Film Festival Submissions 2010

I've submitted some of my past work (Souls, The Window, Game Night) to a few different film student/short film festivals around North America. They are:

Interrobang Film Festival
Iowa Independent Film Festival
Canadian Film Centre Worldwide Short Film Festival

I am planning on submitting to more this winter as the call for entries dates approach.

Research Paper (WIP)

The Crone:

Adapting an Urban Legend into Film

Kevin Berg

Kansas City Art Institute

Senior Digital Filmmaking Workshop

Cyan Meeks

12.07.09

For over two years, it has been my desire to tell, through the medium of digital filmmaking, a story derived from an urban legend. While doing research into American urban legends and how they have arisen from urban and contemporary folklore, I discovered exactly what it is about basing a story around an urban legend that attracted me to the idea in the first place. What enticed my interest were the images and feelings that stirred up in my mind while reading accounts of ghost stories and purported urban legends, particularly the legend of the “Boo Hag,” which has become the focus of my thesis project. My emotional response to the story was astonishing, and the imagery continues to haunt me long after first reading it. I became obsessed with discovering how my response to the story could be translated into a film. My goal is to evoke and generate similar sensations I experienced for a wide audience. The significance of my research and investigations of urban legends is essentially to gain a finer understanding of how to best construct a memorably frightening story for a short narrative film. The majority of my research has been done looking at books written on the subject of American folklore, published collections of various versions of apocryphal stories, and documentaries focusing on urban legends. However, during my zealous approach to this aspiration, I now realize that I have overlooked a crucial step in my quest. Although I know what an urban legend is, I have not taken the time to really understand what an urban legend can be.

First of all, let me just make absolutely crystal clear what an “urban legend” is in the broadest sense, according to modern folklorists. As stated by Jan Harold Brunvand, an authority on American folklore, an “urban legend” is an apocryphal contemporary story, told as true, but incorporating traditional motifs, and usually attributed to a “friend of a friend.” Such stories were formerly termed “urban belief tales” or “contemporary legends,” “modern legends,” and “modern urban legends.” While neither the subject matter nor the circulation of urban legends necessarily has to be “urban,” the stories usually reflect themes of modern life in cities or suburbs. Some may have ancient and/or rural prototypes and may sometimes be told merely for entertainment, usually in the form of jokes and anecdotes. Still, the term “urban legend” is used by folklorists, members of the public and journalists refer to many of the unverified odd “true” stories that circulate both orally and in the media of the modern world (Brunvand, “Urban Legend”). With this definition in mind, a new dimension to my hypothesis became visible. Not only should my goal be to successfully adapt the story of the “Boo Hag” into a film, but also determining how it could be manipulated and changed in order to make it more personal and significant to a modern audience.

The first step in this process was to go back and trace the origins of the original “Boo Hag” myth. This revealed to me that the story came from the folklore of South Carolina’s Gullah culture, and was a regionalized version of the “Hag” myth ("Charleston Visitor's Guide"). Gullah culture refers to Creole-speaking African-Americans living in the southeastern region of South Carolina, in an area known as “Low Country” that includes the Sea Islands (Opala). Gullah culture has been present in the region and developed for more than three centuries, and was introduced to the area as a result of the Atlantic slave trade (Opala). Since Charleston, South Carolina was such an important port during the slave trade, almost half of the slaves brought into this country came through this region (Opala). After the Civil War, many former slaves remained in the area and continued to preserve the languages, community life, and beliefs that were traditional to their African heritage (Opala). Some of these beliefs involved “hags” and “haunts” that were similar to malevolent ancestors, witches and devils ("Gullah").

One of the more well-known legends concerned the “Boo Hag,” a shape-shifting miscreant not unlike a succubus that, according to Gullah superstition, will gain power and sustenance from a person’s breath while they are sleeping ("Boo Hag"). I was unable to find exactly when and under what circumstances the legend was created, but I can deduce that it was the product of some ancient belief in demonic spirits that evolved over time into a more recognizable personification of evil. The legend depicts the Boo Hag as a skinless, blood-red entity that will wear the skin of a human during the daylight hours, and then at night, it removes the skin to reveal its truly hideous form. The character of the Boo Hag is just one of many stock characters from folklore that is continuously recycled and reused by several different cultures; however it has traditionally been used to represent either a witch or a nightmare spirit ("Hypnagogia").

For the Gullah culture, the purpose of the Boo Hag legend was more than likely a way of explaining the phenomenon of sleep paralysis ("Hypnagogia"). Because they had such a strong belief in magic, it was logical to believe that a person who woke up tired had been the victim of an evil spirit. The obvious reason that they could not move in their sleep was that the Boo Hag was sitting on their chest (“riding them” if you will), rendering them immobilized. This is where the neurobiological term “hagridden” or “old hag attack” comes from, because it refers to a person’s hypnagogic state being the result of a waking dream combined with feelings of paralysis accompanied by hallucinations of “shadow people” or “hags” (Lachman). The Boo Hag is an example of “cautionary fiction,” a story told orally and meant to warn people of some real-life danger, in this case nightmares (Brunvand, “Superstition”). It was believed that if a person experiencing a nightmare was not awakened, they would surely die.

