1. Find a movie clip quickly and commit to it.

2. Keep your intended green screen simple if starting out.

3. Add an effective change to lift the scene and make it your own.

4. Have a good crew and take on any suggestions during filming.

5. Take time to make the sound and video match the look of the original clip.

6. Edit Edit Edit

The many tutorials online including the one at Creative Cow, helped immensely with this brief.

http://vimeo.com/8337356

Lost Season 1 Episode 1 – Pilot

2. Why are we communicating? A viral spot delivering a bizarre twist to the rewrite of a classic movie scene from an existing scene that will spread by word of mouth.

3. Who are we talking to? This exercise will be communicating to the course instructor and also the other students studying media.

4. What is their relationship with the category or product itself? The audience may be humored, surprised or intrigued by the twist in the scene. Regular watchers of the show have heavily analysed it’s mystery, whereas this offers a more straightforward answer.

5. What is the key inside into the target audience? Audience is expected to made up of other media students, particularly studying green screen composition. Also, intended demographic of original show, that may be looking online for clips.

6. What is the single minded proposition? Identify with being the wrong place at the wrong time and feeling helpless a little detached from the seriousness of the situation.

7. Why should they believe us? When confronted with large and serious events, being a bystander makes you an outsider.

8. How should we talk to them? The plane crash situation is unfolding second by second, it is important to keep the audience up to pace with the situation. Actions in this scene are as important as dialogue: straight-forward, quick, deadpan. Typical to how a regular person may react.

9. What is it we must include? The original footage needs to be integrated with the greenscreen character as a typical tourist in a beach setting of a Hawaiin island. The character is to be slightly confused, unhelpful and at odds with the situation before them.

10. What are some creative starters? -Tourist/airline employee on beach first seen by Jack.
-Points to crash scene.
-Jack assists victims
-Calls for help/assists in various unhelpful ways. Or greets to Hawaii.

1. The Set-up: a young quadraplegic marine (Jake Sully) is sent to the planet Pandora to take part in the Avatar program in lieu of his murdered twin brother. Avatars are scientifically developed hybrids of the local aliens (the Na’vi), remotely controlled by the human DNA donor. In this form, Jake has the full use of his legs. Meanwhile, the Na’vi are a sentient race violently opposed to the presence of humans strip mining for the resource Unobtanium. The Avatar program is an attempt by the science faction of the mining operations to restore relations with the Na’vi. Jake unintentionally infiltrates the Omaticayan tribe and is accepted to learn their ways. He is also given implicit orders to relocate the Na’vi, as their home is located atop a rich deposit of Unobtanium, something he keeps to himself as he learns the ways of the natives and grows close to the female Na’vi Neytiri.

2. Inciting Incident: Jake Sully loyalties are divided as he learns to love and respect the way of the Na’vi, feeling free in his Avatar form. When the time to begin mining at the Omaticayan camp begins, he vandalises the efforts of the mining company. The Omaticayan soon learn that he had knowledge of the miner’s invasion and disbar him from their clan.

3. Act One Turning Point:

4. Mid-point:

5. Act Two Turning Point:

6. Act Three Turning Point:

7. Resolution (or denouement):

On arriving at the planet surface, we soon discover that Jake Sully is a wheel-chair bound paraplegic. He enters the mess hall where a debriefing by the antagonist Colonel Miles Quaritch is in progress. The Colonel forewarns the new recruits of the ‘dangerous’ native alien race known as the Na’vi, and  goes on to explain that the Na’vi have proved to be an ongoing challenge due to their violent resistance to the mining operations. Having being set at ease by the pep talk, Jake is soon escorted to the science department, headed by Dr Grace Augustine, and quickly learns that with no formal scientific background, he is vastly unqualified for the position.  In disgust, Dr Augustine heads to the control room to lodge a complaint to the Resources Development Administration representative (ie. the overseer of all military and civilian personnel) Parker Selfridge, a corporate minded individual, whom bluntly reminds her that the sole reason of the human presence on Pandora is to acquire the rare mineral ‘Unobtanium’, a metal which we are lead to believe only exists at Pandora and essential for the resource depleted Earth. Backed into a corner, Dr Augustine reluctantly accepts Jake into the mission.

Jake, undeterred and encouraged on by fellow Avatar operator by Norm Spellman and scientist Dr Max Patel, throws himself into the program with much aplomb, a process which involves remotely operating a genetically engineered Na’vi/human hybrid known as an ‘Avatar’ via a link to the human mind. Instantly, Jake takes to his charge, running out into the field where he is now able to breathe the atmosphere. His experiences are directly connected to the alien body itself, so that while ‘asleep’ in the transfer chamber, he is ‘awake’ in the body of the Na’vi. He is overwhelmed by the sensation of this body, and being able to walk in this form and feel the ground beneath his feet, proves to be an emotional boon.

