome twist where someone realizes that they have been dead the entire episode, aliens are not friendly and instead plan to eat people using a recipe book called "To serve man" (you may have seen a spoof of this in a Simpsons Tree House of Horror episode), or a man loses his mind and jumps off of a train thinking that he can get off and relax in an 1800's town "where a man can slow down to a walk and live his life full measure." It turns out that the man was delusional and that no such stop exists on the train ride home. He ultimately jumps to his death. It would be funny to make the man jump off of the Trax line. There are lots of other great episodes that we could remake/parody if anyone has any suggestions. A typical episode is 22 min long so we would have to shorten it somehow.
Psyched Out
My pitch is a psychological thriller. It tells the story of an ex-military man, Cameron, who becomes delusional. He goes through life until, suddenly, he breaks down. After he breaks down he can't tell reality from his imagination. Because of traumatic events during the war Cameron was diagnosed with PTSD so his imagination is of disturbing events from the war. His friend, Jeff, notices he's doing weird things and tries to help him. Cameron perceives Jeff as a comrade in war and acts as if they are going through battle together. Jeff plays along saying that the hospital is the enemy's headquarters, (so that Jeff can get Cameron some psychiatrical help). They go through markets and lawns, which Cameron perceives as bunkers and battlefields. At the end of the movie Cameron and Jeff get to the hospital and Cameron is grabbed by the wards. He thinks Jeff had betrayed him so before he's totally controlled by the wards Cameron pulls out his pistol and kills Jeff. Cameron is disarmed and is taken into the hospital screaming.
Set in medieval times. The father of a young man gets infected with a non curable virus. There is a legend that says there is a mystical lake of holy water that can cure any illness. This lake is protected by magic and no one has ever found it. The son of the father embarks on a quest to find the lake to save his father.
I got my idea from the Cask of Amontillado team. I would like to the short story the Tell Tale Heart. It would just be a remake(another remake) of a classic tale by the famous Edgar Allan Poe. http://poestories.com/read/telltaleheart It should only take 4-6 people, the sets are limited and the face poser is minimal as it is mostly narrative.
This was done two years ago, so Nick is interested in a different Poe story.
Positions : Modeling
set construction
editor
director
actors/jack of all trades
Michelle Macart is interested in doing this story as well.
Story Pitch
Genre:
Suspense/Thriller
Setting:
Present time. Modern U.S. city (unspecified)
Characters:
Frank Carizzi: Middle-aged man who still lives with his mom. He works at an office job and he is very socially awkward. His coworkers ignore him on a daily basis. Enduring this treatment has caused him to have a very low self-esteem.
Maria Dominguez: A love interest of Frank's. She works in the same office and is known for being a bit snobby with people. She is very beautiful and she knows it. She will take advantage of a guy to get free dinners and gifts for herself.
Storyline:
Frank is fed up with having to force people to talk to him at work. His love interest, Maria, is a particular nuisance to him because she doesn't like him. He tries in many ways to get her to notice him, but in the end he is too shy to be upfront with her about his feelings toward her. This causes Frank to become more and more frustrated, and one night after work he kills a random person on the street. This sudden violent action causes Frank to feel empowered over something in his life for the first time. He suddenly feels good about himself. He takes a picture of the person and brings it home with him. In his closet he hangs up the picture. The next day Frank feels down again and he can't concentrate on his work. All he can think about is the power he felt from taking another human being's life. He decides to go out again and find another poor random soul to destroy. Frank then finds himself going out night after night to repeat his actions and feel good about himself. With each person he kills he empowers himself more and more. He takes a picture of each person he kills and puts it up on his wall. After a few kills he titles the wall 'Bad People' in order to justify himself. Finally, Frank gets up the courage to ask out Maria. Taken aback by his change of personality, she agrees. She takes advantage of Frank's good nature and soon Frank has had enough. Frank kills Maria just like he has killed so many others. He does not feel remorse for his actions; instead, he again feels the pleasure of another kill. He takes Maria's picture and hangs in on his wall with the rest of the people he felt needed to die.
Story: The Phobic Hero
This a story where a man is stuck in his house because he has megalophobia and is delusional. He stays in his house because he is afraid that he may hurt himself or others.
