da resaerch >:D

 holy shit actually getting the drive and the will to begin writing this post was absolutely back-cracking,  bone breaking, or, if you're a good friend of mine, Mongolian butt tickling.

Literally how I'm feeling right now :DDDDDDDD
(this was a ft call with my best friend from like forever ago)

HELLO EVERYONE! It is I, Emi Valdivia, back again for week 2!! YUP! ALREADY WEEK 2! MOVING FAST BABAYYYYYYYYY LETS GOOOOOOOO YAYAYAYAYYA WOOHOOO WOHOOOOO TRUMPET NOISES WAHOO YAYAYYAY PARTY HARDY!!!!!

i have a love-hate relationship with the planning stage

It's like so ahhh!! :D and so ah. D: at the very same time yk what I'm saying, like you get to research and learn about cool new things for your cool new film but part of you just wants to NOT do it and just get straight to the cool and awesome and super amazing stuff like filming the devil and a girl named Otto going absolutely batshit insane while carrying out his orders !!!!!!!

But alas, despite how tedious it may be, planning is VERY important everybody!!! I've been through this typa project once before in the past and know exactly how it goes :D The better your planning the better your final product andd the worse your planning the more dog doo doo your product will be! :D So with all that in mind, I am locking in on the research part of the planning stage!

DA RESAERCH: ANOTHER VERY INSTANT DECISION

As I said in a previous post, when my team and I first sat down we immediately thought of doing a short film to appropriately mesh all of our insane brains together AND along with that instantaneous decision we decided to make it...A COMEDY!!! WAHOOOO!!! However, this isn't just your typical Dumb and Dumber comedy film, oh no, no, no! This lovely piece of fiction that we are striving to create has devils, spanish hats, batshit insanity, mur-durr (perchance), and pure absurdity all around! I wouldn't consider it JUST a comedy, but a dark comedy! 

evil comedy be like

im dark

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

So what makes a comedy and what makes said comedy dark :D

DA RESAERCH: WTF IS A COMEDY AND WHY DID IT TURN EVIL

I explored a bit of comedy during the very beginning stages of the AS project last year and I still have a bit of what I learned burned into my brain that I will now recite to all you Cambridge lads so you can give me an A+++++

SO! A comedy is a genre that majorly focuses on entertaining the audience by providing humor either through witty punch lines or physical comedy (often called slapstick humor). These films very often have to be written very well in order to deliver their pizzaz effectively to audiences looking to get a good laugh in during a Monday night after a miserable day at work :D They also very typically have bright, happy-go-lucky-looking mise-en scene along with a happy ending. To make this job easier, a ton of comedy films rarely integrate complex plots or themes into their narratives since the main focus is mostly in the writing and all the pizzaz that comes from that hopefully clever writing!

One very good example of your good 'ol, good 'ol classic HAHAHHA I LAUGHED comedy has got to be one of the greatest films in all of human history, Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) :D The entire production is literally just about a guy skipping school with his girlfriend and best friend and it is such a fun watch.

Ferris Bueller (1986)

I myself have watched this film about 2 times and I enjoyed each time very much! In Ferris Bueller, it is also very clear that nothing very complex or insane was inserted into the simple story, as the main focus was definitely on just making audiences laugh through good writing and great characters! Ferris especially was a very fun protagonist to follow and he surely made everyone I know personally who watched it root for him :DD

Everybody including you, yes you Mr/Mrs. Cambridge examiner, go watch Ferris Bueller RIGHT NOW it is actually so peak here look at this super awesome poster right to your right and video right down below (BAHAHHA) this is totally not me shoving it in your face and begging you to watch it what ur insane

Bueller?... Bueller?.... Bueller???...

Now, if you take everything I just told you and make it a little bit more tragic, and a teeny tiny bit more complex, then you'll very much have yourself a dark comedy! :D 

okay wait I need to go to bed I'll see u tmrw cambridge goodnight

Haiii Cambridge I'm backkkk :D I slept really really awesome last night I freaking love junior privilege I went sleeping from 10pm alll the way to like 7:15 so refreshing 

OKAY BACK TO IT!

Alright so, what makes a dark comedy? A lot of you would probably think the same thing, "Oh! It's a comedy but kinda morbid and a lil tragic and kinda disturbing!" And yep, super awesome blog reader, if that sentence was similar to your thought process, then you are definitely spot on! To expand upon the definition more, according to IMDb, "the dark comedy subgenre, also known as black comedy, combines humor with elements of tragedy, morbidity, or darker themes. [This genre] often explores serious or taboo subjects, such as death, crime, dysfunction, and societal issues, while infusing these topics with humor to create an unusual and often thought-provoking contrast. The humor in dark comedies is typically edgy, satirical, and often unsettling, challenging traditional comedic norms." Dark comedy is essentially the type of comedy that'll leave you THINKING, thinking for a good while! I've seen a couple of films from this genre and I could definitely say that they are not your typical happy go lucky hahahahhah comedy. I mean, of course they have made me laugh, like a LOT, but at the same time there are always scenes tackling themes so profound that it leaves me just sitting there on my couch with my mouth wide open and my brain heavy with thoughts

A good example of a film that falls under the dark comedy genre and had the "holy shit that's deep" effect on me and probably many others, is Jojo Rabbit (2019)! I watched this movie a couple years back in 8th grade English class as during that time we were touching on the topics of WWll and the Holocaust. I had a great time throughout my viewing, so many scenes especially the ones where Jojo is talking with imagination Hitler were pretty funny.

