Production Package - Script Finalising

In the end we managed to get to draft 4 of the script before we were ready to submit. The piece ended up being 103 pages long.

The feedback we received after the second draft pushed us to change up many of the scenes, and help make the dialogue seem less forced. To do this, we got our housemates to help with a read through of the entire script, in order to tell us which lines didn't work, and which did. This took place after the third draft was completed and we sent the edits over for feedback. The improvements were noted, however, as I said, the dialogue still came out slightly too forced over some of the script. We believe we have made significantly better changes to the dialogue, so it is less 'lets tell the audience the plot through our speeches' and more natural.

The ending was difficult to change and mock up, seeing as it was still quite weak after the feedback from our third draft. We changed it slightly, to incorporate a more over-the-top SyFy style, with Cthulhu going out with a bang, quite literally. To do this, we got inspiration from the SyFy Movie, Sharknado. Towards the end, the main character gets eaten by a Shark but cuts himself out with a Chainsaw. This made us think to ourselves, if Cthulhu can't be hurt from the outside, what about the inside? This resulted in Legrasse, saving his partner from being eaten by the beast, and has him jump into its mouth himself, yet holding a fuel cannister. Just before Cthulhu is sent back, Legrasse manages to blast his way out of Cthulhu's torso, and is the first time we properly see Cthulhu in actual physical pain.

Regarding Cthulhu and Legrasse, we needed to incorporate a scene with an actual confrontation between the two, rather than just at the end. This resulted in Legrasse climbing to a roof top and confronting the beast head on, resulting in a, rather action packed, cat and mouse chase between Legrasse and Cthulhu, with Legrasse representing the mouse, and Cthulhu chasing after him. Despite his size, Cthulhu does have factors of personality, as he is a highly intelligent monster, compared to others that you get in monster movies, who tend to be large creatures acting on instinct.

We also needed Legrasse and Fiber to do more detecting, as they are detectives, but I believe we managed that quite successfully, despite sometimes it being quite subtle when they do so.

Overall, despite the cutting of many characters, the changing of others, all is necessary in a script. We encountered many problems but managed to make amends to the best of our ability, using different techniques of other people proof reading, and doing read throughs ourselves with an outside source of someone who had never read the script.

Now, all 103 pages are properly bound, and is placed in our production package.

Production Package - Final Artwork

So last week we successfully managed to source an artist, Jordan Grimmer, who designed Cthulhu for us as well as the artwork we have used for the DVD cover. We have placed all in an art portfolio with the package, documenting each image in it's progress state as Jordan sent to us. The final designs look as follows.

With the first image, we expressed to him from the original designs from Domastas, that we wanted to use a similar head for the creature, and colour a greeny, brown body. We asked for rather long arms as well as decayed wings, which can be seen on his back, they are currently not spread. We feel the design worked perfectly, and just how we imagined.

For this second image, we wanted Cthulhu with his arm stretched out towards the person viewing the image. This  image however was subject to a lot of change as I worked things out with Jordan. Initially, we were going to have Cthulhu underwater, again, with his hand reached out. It looked good, however still looked relatively plain, like in the first image. Talking to Jamie Shaw, who was in charge of the dvd design, he thought it would look better if Cthulhu was out of the water, surrounded by buildings on either side, as if he was already on a New York street, with a stormy clouds over head. Again this looked good, but we asked Jordan to place Fire and Smoke below him, which gave a sense of the impending destruction that he would cause.

It was a good experience working with Jordan, and was well worth the money. Not giving him a clear direction for the second image hindered us slightly, and meant we had to ask Jordan to put some more time into the piece. However by doing so, I believe we got the perfect artwork done for our piece. Having mocked the second one up into a poster, with the titles on the bottom and the tagline "Evil from the Depths" above Cthulhu, I am very happy with the end results.

In future however, I need to sort this out quicker, as I neglected thinking of someone for the main design, due to many dropouts, however, it all worked out in the end, and we couldn't have chosen a better artist.

Production Package - Cthulhu Artwork and actual package

We have been struggling to find an artist to create the actual drawings of Cthulhu for us. We decided the best option would be to pay someone. In response to this we have emailed several different artists, all of whom work on commission, in order to do this for us. We are in talks with a couple of them to see the feasibility of a date and dead line. There is a chance they may not be done in time to fit within the main bulk of the book, however we thought if this does happen it will not be the end of the world, and we would be able to bind them all together in a separate file, a design folder if it were, which will contain all of the images of Cthulhu that we get made up for us.

We have also found a website and are currently organising everything we need into one document. This will grant us the ability to place it all in a book we can design ourselves, and the website will print a hard bound copy for us, for a good price and in time for the hand in.