The main point is he is a good man but no one knows it because they cant get past the fact that he is crazy. The main action of the story is where he is put into a situation that forces him to be a good member of society. Say he has to be a hero and save a bunch of people in peril and has to overcome his phobias and maybe even his disillusion, which are characters in the film, may help him become the hero.
I think it may be a good candidate for green screen or 3D
Needs 4 to 8 people.
People in Group
Name: Seamus Connor
CADE: houchins
Email: seamushc@gmail.com
Name: Petro Gretchanei
CADE: grechane
Email: memozio@gmail.com
Name: James Bowman
CADE: bowman
Email: j.r.bowman@utah.edu
Name: Dustin Marks
CADE: dmarks
Email: dustinmarks05@yahoo.com
I thought of these while some of the pitches were being made.
These are more of production ideas not necessarily stories.
-A Music Video (a funny spoof of an already existing video eg. I'm on a boat -to- I'm on a train)
-Stop motion using garry's mod.
The only thing would be making them long enough.
Number of People : 8-10
Story : Guy Flick
Essentially, the basics of a chick flick, but instead of a girl, it's a guy who is having all the problems.
So the setup for a chick flick is girl has a problem, has trouble with life, meets a guy, they are happy, they run into a problem, reconcile, happy ending.
In this story, the guy deals with all this as a guy would. Instead of friends cheering character through dancing or girl's night out, guy friends take him to a strip club. Instead of watching sad movies with ice cream, guy watches Die Hard with a hand in his pants. Instead of crying about problems, guy gets in fights with people.
Pitch by: Daniel Parker and my email is dan.parker@utah.edu
Pitch #1 - Lesbians on TV show.
requires 6-8 people
The story follows two plot lines: one is a television show about a police officer/dective solving a crime involving his arch nemisis, and the other is about the show's creating pitching his idea to various people and TV executives.
Basically, the detective story progresses throughout the entire movie, but it frequently cuts to the guy who is pitching the idea. Every time the guy pitches the idea, the exective suggests that he needs more lesbians in the show. Upon continuing, a male character in the detective show will be replaced with a female. This continues and hopefully makes the serious detective show hilarious. The end can be when the detective defeats her nemisis (or seduces her?). And the guy pitching signs a contract with an executive that says "Son, this show will make millions."
When people tell him to add lesbians, they can do it in funny ways like:
Listener: It's a good idea, but you'll need to add lesbians in order for it to be shown on TV.
Guy Pitching: Can't there be a show without lesbians in it?
Listener: Maybe in the future there will be a show without lesbians, but right now the American people arn't ready for that. It would be too edgy.
Pitch by: Daniel Parker and my email is dan.parker@utah.edu
Pitch #2 - Incompetent Serial Killer
requires alot of people (8 maybe?)
There is a loser guy that gets mad at the world and decides to get revenge on people and the world. He gets the idea from a real serial killer he hears about on the news. He then goes around trying to kill people, but every time he trys, they die accidentally right before he can kill them. He then sees the stories on the new about these horrible accidents and gets frustrated. Towards the end he goes to stab/shoot some and right before he can, another murder pops and and kills them. He gets really pissed and kills the murderer instead. Everybody calls him a hero, because it turns out that he stopped the serial killer that was on the news earlier.
Pitch by: Colby Paul (cdp_lanky_gunner@yahoo.com) and Landon Mann (grnmonky@hotmail.com)
Number of people : 8-12
Story : Hero Parody
Like any hero movie, a guy is thrust into a beautiful world with nothing but his own skills, he learns, he laughs, he loves, and then he defeats the Big Bad in the end.
We want to make fun of this aspect. Maybe the powerful weapon to kill the Big Bad is not a powerful relic, but a regular twig from the nearest tree. Maybe the wise sage giving cryptic messages isn't wise, but crazy, telling you to "Go west to the tower to find the relic" when there are CLEARLY three towers in the west.
Then there are the caves. Why can't we go around? The caves have monsters in them! Well, by defeating and going through, we save time and gain a powerful relic in the process to boost our armor. But the cave has a dragon in it! Well, his scales provide the powerful armor. Right...we're gonna die, aren't we?
Maybe have a downer ending where killing the Big Bad causes the downfall of the kingdom, or he becomes King but becomes more evil than the original Big Bad.
