Picking from the archive...

To incorporate this idea of the Resolution being an old conspiracy that's stretched back many, many years and to add to this idea of it's being a constant treat to society, we decided to add in some archive footage. Using crackly, vintage footage should get this across - also, a good way I think to make it seem as if your budget were larger than it actually was and I think people react to shots like these, the crackliness making the actual footage seem all the more real, and eerie that it's been happening for so long.

Jonestown: Massacre News Real

Jim Jones is perhaps the most famous of all cult leaders, creating the notorious People's Temple in the 1970's and then in fact creating his own small village, Jonestown, which culminated in the horrific Jonestown massacre where 909 people committed suicide through arsenic laced KoolAid, 303 of them children. It gained worldwide infamy - mainly for it's absolute unbelievability and atrocity, and we liked this idea of our cult being borne from there's so included vintage footage of him giving a speech to imply this in our readers mind. Perhaps the People's Temple has been lying dormant all this time and adapted into the Resolution? Perhaps they are just inspired by the teachings of Jim Jones? We thought incorporating footage of his teaching would imply he was a figure looked up to by the Resolution at least, an inspiration? He could definately add to the danger we wanted to generate for our cult and how close to the edge this could be to reality - the Jonestown massacre was very real and very tragic. We included footage also of the actual massacre itself, bodies piled up, to show this true reality - the nasty, dangerous side of the cult. We only used brief segments of the News Reel - only three of four seconds, we wanted the Resolution to be its own cult, not in fact the People's Temple, but we liked the connotations it could add, the conspiracy and danger.

Atomic Bomb

We thought the ultimate conspiracy, and time for conspiracy, was obviously the Cold War, so much uncertainty, living in constant threat and fear - technological threat and fear, hopefully like our cult will induce, and we thought linking our cult to that again could add these threatening, edgy connotations. We used a few seconds of the actual A Bomb itself being denotated at the climax of our trailer, hopefully becoming the climax of what our cult could achieve. We still live in threat of bombs and bombings everyday so we thought this would relate all the more to our audience and show the thoughtfulness and relevance of our modern technological cult in our world of terrorism and conflict, and how it could latch on to this and develop.

Final draft of beginning speech.

We wanted this speech to be very cleverly worded, devious and slightly manipulative, with double entendres and such – I think we wanted to appeal to a higher intellectual capacity of viewer, one that might see through our spinning and be aware of the conspiracies and dangers we were trying to allude to. We eventually had to cut it down – we didn’t want it to be speech heavy as we didn’t want to lose our viewer’s attention so intercut with visual images to lay down this idea of subliminal messaging and keep the viewer alert:

I am going to offer you a truth, an upsetting, distressing and indeclinable truth. This truth is of the evil of this modern world, the wave of sin that washed through it and that you are drowning in. The corruption and insatiable depravity of man that slowly consumes you. I do not say this to frigthen you, I say this because we wish to help you. We can save you and your soul. Join us and we can offer you a new truth. We are the Resolution. We are the answer, the only answer.

The Resolution Symbol.

After many an afternoon doodling, this was the logo we finally decided on.

The eye was taken from an old Egyptian Hieroglyphic of the Sun God 'Ra' which fascinated us and we liked the connotations the eye held in today's society.

That idea of 'being watched' and 'being controlled' - the constant surveillance around us, CCTV, cameras, is this the government, the cult? We thought it had an Orwell 1984 type vibe also, that everything you do is watched and noted, that 'they' are in complete control of your life and everything you do, that paranoia of stepping out of the line and the repurcussions it could hold. There's definately something very ominous about it baring down over you, and the eye in itself does hold Biblical connotations - the eye of God, for example. 

We also thought the eye alluded to this idea of 'seduction', of almost flirtatiousness, that the cult is luring you in and 'seducing' you.

Some say that eyes are the 'window to the soul' and that therefore they are the most honest part of you, that they can't lie so we combined this with the spikes below the eye - again three as a Biblical connotation, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, but the spikes represent danger, that you can see into the cult's soul but you'd get hurt if you were to try and touch it, or into serious danger.

"To me death is not a fearful thing. It's living that's cursed."

"As early as age 18 when he watched his then idol Mao Zedong overthrow the Chinese government, Jim Jones realized that the way to achieve social change through Marxism in the United States was to mobilize people through religion." - Marceline Jones

WHO IS HE?

Jim Jones, the leader of the People's Temple, born May 13, 1931, died November 18, 1978, as instigator of the Jonestown massacre, a mass murder of over 909 people, the second greatest single loss of American civilian life in a non-natural disaster in American history, behind just 9/11. Jim Jones, a manipulative and yet highly intelligent man, within his life time, single handedly created one of the most notorious and deadly cults - the People's Temple, creating even his own village, 'Jonestown' - a 'sanctuary' and 'social paradise' as he dubbed it, of which nobody was allowed to leave and abuse - sexual, physical, psychological seemed to thrive, as well as his own drug addiction and psychological paranoia, as his members remained brainwashed and enthralled by his magnetism and powerful leadership, but in lethal danger. In a time when racism was rife, he travelled through America setting up interracial churches and organizing anti racist rallies, attended by prevalent politicians of the time such as Harvey Milk, and even helping rebuild slums in Rio de Janeiro - perhaps how he first began to establish himself as this revolutionary he imagined himself, but was always harbouring an unhealthy extremism, idolizing Communist leaders and fascinating over death and religion as a child, fantasizing about the domination of America through Marxism - his infiltration of the church being part of his plan to instigate this. These obscure fascinations, his paranoia and psychological complexities combined with his extreme Communist principles and a drug addiction culminated in the People's Temple and the eventual Jonestown massacre - high on LSD and marijuana, he convinced his followers that fascist forces were coming to convert their children, that they would parachute down and torture them all and that they should commit not suicide, but 'revolutionary suicide,' protesting the conditions of the inhumane world they lived in and 909 people, 303 children, drank the cyanide laced Kool Aid he had prepared, dying minutes after in their 'sanctuary' province in Guyana.