Finally, our individual aspects are coming together, but we are trying to source an olden style wooden chest, to present everything in. The problem we have been having with finding a chest in the style we like, is the ones we find are either too large or too small. Luckily we have 2 more weeks to find a chest, so we should be fine on that front.

Production Package - Script Justifying

I thought I would do a short post to justify one main idea within our script that raised issues.

Within many monster films, the monster comes into it pretty early on, however, out of 100 pages, our monster doesn't arrive properly until around the 57th page. We do have reasoning for not bringing him in sooner.

In monster movies for the SyFy network, we noticed there tends to be a trend with the main threat in each film. In Sharknado for example, throughout the film the only threat is the sharks, which are swimming about Los Angeles. It is only towards the last 20-30 minutes of the film where the main threat kicks in - 3 individual tornadoes, now in the middle of LA, with sharks swirling around them.

A similar concept takes place within Piranhaconda - Initially we do see one of the monsters, but only one. It is half way through the film we realise that there are actually 2 monsters, then at the end of the film, the whole threat kicks off to a larger scale when we see that there are 4/5 piranhacondas.

This has helped us to justify why Cthulhu doesn't rise until more than half way through. Up until this point, we do have a threat shown and that is posed. This is the mini goo monsters, known as the Shoggoth. These creatures pop up throughout, taking over peoples bodies and attacking them in their homes, at their work. This then is followed up by ships flying through the city like meteorites, smashing into buildings and crushing people. Then for the last 40 or so pages, we actually have the true threat arising, which is the monster Cthulhu, thus fitting in with the pattern of the other examples of monster movies on the SyFy network I have given. We believe this is just cause to not bring Cthulhu in any earlier.

Production Package - Script 2nd Draft

The second draft of the script is finished, and we are currently waiting on feedback before we perform the final bit of editing for the final draft, and getting the script along with everything else, sent off for publishing within a book.

The script proved a rather difficult edit this time around. The main problem was giving the characters we had created more depth, as a lot of the time they were very flat, and their lines felt like they could have been said by anyone.

Now, after finishing the character profiles, and sending them to my co-writer James, we managed to capture the essence of each character. Legrasse, a hardened cop who knows what he wants and how to get results, now reflects this a lot of the time in his lines. Fiber, his partner, has a lot of "sass" and is very sarcastic throughout. Professor William Webb is partly obsessed with his past, constantly attempting to tell old stories of when he was an explorer, and these are just to name a few. With the added character depth, we managed to rework most of the lines into incorporating more personality into them.

Capitalizing was another thing we had to do, though it did not prove all that difficult, going through every name within the script, as well as big actions, expressions and props of interest, which we put into capitals to made them stand out. (We were also missing a fair bit of punctuation ie. full stops at the end of paragraphs or speech, but we have included that within now).

Possibly the most difficult bit of editing we had to do altogether was reworking and reorganizing the script. In our initial feedback we were told that Legrasse's wife and son should be taken earlier, around the 20-30 page mark, whereas previously it wasn't until around the 50th page where the two characters actually went missing. We moved the scene, thus causing a panic and a worry within Legrasse from early on. He eventually reaches his point of no return towards the end of the script, after thinking he see's his wife, causing him to almost break down entirely. We felt this would give a bigger sense of urgency behind the script, as well as giving Legrasse more depth and the overall story a more interesting flavour.

This did cause some disturbance in the rest of the script, as we had to try and make it flow still, despite the reordering of many of the scenes. We managed to do this however, by adding a few scenes here and there (such as an introduction for Legrasse and Fiber, actually stating that they were cops/detectives) and overall the piece came together rather well.

As we wait for feedback we continue with the other work we have, and are organizing everything we need for the book which we are going to send off to get printed this weekend, ready for it to arrive by the hand in time.

Production Package - Other Character Profiles

Included in this post will be the remaining character profiles, for those characters that are important but don't fit into any particular category.

Character Profiles – Other

Rachel Legrasse – Childhood sweetheart of John Legrasse and now his wife of many years, Rachel is a stay at home mother, who spends her time looking after the pairs son, Tommy. She is a worrier, constantly worried about the work her husband does, and whether he will return home or not day in and day out. This worry however, often manifests itself in the form of anger, usually focused on John, who often takes his work too seriously, making promises to Rachel he can’t keep, which upsets her quite a bit. She understands it is a hard job that her husband does, but her worry and anger is only because she cares so much about him, and she wants to see him return safe to her arms every day, as any wife would.

Tommy Legrasse – The son of Rachel and John, Tommy is 8 years old. He is well behaved and does what he is told, though occasionally making errors and causing mess and upset for his mother. Though we never directly see Tommy with his father until the end, the drawings he makes tend to be of policemen, and he has many police oriented toys, showing his love for his father, with the implication that he looks up to his dad quite a lot, despite not seeing him as much as he should.

