More artwork for #changelingfilm!
For me, creatures and characters alike have to have a good set of rules to function in any narrative. Otherwise, you're not dealing with a narrative, but chaos. As a story teller, narrative chaos is destructive. Most stories require a certain level of predictive logic so that the audience can follow along and so filmmakers can maintain control of your audience's expectations. If too much keeps changing the audience will give up and walk away out of frustration and confusion. A world without rules is impossible to function in, and the same goes for story. There are exceptions of course. Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Ring comes to mind.
An amazing films to be sure, but I prefer the classical way of formulating a monster. Why? Because they have rules like the real world, and despite the aforementioned narratives that present the world as a whirlwind of chaos, it does in fact come packaged with rules that nothing can escape. So, like many, classic beasts of the cinematic horror realm, our creature is bound by the laws of nature - mostly - and definitely by the laws of story.
So, what is a changeling in our world?
FIRST, LIKE SO MANY CLASSIC HORROR MONSTERS, OURS DRINKS HUMAN BLOOD!
So it already possesses a characteristic, that viscerally and narratively, we're all familiar with.
My twist on this vampirism is that, as the title of the film suggests, this creature also has the power to change form... into the person it just sucked dry. However, similar to the classic vampire tales, our changelings were once human and were turned into the changeling by a changeling.
The challenge of this kind of transformation - because I like the classical ways - is how disgusting a transformation like this would be.
As you can see, even in these initial, concept stages, our creature's skin is beginning to bleed, crack, melt and eventually slough off. His bones will break, his face will split and the creature's new form will emerge.
In this story, he will eventually become Judith.
Other rules for our changelings include:
- They have a heightened sense of smell
- They have heightened strength, muscle control and greater resilience against blunt force trauma
- They have the power to sense the direction of the changeling that made them(think of it like how geese are able to tell direction via the magnetic poles)
- Once enough blood is consumed, the transformation cannot be stopped
- Greatest vulnerability is during transformation
- It cannot take the shape of animals
- Transformations cannot be reversed or called upon at will.
- A blood meal is required for transformation, and for long term survival
What do you think? Any of these rules strike you as odd or unfairly limiting? What do you all think of horror movie "rules"?
More to come.
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Phil
WHO DIS IS
If you want to know who I am and what Distant Signal is, check this out. It's sort of a manifesto. The TL;DR is that I've won an award for producing, make a lot of reality TV, live in LA and think that artist and media incentives are ill-aligned and serve large corporations and not independent artists.
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CHANGELINGS
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