Our Idea and Inspirations

Our Idea and Inspirations 

Welcome to the summary of our film opening idea. The name of our film is The Hollow Point, which comes from the idea of hollow-emptiness of people's minds when in a trance, and point—the specific point of the bag. 

Our Idea
When forming our idea, we took inspiration from two films: Talk to Me and Jaws. Both of these films belong to the thriller/horror genre. We took the physiologic and supernatural thriller aesthetic from both of them. Our idea is of three friends in a car in an empty parking lot at night, waiting for another friend who is heading to a party. One of the friends notices a strange glowing bag in the middle of the parking lot. He tells the others and steps out to check it. When he opens the bag, he enters a trance. The others start yelling at him, and they also go out to see what he's looking at, but they are too caught up in their own trance. Then the scene cuts to the fourth friend walking up. When he gets there, the car is still running, with no one in sight except a strange bag and some of his friends' personal belongings lying on the ground. We might make some minor adjustments while creating a storyboard to achieve a better effect, but for now, this is the main idea.

Inspiration #1- Talk to Me
First inspiration Talk to Me is about a group of friends who discover how to conjure spirits using an embalmed hand. They become hooked on this new thrill until one of them goes too far and unleashes terrifying supernatural forces (IMDb, Talk to Me, n.d.). Inspired by the idea of an embalmed hand that possesses the characters, we replaced it with a cursed backpack found in the middle of a parking lot. We kept the idea of a group of teenagers finding a strange object that puts them into a trance. The theme of curiosity in Talk to Me relates to ours: the boys wondering what the strange bag is. Although Talk to Me and our plot are related, we want ours to be more realistic, as some scenes in Talk to Me seem a bit far-fetched and carry a more horror vibe. We are aiming for a thriller. 

(Talk to Me poster: Talk to Me (2023). Directed by Danny and Michael Philippou. A24.)

(Shot of the girl being possessed: Talk to Me (2023). Directed by Danny and Michael Philippou. A24.)

(The embalmed hand: Talk to Me (2023). Directed by Danny and Michael Philippou. A24.)

Inspiration #2- Jaws
The next film we took inspiration from is Jaws. Jaws is about a massive killer shark that unleashes chaos on a beach community off Long Island. It's up to the local police chief, a marine biologist, and an old seafarer to hunt the beast down (IMDb, Talk to Me, n.d.). For our film opening, we will use a similar sting towards the end of our opening when the fourth friend shows up. We also drew inspiration from the POV shot of the lady swimming, which we will use by showing a perspective from the bag looking up at the three friends looking down at the bag.

(Jaws poster: Jaws (1975). Directed by Steven Spielberg. Universal Pictures.)

(POV swimming shot: Jaws (1975). Directed by Steven Spielberg. Universal Pictures.)

A bit of planning for actors and set
We have an idea of who we will use as actors and for the set. The actors include four friends: Kai's brother Erik, Christian's brother, Kai's friend Teo, and Sebastion. For the set, we will film in the local park, Tequesta Trace Parking Lot, and use Erik's car. For outfits, we'll go with more party-style clothing, such as cargo pants or jeans paired with a graphic tee or a white shirt. Shoes will be either white or black.

Reflection
We have solidified our idea quite a bit, and when we do our storyboard and script, we hope to finalize it completely, which will allow us to visualize each shot and critique it to improve our concept. Soon, we will move on to the best part of the project—filming. See you next time when we will be reviewing a theory to incorporate into our opening, and taking a look at our storyboard and script.

References

Jaws

IMDb. (1975). Jaws. Retrieved from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073195/

Talk to Me

IMDb. (2023). Talk to Me. Retrieved from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10638522/