As a voice actor, I was somewhat disheartened I didn’t get to use my skills during our trailer group project, so I’ve decode to put them to use for my final project. I have two quite disparate inspirations for a short audio piece based on Cabin In The Woods: the website for the fictional SCP Foundation, and Harry Potter. SCP shares quite a bit with the underground facility of Cabin: a (to quote Welcome to Night Vale) “vague, yet menacing government agency” charged with containing and keeping tabs on all manner of supernatural and reality-defying beasts and substances (such as a staircase that seemingly descends forever, inhabited by a being that is merely floating eyes and a mouth, but no visible face or body). From the last book in the Harry Potter series comes PotterWatch, a sort of podcast run by the Weasley twins in hiding to keep the resistance against Voldemort informed of its goings-on. Combining these two ideas, I would love to do a short (5-7 minute) audio piece of the activity of the facility in Cabin. Could be a short prequel, as well as near the end possibly splicing in faraway bits of audio from the film, announcing the release of the zombie Buckner family as the teens arrive at the cabin. I think this would be a interesting day to imagine what the people at the facility might be up to before getting into “work mode”, and how dealing with possibly one or two escaped creatures might put a damper on their attitude for the day. I hope to be able to add in music and sound effects as well. I’d love feedback!

One of the many fan films that really started the fan-made products taking off was Horrible Turn, a 2009 fan-made musical prequel to Joss’ 2007 independent venture Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Concieved by a couple of college students in Houston, the whole 30-minute film was written, cast and shot in five months with young adults who had no experience in filmmaking whatsoever, though many were musically talented or had done previous musical theater work. Horrible Turn tells the story of Billy Buddy, a young Dr. Horrible and again desperately, painfully in love; and Kenny Hammerstein, a ridiculously conceited high school jock who will grow up to be the equally ridiculously concieted Captain Hammer. When a group calling themselves the Evil League of Evil threatens to destroy their school, Billy, Kenny, and Billy’s crush Katie must reluctantly work together and save their school. The film is full of original musical numbers, all of which help to set the stage for the rivalry between Horrible and Hammer to come later in their lives, in addition to multiple references to the events that will soon take place (one of the other main characters is Johnny Snow, and we learn why Horrible later wanted to give Penny a “shiny new Australia”). This fan film was made, like Dr. Horrible itself, on an extremely low budget, but despite that, it managed to begin influence the prevalence of other fan-made productions and even got the attention of the Whedon camp. Joss viewed the film and described it as “itsy kitschy glitzy”, which could very well be a compliment. Maybe.

The most famous scene in Joss Whedon’s first Avengers film is arguably, as TVTropes.com’s page for the film labels it, “the oner”: the single long take sweeping around Manhattan as each Avenger does what they do best. It’s shots like these that really give Whedon time to shine as a director. He enables us to be completely enveloped in the spectacle of a scene by giving it to us in bits and pieces while also keeping the overall theme of the shot very “zoomed out” so we never forget the bigger picture. Black Widow, piloting a stolen spacecraft, ducks out of the way of an oncoming Chitauri attack, as Iron Man flies near her; we follow him as he shoots energy from his suit and pan down as he zooms across the bridge and lands near Captain America. He is busy fist-fighting Chituari, and Iron Man takes a few shots before taking off straight up along a building, flying by Hawkeye on the roof, who’s systemically knocking out baddies one by one with his arrows. We follow the path of one of them as it hits a Chitauri craft and causes it to plummet into the giant Chitauri Leviathan, on top of which stands the Hulk and Thor thrashing and hammering enemies to a pulp. A blow from Mjölnir sends the Leviathan crashing into Grand Central Station and ends the long shot. Every character is featured for just the right amount of time to understand their overall contribution to the battle, and why each of them is necessary to take down the invasion. It’s the entirety of The Avengers summed up in one shot. Whedon was a masterful director of this scene in particular, and it shows why he went on to have such success with its profits.