A story, trailor, and process paper of the movie "Influx", created by Emilly and Abe. INSPIRATION What happens when reality and imagination collide? According to Influx a world can be destroyed. We began by brainstorming scenarios based on personal interests including the idea of an entire story taking place within one persons imagination. We were both interested in how dreams work and how they affect us. This prompted us to look at a psychological story line. Our story was not one that was based off or created through facts because we wanted to focus on the mystery of things we acknowledge to be very real and present, but cannot see. A current problem that we did draw inspiration from was global warming. Influx has a lot to do with how humans effect their environment and the self destructive nature that we have. QUESTIONS As we began creating our story we considered what questions we wanted our viewers to leave thinking about. These questions and concerns about the world are what we began to build Influx out of. The questions we focused on where: What is the boundary between imagination and reality?, How does reality change based on your imagination and vice versa?, and What are the effects of human self destruction on the surrounding environment?. AUDIENCE RESPONSE The intention for Influx is to make our audience have sympathy for the child who hosts the world of Influx in his imagination and then to recognize the parallel idea that Earth hosts humans. We want our audience to realize that you cannot take your surroundings for granted as many do. We also want to show humans incredible ability to create the things that ultimately cause their own destruction. CHARACTERS The main characters in the story are the Host, the Duplicate, the group of rebels and the Enforcers. While only the ending scene directly shows the Host the viewer learns a lot more about him than youd expect. The whole world is his creation and multiple times within the movie his memories are shown. The Duplicate represents the Hosts brain/intentions throughout the movie. In a way the Duplicate is the Hosts version of himself in his imaginary world. The Duplicate is used to communicate with his creations. During Influx his personality is often concerned or worrisome because he is the only character who knows exactly what is going on and what is at stake. Similarly to the Duplicate the Enforcers represent a piece of the Host. The Enforcers are like the white blood cells of the Hosts mind. Their one task and ultimate goal is to physically protect the Host from anything that may harm him. While this is a good intention ultimately it gets in the way of the Hosts success because the Enforcers are so obsessed with this one task that they rarely look past it or consider other methods of protecting him. The final group of characters are the Rebels. The Rebels are the ordinary people within the Hosts mind. They are his creations. Before he enters his coma they effectively live his life. Their imaginary existence is like a shadow of the Hosts reality. After the Host falls into a coma these ordinary people begin maturing without the Host. When the Host stops having experiences so do the people in his head. When they learn of reality, the possibility to not only regain these experiences but to have their own unique ones the ordinary people become Rebels. They spend the majority of the movie trying to find a way to leave the imaginary world and become an individual. RULES AND TIME The world that Influx takes place in is the present. It does have a more futuristic feel though due to the fact that there are many fanciful aspects to the world that are created by the Hosts imagination. While time does progress throughout the movie it does not for the Host. Because he is in a coma his life is in on hold which directly affects the imaginary world within his head, even though the imaginary world does still continue to movie on and mature. When creating an imaginary world there are a lot of rules that we had to consider. For example, an issue that we spent a lot of time working on was what are the capabilities of our imaginary characters? What could they do or learn on their own and what did they take from their host? Coming up with the rules altered our whole movie. It forced us to work out the unrealistic and contradicting pieces within our overall idea for Influx. The rules we came up with are: 1. Throughout the movie the Hosts knowledge/thought process does not mature. 2. Enforcers represent the Hosts body and have one goal: to protect him physically. They always act as a mass and are uninterested in anything that does not involve protecting the Host. 3. The Rebels are the ordinary people within the imaginary world. As the host falls into a coma they have to begin thinking and doing things for themselves instead of drawing on his memories and experiences. 4. The Duplicate represents the Hosts brain. He knows how to escape from the imaginary world and get back to reality. 5. If the Duplicate leaves the imaginary world the Host will wake from the coma. 6. If the Rebels escape from the imaginary world, the unreal will collide with reality ending both the lives of the Host and his creations. 7. When the Rebels and Enforcers fight the Duplicate feels pain because he is in war with himself. These rules allowed us to create a much more believable world and to organize our thoughts. They took a long time to come up with because they are directly related and change everything within our story. SETTING AND TECHNOLOGY The setting of Influx is one of the most interesting and important components of our movie. By the end of the movie the audience learns that the whole movie takes place in an imaginary world within a childs head. Throughout the movie the feel of the world changes as the world morphs from a innocent dream to a tumultuous reality. The movie begins with a futuristic, yet cartoonish feel. This is to show that the world is coming from a five year olds head and it is supposed to have a very childish feel. As the movie progresses and the Host child enters a coma the setting becomes darker. We still use the bright colors from the more cartoon like version of Influxs world, but in a different way. The bright colors appear in lights that glow in a much darker world. Like many movies the look of the setting slowly must change to give the intended atmosphere of the movie depending on what is taking place. We also used creative and futuristic technology to make the world seem different than our own. The child has created new technologies to do things that in reality currently are only things to dream about. Many of the new technologies show up in the form of toys or entertainment similarly to Back to the Future II. STORY Influx begins with the classic idea of good guys vs. bad guys. The rebels want their own reality, the Enforcers try to stop them. The viewer begins to root for the Rebels in their quest. By the end of the movie good vs. bad becomes unclear and is replaced by a more complex concept. The big realization at the end of Influx is that the Rebels and the Enforcers are, in fact, one. They make up one person and in the end it is the Rebels, who were assumed to be the good guys who ultimately become the more destructive characters. Their actions not only kill themselves but also, their world and the child whose mind created their world as well. Because of this Influx is an Idea story. It is based off of learning and gathering new information as the movie goes on. During each scene you get more insight into whether this world is actually real or imaginary and how the Host affects the world. By the end of the movie the audience will understand how reality and the dream world tie in together and relate. At the beginning of the movie the audience does not even know that the imaginary world is imaginary. Influx is based off the experience of gaining this knowledge. CINEMATIC STYLE Our film is fast paced because it becomes a race to the finish as the Duplicate tries to beat the Rebels to reality and the Enforcers attempt to keep everyone within the imaginary city. This race gives Influx an accelerated pace and makes for a very intense climax. Our movie is going to be filmed in the classic cinematic way. Everything is very clean cut and the viewer is supposed to feel as if they are a part of the story instead of observing it.