Jojo Rabbit (2019)

I know talking to an imaginary evil dictator can be a bit dark, but I'd say it's surely the whole point of the film. Jojo was being influenced by Nazi Germany and that was represented very well through his commitment to the army and constantly having an imaginary Hitler on his shoulder guiding him. I'm only really scraping the surface here while talking about this film, but there are definitely so many more profound scenes, even darker than the implications of Jojo talking to imaginary friend Hitler, that are still burned into my brain and make me think a whole lot about the WWll time period and its effects on German society.

If you haven't watched Jojo Rabbit, do yourself a favor and check it out :D It's a fun and pretty heavy watch that I'm sure you'll enjoy, [insert name of whoever's reading this right now]. I might actually rewatch it myself since I think we haven't finished the entirety of the film back in the 8th grade..but I could be wrong, it was quite a long time ago. Either way, I'll definitely give it another viewing in the future :DDDDD

Jojo talking to imaginary Hitler ^^

Alrighty! My research here is done for now :D After looking into both a comedy and dark comedy, I've taken away some inspiration for what we can implement from these movies into our own production!

DA RESAERCH >:D: SOME TAKEAWAYS FOR OUR OWN SUPER AWESOME FILM!

Within our film, we would like to be hilarious and goofy while also tackling/critiquing serious subjects such as religion and power. So literally the perfect combination of Ferris Bueller and Jojo Rabbit! 

Otto is a happy, quite whimsical main character (as for now, her personality could change) that is sent out to do some seemingly silly tasks for a mysterious man who's totally not the devil called Annie Christopher who wants to spread around his new religion. We still have yet to flesh out the entire story, but I'd like the rising action of the narrative to just be Otto completing her ridiculous tasks for Christopher like handing out fliers, making altars, and spreading his religion and portray it in a funny, silly goofy way, since obviously Otto is new to this type of stuff and will come off as clueless and clumsy while carrying out Christopher's bidding. 

Throughout this entire portion of the story, I'd also like Christopher to talk to Otto in a way, maybe through just a voiceover of Joaquin (who's playing Annie Christopher duh who else). 

Jojo Rabbit (2019)

This will be similar to how Jojo talks to imaginary Hitler. Even though it isn't the real Hitler he's talking to, it still comes off as dark and disturbing at times since Hitler was literally a tyrannical dictator that destroyed Germany in so many more ways than one, and an imaginary version of himself is shown to be essentially controlling and guiding a child to serve Nazi Germany. The difference here though is that Otto is talking to the actual devil, and he isn't imaginary or anything, he's a real guy manipulating her more and more as   the story goes on which arguably makes it even more dark. We're seeing Otto communicating with an evil, disguised, supernatural being as she is blindly carrying out his tasks to receive power, which comes off as goofy ahahhahahahh at first but will get more and more out of control and dangerous as it goes on :DD

In the end of our film, we would also like to portray Otto's insane journey of following the devil to receive power as ultimately worthless. This will be a critique of religion/power in a way, which will be more developed by our main writer Joaquin, but in basic terms, the entirety of our film is just saying "using religion as a means of exerting power is kinda silly and dumb lmao lmao lmao lolll" which will also successfully follow the dark comedy convention of including/commenting on serious topics and themes that affect the real world everryyy singllee day! Wahoo!!

So yeah, those are all my main takeaways! Thank you Ferris and Jojo for giving inspiration! :DD 

 I genuinely cannot wait until we have every single part of the story fleshed out and I think I'm going to really have fun not only acting in this film but making/developing the characters as well, that was surely one of my favorite parts from last year :]] Be prepared for ten quatrillion drawings of Otto and Annie Christopher coming at you in future blog posts!! And be prepared for even more research on some crazy ahh, goofy ahh pieces of media! I am SO excited to research some of these and yap all about it to you guys, IT'S GONNA BE SO FUN I LOVE EVERYTHING THAT I'M ABOUT TO RESEARCH A HEALTHY AMOUNT AHAHAHHAHAHAH AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHHAHAHHAAHAHAHAH AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH

oki cya later I must go now :D

CITATIONS:

Dark Comedy - IMDb. (2024b). IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/interest/in0000035/

Movieclips. (2011). Bueller? - Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1/3) Movie CLIP (1986) HD. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS6f1MKpLGM

MovieTime. (2020, February 4). Jojo Rabbit / Opening Scene (Heil Me, Man). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQGx6i7tAfA

MovieTime. (