The Plot

     It is finally time to talk about the plot. Today in class our group discussed the plot heavily and really tried to reach a consensus since we all had different ideas. The main dilemma in this discussion was if the protagonist knew she was in a time loop already, or if she found out in the opening. We discussed the pros and cons of each approach, but finally decided that her finding out about the loop makes the most sense if we are thinking of the project like it is a start to an actual film. Our ideas were too complex for a two-minute opening, and we realized we were trying to do some crazy plot twists and stuff that would happen later on if it was a full feature-length film. This project is about making a film OPENING, so we needed to think about it like the start of an actual movie. Most of the issues were from that, but then we had another issue, which was how we would establish the loop.

    The loop was really confusing to try and solve, but I think we did it. It was hard to establish the loop without it looking like a mistake, or ending up being confusing. In the early days of our conceptualization, we thought that the opening would be the whole therapy session, and then at the very end, we would have the loop occur. Then, we met with our teacher who said it could look like a mistake, so we decided to structure it differently. This is going to sound a little confusing at first but bear with me. We decided that the opening would start with the end of the therapy session, then our character loops, and the main part would be the whole therapy session before looping back to the start at the end. Wow, that probably didn't make any sense, so I am just going to draw a diagram to make it clearer. 

To decipher this terrible diagram, EOS means the end of the therapy session, and SOS means the start of the therapy session. The lines indicate the loop occurring.

    The issue with this structure really came down to us trying to fit a whole therapy session in two minutes, so we brainstormed for another structure that would give us enough time to take our time with the plot, if you get what I'm trying to say. We then finally decided on a loop that would work for a two-minute opening like this, which would feel more natural since therapy sessions don't really last two minutes in real life. Here is yet another terrible diagram to attempt to help you understand what we are trying to do here.

The line marks the beginning of our opening. The dots represent phone calls. The arrow shows where we are looping back to, which is the first phone call.

    Now you're probably wondering where the phone calls came from, so let me explain the plot which is really the whole point of this post in the first place. We want our character to have some sort of family trauma, and talk about it with the therapist. This will help establish our character, which is the approach of our opening. The conflict of our project would originate from a mysterious caller. Midway through the therapy session, our protagonist would get a call from a random number and dismiss it since she is in the middle of her therapy session. Once finishing up the therapy session, she would walk to her car and sit down. This is when she gets another call from the same number, so she picks it up this time. The caller would say something along the lines of "You should have picked up the first time", where she will then loop back to when the first phone call was dismissed. She will realize that she just traveled back in time, and that would begin to freak out (because who wouldn't) which will most likely be around the end of our opening.

    If this was a real film, then the plot would be her trying to find out who this mysterious caller is and how she could break the loop, where she would loop back every time she got that second call. We discussed how she might be able to break the loop, and we thought maybe she needs to solve her trauma with her family and move on, before actually being able to move on time-wise. We also were trying to decide who the caller would be. It could be one of her parents, or maybe even the therapist, we just haven't really decided yet. We think this is a really cool idea, and are working on the storyboard right now, which I will post about either tomorrow or the next day. I hope this wasn't the most confusing plot ever, and apologize for my diagrams.