Characteristic of an urban legend, the Boo Hag myth began to infiltrate the American lexicon and other regional vernaculars of American culture. Over time, the legend of the Boo Hag also became synonymous with Neo-Pagan figures, like the “Triple Goddess” (Graves) and has been used in cautionary tales to promote the theme of “stranger danger” (“Boo Hag"). As the legend of the Boo Hag spread throughout the Southern United States, so did the multitude of stories that featured the Boo Hag as a central character. During the 20^th century, folklorists like Vance Randolph, Zora Neale Hurston and S.E. Schlosser began documenting stories from Missouri, Texas and Louisiana that incorporated elements of the Boo Hag legend, and expanded on it with themes and superstitions that were common to their respective regions.

Early on in my search for an urban legend that was worthy of adaptation, I came across S.E. Schlosser’s retelling of the Boo Hag myth. It was her version of the story that really got me interested in the Boo Hag as a character and prompted me to investigate it further. What I enjoyed about her version was how she had updated and modernized the story, characters and setting so that it took on more of the characteristics of an urban legend. However, I didn’t much care for her use of Southern colloquialisms. There was something about the way she wrote that just sounded very disingenuous and phony, but that’s just a matter of opinion. Regardless, it was my reaction to the story that inspired me to adapt it, because I instantly saw the potential for it to be a great short narrative film. This leads me back to the startling revelation I had during the course of adapting the story; how could I change it so that it would defy expectation and be more significant to a modern audience?

My first thought was to make the story more personal to me. Why was this important? I determined that I would have a better chance of connecting with an audience if I myself was able to relate to the characters and the scenario. How I went about doing this was combining elements of the Boo Hag myth with Schlosser’s story as a basis, and replacing the other characters in the story with original characters that I created. By doing so, I now had the opportunity to really explore the potential for creating my very own urban legend that was unique to my sensibilities and style. I realized that it’s not terribly important to remain faithful to the original source material or to what the Boo Hag symbolizes to the Gullah culture. Instead, I could redefine the character of the Boo Hag and make it symbolic of what I believe is a more relevant cultural anxiety; the fear of powerful, mysterious women.

One of the two most significant discoveries I made during my research was the power of urban legends and folklore as a device of story telling. The other important discovery I made was learning that copyright protection can not be extended to the characteristics of stock characters in a story, whether it be a book, play or film ("Nichols v. Universal Pictures Corporation"). Urban legends are used to perpetuate a “true”, albeit unverifiable, story that plays on peoples’ fears. Although most rational people are able to understand that even if a legend is untrue, that does not negate the possibility that it could be true. This is what frightens naïve individuals into believing the authenticity of most urban legends, even though prevailing conventional wisdom should undoubtedly make a person inherently skeptical towards them. Nevertheless, a good urban legend will always target popular topics of social anxiety and exploit the mutual worries and apprehensions of people living within that society. This makes for effectively terrifying storytelling, which is precisely what I’m going for.

Now that I feel I have a better understanding of how creating my own urban legend can more effectively address contemporary concerns that I have deemed relevant, I should also take some time to consider some themes to explore that will make my story and subsequent film more significant. One way to go about doing this is by reexamining themes presented in the original story that I’m deriving my script from and deconstruct the themes to determine how I could improve upon them. If my goal is to create a short narrative that not only evokes the same feelings of dread I experienced while reading the Schlosser story, but also represents my style and sensibilities, then I damn well better understand how to do it successfully.

Works Cited

"Boo Hag". December 6, 2009 < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boo_Hag>.

Brunvand, Jan Harold. "Superstition". American Folklore: An Encyclopedia. Jan Harold Brunvand, 1996.

Brunvand, Jan Harold. "Urban Legend". American Folklore: An Encyclopedia. Jan Harold Brunvand,
1996.

"Charleston Visitor's Guide". December 6, 2009 < http://www.visitcharleston.org/ghosts.htm>.

Graves, Robert. The White Goddess: a Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth. Creative Age Press, 1948.

"Gullah". December 6, 2009 .

"Hypnagogia". December 6, 2009 .

Lachman, Gary. "Hypnagogia". Fortean Times. December 6, 2009 .

"Nichols v. Universal Pictures Corporation". December 6, 2009 .

Opala, Joseph A.. "The Gullah: Rice, Slavery and the Sierra Leone-American Connection". Yale University. December 6, 2009 .

