Ideas for first 4 scenes

Opening

A nightclub line. Eric and Duncan are out on a night out. Duncan has pulled Eric another nightclub for a couple more drinks. Eric is drunk enough already but Duncan doesn’t seem drunk at all. The reason he wanted to go into this club is because he saw a girl that he liked the look of.

They join the line and end up standing behind the girl Duncan liked. He introduces himself to her and the girl introduces herself as Amber. Eric hums to himself while they talk and ends up in the line on his own after Duncan and Amber leave the line. Eric also leaves after noticing he is on his own.

The next morning

Eric is sitting at a table nursing a hangover from hell when Duncan comes in with a massive smile on his face. He says that he got Amber’s phone number and intends to call her soon. Eric runs off to be sick in a different room giving Duncan the best time to call Amber without being disturbed. Duncan and Amber arrange to meet the next night at a local pub.

(MAY NOT USE) Several months later

Amber and Duncan have been together for a couple of months now and are really happy together. But lately Duncan has been getting the attention of another girl, Lindsay Newton, a girl who he met on a night out and somehow she got his number and keeps calling him, he agrees to meet just to set things straight. Duncan tells Eric that some random girl keeps calling her and now he has to meet her secretly. Eric suspects him of cheated on Amber. Amber questions Eric about what his conversation with Duncan was about, Eric lies and tells her it was his boss calling saying he needed to work tomorrow night.

A couple weeks later

See the Description of a scene entry for this scenes information.

Changing the death of Amber

For the last fees days I have been thinking of ways to show Amber's death on stage, ranging from filming a model that was on fire and showing on a projection screen. This wouldn't work because the main problem would be the model would need to be very realistic and I'm not good at art.

A second idea was with lighting but none of the lights in the room didn't look like they would be useful or effective at looking like fire flickering.

To solve this major problem I decided to make the death occur off stage and thought of a way that could be done effectively.
Amber dies on bonfire night, due to someone messing with fireworks causing one to smash through a window and explode in Amber bedroom, setting fire to it at the same time.
This would be the start if the un naturalistic style in the piece, as a person would come on stage with a model firework on a stick, they would be holding the stick near the rocket, 'light' a match, then push the stick away as fast as they can to make it look as if the rocket took off.

The rest of the scene would be mostly lighting effects, pre-recorded screaming and sound design, as you hear a window smash, see the rocket explode and the fire start.

Influences

Some of my influences include:
American Horror Story (Murder House story)
The characters of Larry/Ben/Hayden. Larry and Ben both cheated on their wives, even if the outcome of being discovered was different for both of them, as Larry's wife setting their bedroom on fire with her and her children locked inside but Ben's wife simply pushed Ben away emotionally.
Hayden on the other hand influences how Amber is going to act after she dies in the story as before, she will be kind, gentle, sweet and innocent. But after she dies she will be angry towards Duncan, just as Hayden was angry towards Ben's wife, Vivienne, for having Ben even though he had been cheating on Viv with her.

American horror story (Asylum story)
Sister Jude getting hurt by what she had done before becoming an inmate at the asylum, such as electro shock therapy, being forced to listen to the same song over and over.

The play The Perfect Murder.
This will mainly help me work out what kind of things Amber can do to haunt Duncan.
In the production Victor's ghost made his wife hear his voice without seeing him, and when she did see him, he acted naturally, as if he wasn't dead (which he isn't but is not telling his wife).
He also turned on the TV and Radio from a distance, with specific things playing on them at the time, such as the song Every Breath You Take by the Police.

War of the Worlds live tour
Use of projection and other techniques that showed Liam Neesons character throughout the piece.

Songs such as
Crossfire by Eric Stuart Band
Remember by Name by Robbyn Kirmssé (From Danny Phantom). Base for the whole idea to begin 
with.
Sacrifice - Voltaire
Every Breath You Take - The Police
The Devil in Disguise - Elvis Presley 

"Description of a scene" exercise

As I said in a previous post this exercise helped me to work out some of the fine details of an important scene. What I wrote down is below.


Column 1
Description of scene

Duncan and Eric are sitting at a small table. Eric is reading a comic book, Duncan is strumming at his guitar (attempting to play Full Colour World from Comic Book: the movie). Duncan looks a little twitchy and keeps looking at his phone, Eric doesn't notice.
Duncan's phone receives a message, it beeps a few times before Duncan looks at it. When he does he sighs angrily and puts the phone back on the table without answering. This is when Eric looks up from his comic.
He asks what the problem was and Duncan tells him that some random girl has been texting him for a few days. Duncan shows Eric the message and Eric recognises the name of the girl, telling Duncan that he clearly does know her as she's listed in his contacts.
Eric tells Duncan she works in the bar they went to for Ambers birthday. Duncan question how Eric knows this and says that he's gone to the bar with out Duncan a few times.