Pitch by: Brandon Rees lleshap@gmail.com and
Charles Mimnaugh cmimnaugh@gmail.com
We want to do a Scooby-Doo homage. In the unlikely event that anyone is unfamiliar with the show or any of its clones, the basic outline of every single episode ever it goes something like this:
A group of four teenagers and their talking dog either have their van break down at night in the middle of nowhere and then go to find help, or visit one of an unending series of Aunts/Uncles who live in the middle of nowhere.
Instead of help, they encounter one or two locals, who tell the teens about some local legend involving a ghost, monster, or other supernatural entity. Which, according to said locals, is currently terrorizing the area.
The teens then vow to solve the 'mystery', and split up into two teams to look for clues.
Two members of the group, the talking dog and his owner, wander off in search of food and encounter the monster. They flee the monster and run into the rest of the group.
The team comes up with an elaborate plan to capture the monster using the dog and owner as bait. They protest being bait, but acquiesce the moment they are offered food.
The trap fails, there is a confused chase scene with wacky music, and somehow the monster is captured largely by accident.
Someone removes tugs on the monster's face, which turns out to be a mask, and the monster is revealed to actually be one of the locals from before. The nerdy member of the group then explains the local's scheme and how the costume worked. The 'monster' claims that he/she would have gotten away with the whole thing, if only it weren't for the "meddling kids". The end.
To make things a bit more interesting we want to reference one incarnation of the show, The New Scooby-Doo Movies, which had a celebrity guest star helping the group on each episode. We're thinking of doing what The Passion of the McCain did and using audio clips from said celebrity for that character's dialogue.
Estimated group size of 6-10
Story
In a really cold winter, a teenager looks at the snow on the ground and talks to his friends. They talk about go up to the mountain and ski in the weekend. The teenager did not ski before, and he want to learn.
They climb up to the mountain. The background are all snow. They talk about the big snow and start to ski. His friends teach the teenager to ski, and he falls all the time. They try different ways to teach him, a guy who stands behind the teenager is fooling around and kicks the teenager, the teenager falls and rolls down from the top the mountain. He rolls and rolls, becomes a big snow ball. The snow ball becomes bigger and bigger.
He rolls down the mountain and fall on the road, a car is coming fast. The diver is scare when he see the big snow falls from the mountain. The car hit the teenager, the diver comes down to see what happened. The teenager's friends also run down the mountain, they get near the teenager to see is he still being okay. The teenager jumps up suddenly, and beat up the guy who kick him off the mountain.
The other friends try to stop him, the diver comes and yells at the teenager because his car get destroyed when it hit the teenager. The teenager yells back, and they fight. The guy who hit by the teenager also get in the fight. The friends of the teenager and the diver try to stop them, and they all get into the fight. It become a big fight, and everyone is fighting.
Estimate of people 8-10
Pitch by: Ryan Behshad
CS 3660
Final Machinima Pitch
Pitch #1 - Ghostbusters in 10 minutes
People Needed: 8 to 10
The idea here is to re-enact the first ghostbusters (I'm assuming you have all seen Ghostbusters) movie in 10 minutes or less. One of the biggest problems is going to be deciding which scenes are the most relevant. I would definitely want the final scene where the crowd is cheering and the Ghostbusters theme song is playing. I would want to use sound clips from the movie, rather than recording our own. The physics gun from Garry's Mod would be perfect for the ghost buster's ghost sucking gun. This would be a huge project, and a lot of work, but in the end it would be really rewarding and cool.
Pitch by: Ryan Behshad
Pitch #2 - Scarface Ending
People Needed: 6 to 10
For this idea, we would do the ending of Scarface, starting with just before the scene where Tony Montana's sister gets shot. There are some obvious issues that would need to be worked out, mainly with the final scene where the Colombians are assaulting Tony's mansion. We would need to find a lot of models for this, and the idea is to make it as realistic as possible. Again I would want to use sound clips from the movie, unless we can find a really good voice actor who can nail Tony Montana's cuban accent.
I really dont have much to say, because the scenes / plot are from a movie, so its already set up, we just have to re-enact it with machinima. This simplifies things in that we don't have to spend any time scripting, choosing camera shots, or any of that pre-design stuff. It complicates things because we may not have the right animations for the characters, or the right models or textures. If you guys can come up with any creative ideas to add to these movies, I would love to hear them. If you want to be part of re-creating some of the greatest stories known to mankind, vote for both of these as your number one and two votes! Catch you on the flip side!