Dim's History

As with any good film, Dim has endured many upon many edits and rewrites. The original idea is almost unrecognizable compared to Dim with no previous context. Think of this as an introduction to the behind-the-scenes. From this post on, there will be more updates on my personal progress with some of the work of my teammates. The Starting Idea:

Dim's starting title was actually "The Monster Kidnapper". It was about children in an orphanage and a monster kidnapping them. That's it. That is the start of our production. Our group and one other group ended up taking on this idea and rolling with it to make it into a more thought-out idea for a short film.

Our First Major Change:

The first thing that we decided to do was sort of flip the idea on its head. We changed it so it was an orphanage full of monster children who were getting kidnapped by a human. This is when we started adding little extra tidbits that were part of the underlying story. The orphanage was run by humans, and they were slowly turning the monsters into humans by stripping away their individuality. Then, we had it so the children would be doing chores and learning to do it the "human" way. This is when we were slipping in the idea of being overworked and underappreciated can turn one into a shell of themselves.

The Addition of Color:

With the turning into a shell of oneself, we wanted to add the idea of the children getting more greyscale as they lost their individuality and started becoming more human. The idea would be that everything except for the children would be in black and white. However, this is where we ended up changing the kidnapper. We decided that they would be an adult monster, who was rescuing the children and bringing them into their colorful world outside. This is where I recall us really kicking the plot part into gear.

We decided that there would be a main character, their sibling, and the kidnapper as the three main characters. The main character is Rory, the older of the two siblings. The other is Finn. We would start with them doing chores with some other children, some more faded than others. Then one night, Finn gets led away by the kidnapper. Rory is obviously devastated and plans to devise a way to get out of the orphanage to go track down Finn. Getting help from the other children, they manage to escape into a beautiful, lush, forest and begin to track down a trail of footprints leading to the kidnapper's house. Once there, Rory is ready to fight the kidnapper to get their sibling back, but as it turns out Finn is having a grand time there and brings Rory into the home for a happy ending. We even had an idea for an extra scene where it showed little snippets of Finn, Rory, and the kidnapper breaking the other kids out of the orphanage.

The First Critique Day:

The first critique went really well. Our idea had a lot of good qualities that the other groups and the professor liked. Like I mentioned earlier, there were two groups who chose to work on the Monster Kidnapper story. The other group ended up not changing up the origional story much and ended up just filling it out more and adding in the plot. Unfortunately, after we presented, I think the other group just wanted to join our group. Instead the professor encouraged them to continue on (I think they ended up scrapping the Monster Kidnapper idea, but they ended up making a whole different story which was really cool.) Our professor did encourage us to move the setting from the orphanage to somewhere else. We ended up picking a circus for our new setting. The process of updating the story to fit the setting then began.

From then on, we kept adapting and polishing the film. Our struggle was how we get Rory out of the circus and able to find Finn with the kidnapper. The problem was that the kidnapper was losing their spot as a main character because we invented the Ring Master to be the antagnonist.

The Star Chart:

We had a really cool idea that there would be like a little chore chart that you use with little kids. And the idea behind it was that the more stars the kids had, the better they were. (We were even thinking of a little system where you could spend the stars for prizes but that added too much fluff for the short film). The star chart would show that Finn wasn't really good at doing the chores, and would kind of just goof off like any distractable little kid. Well, Rory is like a star student, they would work themself to exaustion just to keep their star count up. We had a little montage idea where it would show the kids doing chores and Rory doing them nicely and Finn just messing it up. With every mess up, it would cut to the Ring Master removing one of Finn's stars. Then for the 'final' screw up, when the Ring Master goes to remove a star from Finn, there are no more to remove. So the Ring Master decides to punish Finn through Rory and remove a star of Rory's chart. Then something similar to that one scene from SpongeBob happens. Rory gets mad at Finn and basically yells at their sibling. This is when the kidnapper would be luring Finn out. Then Rory's rescue plan occurs. They would end up giving away their stars to the other children to bribe them to help. The problem with the star chart was that it added too much for this short film. So we let that go, but we had to figure out something.

The Removal of the Kidnapper:

Eventually, we discovered that the kidnapper had little to no role in the film and a good majority of it happened in and around the circus. We decided that the kidnapper and the magical forest was dead weight. So we cut it. Then we ramped up the Ring Master.

Importance of Color:

Our group always knew that color was really important for our film. We decided that instead of the star removal for punishment, the Ring Master would remove some of the kids' color and pocket it. The color was like their indivuality, energy, or their sence of self (we wanted it to be open to interpretation because everyone has different experiences). The Ring Master would use their colors in his shows and basically release the color to the point it couldn't be returned. This is where we brought back the star chart idea. Instead of removing a star, the Ring Master would take some of their color. However, Finn was absoultely so full of energy and character that the Ring Master could not take their color. This is where the Ring Master decided to punish Finn through Rory. (I forgot to mention, but all throught the earlier scenes Finn and Rory were helping eachother and they share a really strong bond). Punishing Rory made Finn realise that they need to do better so Rory wouldn't get punnished again.

Making Finn the Main Character:

At this point, we realized that this has become more of Finn's story than Rory's. It wasn't too crazy of an idea, in fact most of us had accepted the idea without knowing that it was a thing, so when it was brought up we were all down. So rather than slacking off during their chores, Finn would be taking and interacting with their peers. As they are interacting, Finn was bringing back the color of the other kid. The Ring Master hated it because Finn was lifting them up but its easier to control someone who is lacking spirit. A chase then commenses. The Ring Master is making their way towards Finn, and as he makes his way over he is taking the newly replenished colors from the children. Then there is final act stuff, if I am honest, I am not as familiar with this part due to a lot of changes right before the final presentation. We ended up naming our story Dim at this time.

The Final Presentation:

Our presentation was really really cool! We had a lot of interest in our ideas and even got some great feedback! It turns out 55% of our class wanted our story as their first choice (which I count as a total win).

As We Continue:

Basically now, we are fairly caught up with the history from my point of view. I'm sure I left some things out, or things might have played out differently, but this is enough to get you caught up with some of our history. Also it shows how important it is to be able to adapt and change the story as needed.