Column 2
Specific detail from the scene

Duncan is attempting to play the song "Four Colour World" from Comic Book: the Movie. The song is about how the singer can't understand why they love the person they are singing to.
The song was chosen because this is the scene where it is revealed that Duncan has been cheating on Amber, his girlfriend, and so we don't know if he is singing about Amber or the girl who has been texting him.
Eric suddenly becomes suspicious of Duncan's reaction to him knowing who Lindsay Island begins to think and begins to think Duncan is cheating on Amber. He doesn't know how long this has been happening though.

Column 3
Context of the scene

Takes place in present day. The characters in the scene are both students and are living in student accommodations. Duncan is on a music course and Eric is on an animation course.
Takes place two months after Amber and Duncan get together, but shows that he doesn't really care about their relationship as he has been cheating on her for two weeks and has talked to Amber less and less during that time. Amber on the other hand has become unhappy because her so call 'boyfriend' is not texting her or even talking to her.

Last few weeks of work

I have learnt over the last few weeks that my idea can be expanded through a wide variety of ways, whether they be looking at one scene in detail, three columns exercise, or using objects to create a little scenario, three objects (in my scenario these objects were a pen, a piece of paper and a pair of sunglasses).

The three columns task made me add to specific details to the scene I was writing about.

Detail one
The song Duncan is trying learning on his guitar, Four Colour World, is a song where the singer cannot work out why they love who they are singing to. But because the audience and Eric learn that he has been cheating in this scene the song is meant to question which girl he is singing about.

Detail two
The comic that Eric is reading, Mad Love. Mad love is a story abut the Batman character Harley Quinn and her loving/abusive relationship with the Joker, loving only from one side (Harley's). The relationship in the book partly echoes Duncan and Amber's relationship, which can be told through Eric's dialogue.

Both of the exercises I have mentioned have helped me by developing one section of a character or scene, the song Duncan is trying to learn and the way Eric acts when he is secretly spying on Duncan when he thinks he is cheating. It has helped me to think of ways in which media can be used during the performance, unless I can find a way to put this idea on stage, I will use some sort of screen to project me onto as if watching Duncan from a far.

Idea beginnings

This idea is based on a song from an episode of Danny Phantom called Fanning the Flames. It tells the story of a girl who dies in a house fire after being cheated on by her boyfriend and how she haunts  him in order to try and get her to remember her before carrying on with the girl he was cheating with.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wBMOc24_aIw

But when I looked at the basic story I found that it would be challenging to write the story and make it last twenty five minutes, so I added a character to act as a person who works out what Duncan (the character who is cheating) is doing, and the audience sees the action through his perspective until after the major event during the piece.

Character descriptions
Amber Lynns

Amber Lynns is the girl that Duncan is going out with at the start of the piece.

I see her as the girl who dies in the house fire the song mentions at one point.

Her name comes from slightly changing the the word Ember and taking the last name of a comic book villain who is an arsonist, linking her to fire even more.

She dies after hearing about Duncan cheating on her and her spirit haunts Duncan to get him to remember that they were once together.

Her character is loosely based on Shilo from Repo: the Genetic Opera and Hayden from American Horror Story.

Before death: happy, nice, peaceful, naive.
After death: aggressive, angry, vengeful, destructive.


Duncan Wells

 

He is the character who goes out with Amber at the start of the piece, but starts seeing Lindsay only a few weeks after they start dating.

His character is based on Ben from American Horror Story mixed with a few people I've know throughout the years.

Best friends with Eric even though they are nothing a like.

Plays guitar in a band (The Combustion) practises around the flat he shares with Eric.

Tells Eric he cheated on Amber but doesn't realise that Eric knows the girl he has been with.

Instantly moves on with his life after Amber dies, which is one of the reasons his friendship with Eric starts to crumble.

Throughout the second half of the piece he is slowly driven mad by Amber's spirit haunting.

Eric Andrews

He is loosely based on myself and Silent Bob from Kevin Smith's Clerks movies.

Best friend to Duncan, even though they are nothing a like.

A bit of a geek, making references to comics and movies nobody has even heard of before.

Knows when to be quiet and observe the world around him.

Cautious around people, thinks about what he can say without getting in trouble.

Is on first name terms with Lindsay (the girl Duncan cheats with).

After Lindsay dies Eric cannot understand why Duncan instantly moves on and begins to dislike Duncan because of this.

Works out that it's Amber's spirit haunting Duncan after she dies and finds little ways to help freak him out.






Lindsay Newton

Not sure if she will actually appear in the piece.

I thought of the character when I was listening to Girlfriend by Avril Lavigne, as I felt as though the lyrics told the side story of who this character would be and how she would act.

Works in a bar that Eric and Duncan go to occasionally.

Is on first name terms with Eric because of how often he goes to the bar she works in.