Captain – The Captain is an un-named character, but still a very lively and animated character. He runs a fishing boat, which he rents out to Hannah and her research team to use whilst he continues his day job, catching fish. He is overweight, balding and lathers himself in fake tan. He thinks he is way more charming and good looking then he actually is, usually people would take one look at him and consider him repulsive. He is a drunk, who often drives his boat drunk, or indeed just enjoys drinking excessive amounts every night. He is rarely seen without at least a bottle of whisky in his hand.

Cthulhu – Cthulhu is a giant monster from Earth’s Ancient History. With the head of a squid, humanoid body and dragon like wings and standing thousands of feet tall, this creature ruled over once upon a time as a God. It had a cult following, of those who attempted not to be harmed by the giant beast as it ruled over the land. Now, it sleeps at the bottom of the ocean, where it has been trapped for Millennia, waiting and growing stronger, only to one day be released unto the earth again. Cthulhu, once risen, does show some factors of personality. He, or it, gets annoyed with the humans constant attack against him, and specifically attacks those attacking him, much like any creature being threatened would. It does seem rather intelligent as well, and of course it is, it was once a God. It views humans as nothing more than ants, deeming them useless, thus needing to be exterminated.

Production Package - Scientist Character Profiles

Continuing on with my character profiles, I next did the Scientist characters, as two of our main characters are scientists, and there are a few others that pop up here and there in the script.

Professor William Webb: A Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University, often described by his peers as ‘an explorer of no slight note’. The Professor is incredibly knowledgeable on all things related to Ancient Human History, especially ancient languages. He studies the bizarre and is very interested in the forgotten language of Rl’yehian, which he prides himself on being practically fluent in. Described as a ‘quack’ by a lot of his peers, he tends to isolate himself from the rest of the staff faculty at his university, engrossed in his own research and findings. Keeping himself to himself, he often struggles to make eye contact with other people, especially those he doesn't know. He doesn't mind talking however, especially on a subject that interests him a lot. He is ambitious, fruitful and loves an adventure, as reflected on his past days as an explorer of ancient lands and ruins. This bodes well for the two detectives as when they need his help, he is more than willing to tag along for the ride, if it means he might get a chance to see the revived cult and even the great monster Cthulhu.

Gustaf: A Norwegian student of Columbia University. He is majoring in Anthropology and is Professor Webb’s top student, thus Webb treats him as his prodigy, allowing him to help with his research in order to further his studies. With quite a thick Norwegian accent, the other characters occasionally struggle to understand exactly what it is Gustaf is saying, which frustrates the young Norwegian as he has to repeat himself on a regular basis. He seems calm and collected, but quite reserved. He mainly only talks to the Professor, who says he sees himself in him. Gustaf however, isn't very adventurous, and doesn't particularly want to head into the city where Cthulhu is attacking, but goes anyway as he wants to keep an eye on his Professor. He constantly clashes heads with Legrasse, mainly because Legrasse has a bad feeling about him, call it ‘cops intuition’. Legrasse would be correct on this matter, as when the gang goes head to head with the cult, Gustaf receives a rather drastic personality change…

Hannah: A Marine Biologist dedicated to her work. Hannah is a natural born leader, and very good at what she does. Leading a team of 4 individuals working on a major project given to them by the US Government, she is tasked with investigating unknown anomalies detected within the North Atlantic Ocean. Despite this, she has received minimal funding, and has to go out of her own pocket to rent a boat to take her to where is needed. She has a short fuse and a feisty temperament and is not afraid to speak her mind. Her leadership qualities come into play when she is taken over by the Shoggoth, enveloping her into becoming the leader of the Cult of Cthulhu.

Don: A Professional Seismologist and on the team of individuals lead by Hannah. Working closely with Hannah for such a long time, the two have developed a relationship with each other, and Don is easily able to calm her down when she loses her temper. He is second to Hannah in leading the study and is a fearless individual, not too worried at all in getting himself into danger; sometimes it’s the thrill of the job. He is calm a lot of the time and even in a troublesome situation, he is able to keep his cool and focus on whatever task he has at hand.

Nathan: A Marine Biologist who is on Hannah’s research team. A very intelligent man who knows what to do and what to look for. Very enthusiastic with his studies, and very good with a computer, he tends to be the man who stays in the control room whilst others go on the underwater expeditions.

Nizan: The final member of the research team, Nizan is another Seismologist. Essentially the same as Nathan, more of a computer geek then an out in the field scientist. He understands charts and figures presented to him in very complicated computer formats. Upon seeing the readings on his computer for the sudden storm that’s happens when on the fishing boat, he becomes very scared having never seen something like it before. He is a caring man, and fears for Don and Hannah’s lives when they recklessly decide to enter the submersible during the heat of the storm.