His first mission as a Na’vi , serving as chopper door gun, takes him away from the protective walls of the mine site out onto the jungle wilderness of Pandora. He forms part of a small team including Dr Augustine, and Norm (both in Avatar form) as well as chopper pilot Trudy Chacon. Dr Augustine and her aide begin taking measurements on the synaptic-like network that the immense tree ecology forms on the planet. Wandering off, gun in hand; Jake Sully (Avatar form) is soon separated from his team when chased off a cliff and into a vast waterfall by a panther-like creature. His team try in vain to find him, but soon are forced to abandon this search as night descends. Alone, and in a hostile jungle environment without protection, Jake Sully is soon spotted by a Na’vi female (Neytiri) whom immediately recognises his blatant naivety within the environment as a belonging to a ‘dream-walker’ of the ‘sky people’. She is intent on killing him her bow, when a strange floating seed rests on her arrow tip. She lowers her aim, and decides instead to follow him.

Still unaware that he is being followed, Jake anxiously tries to ward off the encroaching wildlife in the dark. However, upon lighting a torch he immediately draws the attention of a wild dog-pack. Neytiri jumps in spearing and eventually chasing the dogs off, in effect saving Jake’s life, but his gratitude is met by her disdain at the pointless slaying of life. She begins to walk away, but Jake follows her intently, quickly deducing  that she had attended Dr Augustine’s defunct school from her ability to communicate in English. Eventually she is convinced to take him back to her tribe when more of the floating seeds come to rest over his body. She tells him that they are pure spirits, attracted to his pure heart, and takes it as a sign bring him to safety.

Neytiri introduces him to the clan, where her father Eytukan (the Omaticayan tribe leader) and mother Mo’at (a seer), on discovering that he is a ‘warrior’ of the sky people, accept him in to learn their culture. Also introduced is Tsu’tey, a clan warrior and intended life partner of Neytiri. Tsu’tey takes an immediate dislike to Jake Sully, thinking him to be nothing more than an untrustworthy ‘dream walker’. Mo’at decrees that Neytiri is to be responsible for teaching him their culture, much to her dislike. Upon falling asleep at Hometree, high within the boughs, he awakens back in his human form on base.

Back at the labs, he recounts the story to the enraptured scientific team. Jake later reports his experiences to the Colonel. We learn that a large deposit of Unobtanium is situated beneath the gigantean tree in which the Omaticayan tribe reside, and that Jake has only several months to negotiate their removal from Hometree. The Colonel encourages him to gather more intel about the Omaticayans in the event more forcible means of removal is required. In exchange, the Colonel has organised for Jake’s spine to be repaired upon return to Earth.

Back at Hometree, Jake Sully begins a rigorous training regime, in which he learns of ‘the bond’, a way in which the Na’vi , through a tail like link from their heads, connect to the receptors of certain beasts, in essence becoming part of them and able to direct them. His first attempts at the bond with a large Direhorse prove to be challenging. He also begins to fall in love with Neytiri as he slowly learns the harmonious nature of living Na’vi —the spirit of life, known as “Eywa”, and their place in it; and begins to feel increasingly more in tune with his true self. He recognises this internal conflict within him and documents this in his video logs. Neytiri also reveals the connection to the land and trees through the sacred Eywa tree- a network that the Na’vi are able to bond to, and hear the memories of their ancestors through. After Jake cleanly kills an animal, Neytiri, having now taught him for many months, declares that he is ready for his trial for initiation into the tribe.

Meanwhile, the Colonel is growing suspicious of where the sympathies of Jake lies, especially after Jake convinces him that speaking before the tribe as a fully initiated member may be enough to convince the Omaticayans to relocate.

After the capture and taming of a flying “Mountain Banshee” at the floating Hallelujah Mountains, Na’vi Jake is initiated into the tribe as a member. Neytiri and Jake declare their love before the sacred Eywa tree, where they eventually fall asleep. This time Jake confesses to the video log that he is conflicted over what is actually real. They awaken the next morning by the incoming mining excavators and demolition crew. Jake, relinks to his Avatar and sabotages the camera system on board the trucks. Back on base, Jake’s Avatar is recognised for this action and is forcibly disconnected.

