Austin Munson
Eng 110 | Blog Post 3 | Option 3
A group of aspiring advertising majors leave the University of Oregon on a weeklong school trip to New York’s Madison Avenue, The advertising capital of the world. Upon their arrival they are instantly drawn in to the capitalistic nature of the city. Their educational trip soon takes a turn for the worst when a handful of the students are engulfed by greed and power as they make connections with some interesting characters one night out in the city. The two main characters of the film will be played by Dave Franco and Jennifer Lawrence. The genre of the film will be Crime-Fiction and Comedy-Drama. The cinematography of the film will be modern day Avant Garde and will be shot and edited much like Harmony Korine’s “Spring Breakers”. The film will have sections of the film that use Korine’s similar lighting techniques and his narrative style that work well together to underline specific details of the story and present them to the audience in a unique and interesting way.
The beginning of the film will take place in Eugene, Oregon. The first 20-30 minutes of the plot will deal with the student’s preparation for the New York trip. The main purpose of this section is to develop the characters in the minds of the audience. The scenes describing this section in the film will show individual students stories along with the two main characters as they get ready to go on the trip. These scenes will jump back and forth from the students working in class to partying on the weekend before the trip. In the classroom scenes, there will be a very strong emphasis on the practices of advertising. The classroom scenes will feature a teacher teaching the students about the societal norms, trends, and stereotypes that advertising can create in society. These scenes will be extremely important, as they will highlight some of the harm that advertising can have on society.
The next part of the plot features the students in New York City. The vibe in this part of the film is still pretty mellow as the students are taken on tours of individual agencies in Manhattan. There will be comedy as well as more information on the advertising industry in this section of the film as it continues to slowly build towards the climax of the narrative. On the second to last night out, the two main characters share a cab at three in the morning with a strange man on their way back to their hotel. The man gives them his number and talks about a fun, non-touristy party the next night. The two main characters attend the party with a group of their close friends on the trip. As the party winds down the group of students are asked by their strange man they met the previous night for a favor. The favor asked of them is to deliver a mysterious package to a neighboring apartment. The majority of the students accept. This is where the film turns towards a crime-drama. The package they delivered was a late payment made to a drug dealer. The students are given till sunrise to pay the remaining money to the drug dealer. This leads to the last chaotic 45 minutes of the film as the students end up getting into gun fights with the drug dealers of Manhattan trying to get the money to save their lives. All said and done, the students get the money, but the two main characters, played by Dave Franco and Jennifer Lawrence, decide to stay in the city and become obsessed with power and their newfound lifestyle.
Nice – they say the best stories come from real life, and it sounds like your experiences in NYC were a rich mine of experience. I like your casting choices—although the Jennifer Lawrence backlash could be coming any day now—and your comparison to Spring Breakers. I also like the foreshadowing that you set up in the intro, where the professor’s lecture about sociology is reflected in the characters’ experiences later (really, how often does that happen!?). Finally, I like the “mystery box” from the mystery man – Alfred Hitchcock called these objects that take characters on an adventure “the macguffin” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin).
One thing I would suggest is creating a kind of inciting incident in the first act (in Eugene) that would explain why the main characters would follow this mystery man in the first place (see Barsam and Monahan 136). There would need to be some characterization in place for the audience to believe that students would suddenly become willing drug mules. Are these characters naive? Desperate for cash? Bored and nihilistic?
I had to comment on this post seeing as I was in NY. I feel that such a diverse and eclectic group of individuals were on the NYC trip so I could definitely envision the character development during the trip planning being quite hilarious. Did you have any specific characters in mine or would the roles of Franco and Lawrence be ambitious. Who would play Deb?
Love it…I can see it now! I really like how you mentioned Harmony Korine and included similarities about lighting style and other cinematographic techniques. I thought it was especially clever how you incorporated Eugene and advertising majors into the setting, as that makes the film even more relevant to students and residents of this area. I didn’t actually think about the harm that advertising can have on society, so I would be interested to see how that scene plays out! Overall I think it’s a great idea for a film, especially the character choices. My only criticism is that I would want to know more of what happens during the last chaotic 45 minutes of the film, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see!
Great stuff, I could easily see this becoming a movie. Relating real life experiences adds to the richness of the film and can relate to many people experiencing the same thing. I also like the ending with the chaotic gun fight. Seems like you’ve got a great thing going here.
Austin, yes! Loved reading this. I agree with what Dan said about the best stories coming from life experiences. I also really like films that are fictional but could easily be non-fictional. The twist at the end was a cool way to throw that movie into the realm of fictional/non-fictional. If you were to categorize this film, what genre would you place it in?
As a student in the journalism school, this story idea really caught my attention. I liked the variety of events occurring in one story line. I also enjoyed that your story incorporated educating the audience about advertising because so many individuals lack knowledge about this important field. Advertising is everywhere and it propagates the lives of many all over the world. Dan’s questions would definitely be important to consider. However, knowing several students who participated in the trip that this story is based off of allowed me to picture some of the humor embedded. It appears that parts of the film would be satirical, such as the major plot twist.
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