After discussing the initial post-apocalyptic idea with my course leader it became apparent just how obvious the cliches in my story would be. We talked about how I could either try and completely avoid the cliches or find a twist, a difference in them that would intrigue the audience. Already, the style I'm working with is going to be different from a lot of what has been done before but the story itself has to change.
One of the big cliches I've fallen into is this idea of a self-sufficient character who has some kind of military experience or background. So to avoid this issue I would like to avoid this "soldier stereotype" by making my main character some kind of nurse or paramedic, or perhaps a fire fighter or medic in the armed forces. With this kind of character I can have a uniform that could be recognised by the audience, something familiar that grounds them in the universe.
I was also watching the original Blade Runner with my family last night and got thinking about a twist at the end of the story. In the film, Replicants are basically human, they're genetically engineered, what if my main character wasn't really human? Or she was a machine and discovered this in the end.
For the actual universe of the story I think I want to avoid the idea of 'nuclear holocaust' and instead find another way the world ended. So I'm thinking about using a Plague that wipes out most of humanity, leaving behind emergency first aid tents filled with dead victims and nurses and doctors. The character could then be seen walking through these tents, pulling a scarf high over her nose and mouth. For direction, I want the character to be searching for something, ideally for a cure that has been transported to a location but when she finds it, everyone transporting it had died.
From this idea I started thinking about the twist again and somehow got thinking about The Truman Show and the Matrix (I know, very similar genres) but the idea of an internalised world or a simulation really spoke to me. I like the idea of following my initial plan of something (a wolf/stag) leading my character to a conclusion but instead of finding another person, she finds that the world is in fact a simulation.
I also got chatting to my Dad about ideas and he mentioned a 'snow globe' effect where if everything was a simulation in the story, what if someone just decided they wanted to start again and 'shook the snow globe', erasing everything that had happened before and starting again. I also thought that instead of a snow globe, we could use the idea of an Etch-a-Sketch to build the world and then erase it.
So my new idea is less cliched but it still needs some work:
Survivor is first seen following a dot on her wrist monitor leading her to the location of 'The Cure'. She is weary/injured/ill. All around her are dead bodies from the Plague that has destroyed the earth. When she finds the vial containing the cure it glitches out of her hand and she is confronted by a figure/stag/wolf that then leads her to a door/switch/something that destroys the simulation around her.
Maybe before she gets too close to it the world starts to dissolve around her, like an etch-a-sketch, the world is starting again....
After thinking about this idea I looked up the kind of particle effects I could achieve in Maya and glitch effects in After Effects.
One of the big cliches I've fallen into is this idea of a self-sufficient character who has some kind of military experience or background. So to avoid this issue I would like to avoid this "soldier stereotype" by making my main character some kind of nurse or paramedic, or perhaps a fire fighter or medic in the armed forces. With this kind of character I can have a uniform that could be recognised by the audience, something familiar that grounds them in the universe.
I was also watching the original Blade Runner with my family last night and got thinking about a twist at the end of the story. In the film, Replicants are basically human, they're genetically engineered, what if my main character wasn't really human? Or she was a machine and discovered this in the end.
For the actual universe of the story I think I want to avoid the idea of 'nuclear holocaust' and instead find another way the world ended. So I'm thinking about using a Plague that wipes out most of humanity, leaving behind emergency first aid tents filled with dead victims and nurses and doctors. The character could then be seen walking through these tents, pulling a scarf high over her nose and mouth. For direction, I want the character to be searching for something, ideally for a cure that has been transported to a location but when she finds it, everyone transporting it had died.
From this idea I started thinking about the twist again and somehow got thinking about The Truman Show and the Matrix (I know, very similar genres) but the idea of an internalised world or a simulation really spoke to me. I like the idea of following my initial plan of something (a wolf/stag) leading my character to a conclusion but instead of finding another person, she finds that the world is in fact a simulation.
I also got chatting to my Dad about ideas and he mentioned a 'snow globe' effect where if everything was a simulation in the story, what if someone just decided they wanted to start again and 'shook the snow globe', erasing everything that had happened before and starting again. I also thought that instead of a snow globe, we could use the idea of an Etch-a-Sketch to build the world and then erase it.
So my new idea is less cliched but it still needs some work:
Survivor is first seen following a dot on her wrist monitor leading her to the location of 'The Cure'. She is weary/injured/ill. All around her are dead bodies from the Plague that has destroyed the earth. When she finds the vial containing the cure it glitches out of her hand and she is confronted by a figure/stag/wolf that then leads her to a door/switch/something that destroys the simulation around her.
Maybe before she gets too close to it the world starts to dissolve around her, like an etch-a-sketch, the world is starting again....
After thinking about this idea I looked up the kind of particle effects I could achieve in Maya and glitch effects in After Effects.
I need to gather a lot more reference and find some examples of the glitch effects in other media. I also need to redesign my main character and find out how the story is going to play out and how the simulation comes to an end. But I'm happier now that I don't have as many cliches.
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