UPDATE: 11.05.09

Last weekend I acquired a few more props for my thesis project, including a bed, a telephone, a lamp, a hamper, a few radios, cigar boxes, candle holders, ladders, along with some other items.

This week I've also been continuing my research on American folklore and have begun outlining my research paper.

I'm planning to begin set construction this weekend.

Story Outline

The story begins with George, Henry and Eugene returning home from the 55th Annual Hillcrest Pumpkin Festival. They are driving on a curvy country road surrounded by gold and brown autumn foliage. The sun is setting and bathing the countryside in a warm, golden glow. The scent of burning leaves lingers in the cool Midwestern breeze.

They soon happen upon a young woman named Vivian, who is walking along the side of the road. She tells them that her car has disappered into a nearby swamp, and that she is not from the area. The three of them offer her a ride back to their home, where she can telephone a tow truck. she accepts and they all drive off.

When they arrive home, Vivian uses the phone, while George, Henry and Eugene talk in private about having Vivian stay with them. When she returns, she asks them if she can stay with them and they all agree she must.

Later that night, George is awkened by sounds from the attic. Upon investigating, he witnesses Vivian standing in the attic and watches as she transforms into a hideous monster.

The next morning, the three wake up to discover Vivian missing from her bedroom. George tries desperately to convince Henry and Eugene that he saw her turn into a monster and fly out the window, but they think he must have been dreaming and instead scared her away.

At that instant, they hear something fly into the attic and come down the stairs into the kitchen, where George, Henry and Eugene are eating breakfast. To their surprise, it is Vivian! However, she looks as normal as she was the day before, and nothing like how George described seeing her the previous night.

Later that afternoon, they decide that they will allow her to continue staying with them, but George is going to keep an eye on her. Henry is not suspicious, but Eugene witness something that makes him think george was telling the truth all along.

That evening, Eugene wakes up from a terrible nightmare, while George explains to him and Henry that Vivian may be an evil demon disguised as a young woman. He shows them a passage from one of his books on the occult, and it sounds plausible.

However, Henry is still less than convinced. That is until they notice that Vivian is once again missing from her bedroom, and later is heard feasting on something in the attic. They all stay awake the rest of the night, curled up in their beds, the horrible sounds of the monster in their attic gnawing bones and devouring flesh fills the house with a foreboding sense of dread.

They next day, Eugene distracts Vivian while Henry and George hide out in the basement and devise a plan to get rid of vivian. they are afraid to simply tell her to leave, for fear of what she might do to them, so they decide they have to kill her.

Their plan entails waiting until nightfall when Vivian will shed her human skin and leave the house in search of victims to feast on, then they will all get to work painting the doors and window frames of their house blue, in accordance with what folklore tells them about this specific kind of monster. The point is to separate the monster from its human skin, and they learn from their book that the monster cannot pass through a door or window that is painted blue.

That evening, Vivian once again shed her skin and leaves the house searching for victims. While she is gone, George, Henry and Eugene paint all of their doors and windows blue. As dawn approaches, they nervously wait for the monster to return. Soon enough, they hear the painful shrieks and cries of the monster as it agonizingly tries to get back into its skin before the sun rises. They think that have succeeded, until the wails of misery from the monster cease and are replaced by the sound of it squeezing into their basement window.

The monster gets into the house and its skin just as the sun rises. They hear Vivian crying in the attic and go to confront her. Feeling bad for attempting to kill her, they decide she can stay with them and they'll try to make amends.

The next evening, three women are driving down a country road from the pumpkin festival. They see George, Henry and Eugene standing beside the road and stop to give them a ride. Just as they are driving away, we hear them tell the women a similar story that Vivian told them at the beginning.

Stuff Needed

wicker clothes hamper 

towel rack 

hand towels 

wooden ironing board 

analog alarm clock 

bedding (sheets/pillows/quilts) 

table cloths 

mixing bowls 

coffee pot 

coffee cans 

toaster 

tea kettle 

cake molds 

glassware 

flatware 

china hutch 

platters 

chairs 

mason jars 

trash can 

dish drying rack 

pots/pans 

rotary telephone 

salt & pepper shakers 

place mats 

cabinets 

curtains 

sporting equipment (tennis rackets/croquet mallets/golf clubs) 

lawn mower 

luggage/suitcases 

appliances of any kind

cardboard boxes 

wire birdcage 

wooden crates 

bicycle 

coke bottles 

sewing machine 

stand up full length mirror 

chest/hutch 

garden/farming tools 

wooden tool box 

wagon 

vacuum 

type writer 

desk 

electric fan 

embroidered work 

pipe/cigar boxes 

umbrella stand 

candy dishes candle holders 

magazines & magazine rack 

decorative vases/statues/etc. 

