Scene idea

For the time froze part where the reaper finally turned back to it's true form. I would like you show this Taiwan MV below I have found really suitable for the time-freeze scene in my head. ("What's troubling you" by Soda green, MV produced by Grassjelly studio) Through the whole music video, they have used a slow motion effect and a frozen background.  It has used a gallery form to show the troubles that people have in their lives. The outsiders witnessed them, just like the reaper. In addition, the interesting part I have found is that this MV has a really powerful message, to the point that you could completely understand it without knowing Chinese. (Well, of cause you can turn on the English subtitles if you click the caption button :P)

Story from a friend

I had a friend who was an University student and worked as a freelance Graphic Artist. Let's call her Nicole. Few years ago I was having lunch with her and some Asian guy walked into the restaurant and he looked familiar but since China town is quite small so there is no surprise running into someone you have never talked to but still recognise their faces. However, Nicole looked a bit awkward after she saw him and she told me this story afterwards.

Apparently this guy, Danvis, was Nicole's client once and he has asked her to design a poster. (and some other graphic designs as well but I caoudn't remember what the products were.) During the process, Danvis kept telling Nicole to re-do the design and she still did what she has been told every time. Yet, Danvis ended up stop requesting the services from Nicole half way through and didn't even pay her for what she has done. (The clients are suppose to pay for designers even if they didn't end up using their designs. They have to pay for what the designers has done, not the only the product.) Nicole was a bit upset about this but she thought optimistically that she has learnt a lesson from this client and it could be one of her experience too. However, later Nicole found out that Danvis has even used her design she sent to him as his windows messenger's profile picture. That obviously means that he stole her design and claimed that it was his! Not merely the profile picture, Danvis has stole her concept of design and created the final poster.
This was actually the worst thing you could do to a designer. It was a swindle! And I was so angry for her after hearing this but still what could I do about it?

As I said China town was really small and I finally met Danvis through an event. Since everything you put on the internet is no longer a secret, he soon knew that I studied Multimedia. He told me that "his company" was currently recruiting folios and asked me if I could send him mine. I immediately rejected and told him that I didn't know his company and what they were looking for or working on. This made  me wonder if he was still doing the same thing to some of the designers.

This incident has been kept inside me for a long time for some reason. Reminded me to be alerted to these people/companies that came unknown origin. Therefore I chose to rewrite this story and made it a base-line for the main character. Additionally making these characters friends at the start, the feeling of betrayal was worse than just a "business related" strangers. I believed this feeling was strong enough to turn a normal good person to an evil villain.

crossover

To mess with the natural order, we need a story to build up with. A story of some other "souls" that will make a reaper disobey or playing tricks on. I need a story that has different emotions and they have to be extreme. The emotions that can change a person to turn into either a hero or a villain. Just like what two-face said in the movie "Dark Knight", "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain."
The video below is a group project in my third-year of Uni. The character - Julie in the trailer has found a book and everything she wrote in that book came true. She was getting addicted to the feeling of being a "god" and when she realized what she has done, its too late. What is done can't be undone, she has to pay for the price.

Lilith by John Collier

"Supernatural" natural also had crossroad demon which makes deals with humans so I did some research on it and I found this "Deal_with_the_Devil". Basically is that you can offer your soul in exchange for diabolical favors.

In Christian view,  demons are believed to have the ability to posses orinhabit the body of humans and some believe demons to be actual physical beings that can take the form of anything(including small children. ) such as Incubi and succubi.
Christians also believed that Lilith was Adam's first wife who later became a succubus.

Up to this stage, I have an outline of my story that is to crossover the myths of reaper and demons. The reaper can offer humans to sell their souls in return of their favors.

research for reaper

There are different versions in every religions about the afterlife destinations, including...

• Transcendent places: Heaven, hell, limbo, purgatory, underworld, Yomi
• Reincarnation: after the death of the body, is believed to return to live in a new human body, or, in some traditions, either as a human being, animal or plant. (wikipedia)
• Spirit/ghost: Manifestation of the spirit of a deceased person, without "meat-suit" body. In some religions, they would stay in the human world.
• Zombie: Contrast with spirit/ghost, They are typically depicted as mindless, reanimated corpses without souls.

Reapers don't belong to any of them above. They are the medium between human world and transcendent places. They kept the natural order in balance and their jobs are to collect every soul under order of God of death. It is also given the name of the Angel of Death or Devil of Death or the angel of dark and light stemming from the Bible. In Chinese mythology, Reaper is called Ox-head and horse-face "They are the first people a dead soul meets upon arriving in the Underworld; in many stories they directly escort the newly dead to the Underworld" They worked for Yama.

Ox-head and horse-face in Chinese mythology

According to these research, reapers always work under orders of superior, which means in a way they are no differences to human beings who work under their bosses. Therefore, I was thinking if everyone has to work under orders, why not try the opposite.  Try disobeying, try rebellious, try messing up the natural order, try making up a total different mind rather than following boring rules! If we can't do something like this in actual life, at least we can write a story about it.

Inspirations - (Supernatural) Reaper

As I love all these mystery and horror stuff, the American TV series "Supernatural" is one of my favorite.

In the drama, they have Demons, Lucifer, Angels, Ghosts, Vampires, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Leviathans and Shapeshifters...etc, all these monsters in the myth, they even named the character and told the story after different religions. Such as Lillith which was Lucifer's second-in-command.

The reaper in it's true form

One of the character that interested me is the grim reaper.
"Reapers are servants of Death. They assist in maintaining the Natural Order, and are completely neutral, not aligned with Heaven or Hell nor Purgatory."(reference)
Their job is to escorting souls to where they belong.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44tcCTzodhw

The reaper turns into a girl named Tessa

Reapers(in Supernatural) tried to convince the spirits to let go and come with them but they couldn't tell where they were going.
Reapers were able to change the appearances to different forms.

If I were the reaper and wanted to monitor you, I would have turn into something that you could trust, such as a person, a pet...etc.

Inspirations

I have been watching horror, mystery and thriller movies since I was young. For all the horror movies, you will always have to guess why the ghost died? who is the killer/murderer? who is behind everything. Its always the same ending. Found out the story about the ghost, thats it. To be honest I'm getting bored of this concept of a movie. Therefore, if I would have to make a movie, I would make one that the audiences get to choose different endings.

Research :

Movie - interactive by talking


Website - interactive by clicking
http://www.survivetheoutbreak.com/

For the interactive movie about, I reckon it is a great idea that you can interact with the audiences during the movie. Every decision you make will create different endings. Put it this way, it is more like those personality test you see in magazines and website, every choice you make would finalize what kind of person you are.

I think it is very important to have different perspectives in a story. To look at things in different angels and positions.