Now back in human form, Dr Augustine and Jake Sully plead to Selfridge for time to convince the Omaticayans to flee before the imminent destruction of Hometree.  Dr Augustine tries to him about explaining the intrinsic value of the land, and of the quantifiable evidence of the neural network the sacred trees form. Selfridge relecutantly agrees, and the two head back, only for negotiations to fail. Neytiri, feeling betrayed by Jake’s prior knowledge of Hometree’s destruction, wants nothing to do with Jake, casting him from her ‘sight’. Jake and Dr Augustine are ordered to be tied up by the tribesmen, and are bound nearby while the Omaticayans prepare to for battle. As the reign of rocket launchers begin, pandemonium breaks out, and many of the Omaticayan tribe are injured or killed as the exodus from Hometree begins. Mo’at, in despair, frees Jake and Dr Augustine, begging with them to save them. Neytiri’s father is killed by falling debree, and he tells his daughter to lead the tribe to safety. Jake finds them, at which point Neytiri completely rejects his help.This time Jake and Dr Augustine are yanked from their Avatars, as it the military component takes charge of ‘negotiations’ by tearing down Hometree.

Back in human form and confronted with the video log evidence, in which Jake has admitted that there would be no peaceful solution to the Na’vi relocation, Dr Augustine and Jake are incarcerated, along with science worker Norm who had tried to prevent the soldiers manually disconnecting his friends from their Avatars.

An escape is organised by pilot Chacon and Dr Patel, within the compound. They escape by chopper, procuring a transportable science lab in the process, which they airlift to a magnetically anomalous location that obscures their position. In the midst of their break out, Dr Augustine is hit with a life-threatening bullet to the abdomen by the Colonel.

With the sequestered lab, the fugitives are able to reconnect to their Avatars. Jake, now an outcast to the tribe, takes the gravely injured Dr Augustine to them in hope that they may save her. Mo’at agrees, and the tribe communally connect to the’ tree of souls’ along with both the Avatar and human bodies of Dr Augustine. However, her injuries prove too great, and she dies at the foot of the tree.

Now rejected from the tribe, Jake Sully understands that he must make a big gesture in order to accepted back in. He captures a large flying dinosaur-like beast, known to the Na’vi as Toruk, or ‘last shadow’. Neytiri has previously explained that a bond to this creature has happened only once every several generations, the last instance being her great grandfather who was able to unite the Na’vi tribes in a time of great despair.

Jake descends back to the Tree of Souls with the Toruk. The Omaticayans look on with silent awe, and with the rapt attention of the tribe Jake rallies the tribe push back against the sky people, to enlist the help of all the Na’vi of Pandora and fight for their land. Both Tsu’tey and Neytiri are inspired, and agree to this plan.

There are scenes of the Omaticayans travelling to the far reaches of Pandora, gaining the involvement of the remaining tribes. The movement of the Na’vi people does not go unnoticed by the military, who see the Na’vi amassing around the mine site. Pre-emptively, they begin to prepare for battle.

The day before the invasion, Jake (as his Avatar) consults/bonds to the Tree of Souls, and tells it of his dying world, and that the human presence could only mean a similar fate for Pandora. He tries reaching Dr Augustine, in hope that she too, could pass on this message. Neytiri, watching from afar, tells him that these words will likely go unheeded, as Eywa only cares for the balance of life and does not take sides.

A large battle scene of the Na’vi against the military ensues. Despite the Na’vi primarily fighting with primitive weapons against the technologically adavanced military are able to hold up well, having the ‘field advantage’ by forcing the battle into an area that has to be fought by line of sight (due to magnetic anomalies). Many Na’vi and soldiers are killed. It soon becomes apparent that the military is gaining control of the fight after Tsu’tey and Chacon are killed in battle. Without warning, a myriad of beasts become involved in the battle to expel the human presence – the call to Eywa has been heard.

Jake Sully, in Avatar form, downs the aircraft containing the Colonel, but who is able to miraculously escape in a robotic suit. The two enemies fight is out on the ground before Neytiri manages to spear the colonel in the heart. She notices the Jake’s Avatar is suffocating and quickly realises that it is the human has been exposed to the noxious Pandora air. She breaks into the lab and assists him in putting on and oxygen mask, and for the first time the two meet.

The next scene shows the exodus of the humans from the planet, save a select few. Jake signs off on his video log on his birthday, finishing off by saying one way or another he will not be coming back. It cuts to the ceremony of the communal bonding with the Omaticayan. Both Jake’s human and Avatar form lay at the foot of the Tree of Souls. Neytiri and Mo’at are close by as he is challenged to pass through the Eye of Eywa in attempt to permanently become the Avatar form. Human Jake closes his eyes and the Avatar Jake awakens.