 We incorporated a few seconds of the above footage of Jim Jones, raising his arms after he'd finished a speech, literally two or three seconds because we felt this was all we needed to make the statement we wanted - to allude to the real threat of cults, the manipulation and psychological control they exercise, the very real danger they can present - and we thought incorporating some archive footage of him could imply not only that our cult was deeply ingrained into history, perhaps that it was some incredibly current reworking of an old cult that had been brewing underground or suddenly reappeared, but that it had the power and the weight of Jim Jones, probably the most powerful and manipulative cult leader that has occured, behind it. In the same way Jim Jones played on the politics of his day - racism being the key issue, as well as Communism and this idea of an equal, unoppressed society and the fears these instilled into people, we wanted our cult to play on the fears of present day - the ever present threat of terrorism, the threats of the internet, of the two combined, cyber terrorism etc. and we wanted to really induce a sense of paranoia and fear that we thought Jim Jones could inspire.

INSPIRATION: Scooby Doo, cult video

In this clip, though not the horror context of film we'd like to create, there is an example of a cult-esque video, with a patronising news reporter type woman, the kind we'd like to emulate.

Symbol tryouts.

" A symbol is something such as an object, picture, written word, sound, or particular mark that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention. "

First draft of cult promotional speech

            I am now going to offer you an indeclinable truth. An upsetting, distressing and indeclinable truth. The truth of the insatiable and seemingly unstoppable corruption and depravity of man, a corruption and depravity that is inside all of you, seething and breeding. As humanity further grows and grows, so does the immortality, the injustice, the criminality, discrimination, violence, insanity, baseness of our modern society – a society that you inhabit, and therefore an iniquity that surrounds you.
            I will now offer you a new truth. This new truth not merely a statement, but a proposal. A hand outstretched from our church to your heart, an offer of emancipation. We can free you from this sinful modern world; rescue you and your soul. We believe that we can create a new idyllic, utopian world free of affliction and evil. We lead the revolution of God and we need you. We offer you the key to salvation.

We drew inspiration from political broadcasts - their very clever, sometimes devious choices of words, euphimisms, double entrendes etc. We worded it very carefully - we wanted it to have religious, Biblical references - 'church,' 'free,' 'revolution,' 'God,' 'evil,' 'salvation' and wanted to express the cult's disdain for our modern soceity but very subtly. Subltety was the key to writing this, we wanted the reader to be unaware until the last minute of the eeriness of the cult.

Brainwashing.

This is a video created by Lost, shown by the 'Others' in the eerie Room 23 for the purpose of brainwashing.


After watching the 'brainwashing' video I really liked the way at the beginning the old camera effect was used. Like the picture start text, giving the illusion the film is eerie and almost not meant to be seen by the public. I also liked the idea of using texts along with lots of different pictures that on their own stand no relevance whereas when put together create a strange sensation to the viewer of a subliminal message being passed on. By using several images flickered in our film we can create the effect as if trying to 'brainwash' the viewer of the trailer while also giving the viewer an idea that the film itself is about brainwashing and cults.
While I do like the video I didn't like some parts of the sound as the laser sound. Although the building of tension sound can be a useful tool to create suspense while also giving a build up the to the end of the trailer with a release date and title.

On the Rebound.

New narrative idea: Cult Promo Video?
 Continuing with our ideas of obsession and being controlled, we've been toying with the idea of a new narrative surrounding cults and dangerous religious sects. Our current idea is something along the lines of a promotional video, almost advertising the cult - something like the Scientology video I've embedded below except with a more sinister and eerie edge. Half way the tape would cut to a girl being held captive in the exact same room the promo video is filmed in, bruised and smeared in blood, and the tape would then cut again to an image of the cult's symbol written in blood on the wall, assumedly hers. The promo video would then continue, hopefully more sinister and eerie than before knowing the true nature of the cult and a series of shots will follow - random, disorienting images sharply edited, almost like a brainwashing video.

Scientology Commercial:

Cults

The word cult negatively refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered strange.The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices.
The word implies a group which is a minority in society.

Studies performed by those who believe that some religious groups that do practice mind control have identified a number of key steps in coercive persuasion;

- People are put in physical or emotionally distressing situations;
- Their problems are reduced to one simple explanation, which is repeatedly emphasised.
- They receive unconditional love, acceptance, and attention from a charismatic leader or group.
- They get a new identity based on the group.
- They are subject to entrapment (isolation from friends, relatives and the mainstream culture) and their access to information is severely controlled.

The idea of cult culture has inspired us as a group and we will be looking deeper into the topic soon, with reference to mind control, brain washing and rituals.
Wish us luck.