ottomans 

house plants 

book cases 

books/cook books 

coffee table 

throw pillows 

rocking chair 

windows/window frames 

kerosene lanterns 

ash trays

stuffed animals 

hat boxes 

clothing 

pictures 

wall clocks 

taxidermy animals 

floor rugs 

lamps 

lumber 

anything of antiquity, preferably items that are at least 40 or 50 years old 

UPDATE: 9.29.09

UPDATE: Currently, I am a few weeks behind my original schedule, but I am no doubt making progress with my thesis project. I am still in the pre-production stage, and have been acquiring and transporting materials, props, etc. to my shooting location at 1301 W. 13th St. in Kansas City. I have already drawn up tentative floor plans for my sets and miniature models, and have devised ways to light and photograph them. So far, I have about half of building materials (including doors, plywood, wallpaper, etc.) I'll need to begin constructing sets, which will hopefully be happening the first week of October.

In the meantime, I am re-outlining my story, and have been writing character descriptions and backgrounds for George (red), Henry (yellow), Eugene (blue) and Vivian (boo hag). I will post them as soon as they are finished. 

Also, last night Zach, Luke & I encountered a very creepy woman lurking around outside the North side of the East Building at the corner of E. 44th & McGee St. at about 10 PM. She was the scariest woman I have ever had the displeasure of meeting. Perhaps she's harmless, but perhaps she is in fact an actual boo hag, I'm not sure at this point. However, be wary of any older, blonde women with shifty eyes, dentures and a paper bag over their right hand. If you should happen to encounter anyone that fits this description, RUN LIKE HELL!

DF Research Paper Form

Berg, Kevin

08.30.09

SENIOR DIGITAL FILMMAKING WORKSHOP I

Fall 2009 Semester

Faculty, Cyan Meeks, cyanmeeks@earthlink.net

Instructions: Fill out form, print, and hand in to instructor. Make sure form is stapled. Also, post on your Blog site.

SENIOR THESIS PAPER PROPOSAL FORM

Working Paper Title: Adaptations of Urban Folklore

Proposed Topic(s):Urban Legends, Ghost Stories, Film & Television Adaptations of Folklore

Purpose of proposed research (what is the significance of your investigation?): 

The significance of this investigation is to gain a better understanding of how to construct a memorably frightening story, how best to adapt these tales from the written word to a narrative film, and how to accomplish these goals in a fresh, new way that defies expectation.

What is the relationship of the proposed research to your current work?

My current project is based around a popular urban myth from the southern states of America and includes references to other urban legends from around the country. These ideas are combined together in a fashion that is reminiscent of television serials from the 1950s and 60s which also borrowed heavily from popular myths and cultural anxieties from that time and incorporated them into the writing.

How does this research fit into the larger context of theoretical, historical, and conceptual and cultural issues?

Theoretically, my research has given me a much better understanding of how existing stories inspired by urban myths and partially non-fiction elements can be combined with my own ideas and reshaped in a way that fits into the type of short movie I'm interested in making.  Historically, I will be following in the footsteps of several film and television writers who have taken inspiration from popular urban legends and reworked the morals and contexts into something completely different that still carries the usual "cautionary tale" vibe.  Conceptually, I am looking into ways of telling my story the way I see it, but still retaining some of the same ideas that were in the original source material that is being adapted.  Culturally, I see this as a chance to put my own spin on popular (or even obscure) urban legends/ghost stories, which is has always been such a common thing throughout the history of storytelling and other verbal traditions. All of this relates back to the process of adaptation, and especially concerns issues like maintaining the purity of original material, which is relevant to recent movies that have been criticized for not being completely faithful to the works they are based on. 

Describe research paper in 4 sentences or less:

My research paper will provide a brief overview of American folklore and popular urban myths, explain how myths and legends are created and spread, and talk about how some of these myths have become so prominent in our society and culture today. I will give examples of how these myths and stories have been adapted into novels and scripts that later became films and television programs, which in turn inspired me to making and seeing these types of movies.

Discuss your research methods (fieldwork, written materials, screenings, interviews, etc.):

I am constantly gathering books and other written materials, films, television programs and interesting interviews recorded with writers and investigators who research the history of American folklore as resources for my work and this research paper.

List resources you already have to conduct this research:

Numerous television programs, films, websites and texts concerning urban legends and how they've impacted and influenced modern writing and storytelling. These include: 

www.snopes.com

www.castleofspirits.com

The Choking Doberman and other Urban Legends

Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction (television series)

Mostly True Stories: Urban Legends Revealed (television series)

The Twilight Zone (television series)

www.americanfolklore.net

List all “experts” you have or will have consulted with:

Jan Harold Brunvand (American folklorist)

How will this research act as a vehicle to your artistic and professional growth?

It has taught me that maintaining artistic vision is most important, but also not to lose sight of the reasons behind why I am telling a story in the way that I decide to tell it.