stupid

							The Illuminati have yet to meet as a full group to discuss this project, but Brian has basically pitched an
idea for a movie titled "Growing Up Is Stupid." It's a musical comedy expanding on what we're doing
with "Livin' it Free" with songs about all the stuff we currently hate about our adult lives. We'll begin
gathering ideas here on the forums, and hopefully, this thing will kind of write itself. This topic should be
editable by everyone since we're all Grand Marshalls, so add at will.

THEME:
Regardless of plot, the underlying theme of the movie is that having a "successful life" as defined by
society is really stupid, and that having this kind of life can actually just make you miserable. We'll show
this by having our characters struggling with (and singing about) most of the things we're struggling with
ourselves: working jobs that have nothing to do with our actual passions and goals, being bogged down
with seemingly irrelevant monetary responsibilities like paying taxes, insurance, etc, rushing to get
married and start a family just because you're 25 and you don't want your twin sister having babies
before you...the list goes on. In the end, what our characters need to realize is that doing what you want
to do, even if it goes against what society (or your parents) define as being successful, is the key to being
happy. In further depth, our arrival at that simple realization should possibly come about after realizing
that the world is a totally different place than it was 50 years ago. There are not enough jobs for
everybody, money has no actual worth, there may not be a great way to make a living without being evil
to some extent, the world does not reward genius anymore. Most of the standards of what defines
"success" are left over from an earlier time and really need to be wiped out.



PLOT OUTLINES:
(So, with our given theme, I think we're basically looking at this
structure if we're going with a single protagonist story:)

ACT I (first 20 min):
-Our cast (or part of our cast) unites in a desperate attempt to figure out why they hate life. We start
learning about their lives.
-Something bad happens to our "main" main character. (The "inciting incident", which causes the cast to
decide to become proactive in changing their lives.)
-About 20 min into the movie, at the end of Act I, our cast decides that they're going to ____________.

ACT II (middle 40 minutes):
-Deciding to _________ is looking pretty good for the cast. Even though there's a lot of obstacles and
our other characters' lives are presenting problems in them pulling their weight to accomplish the goal.
We're gonna get a lot of songs in this section of the movie.
-Just as it seems that the movie is seemingly going to end soon and everything will be fixed, we reach
our first culmination, where the most perfect plan falls apart. About 40 min into the movie, 20 min into
this section, we've reached our Midpoint, where all hope is lost for the plan our main character has
spearheaded. Things are now really shit.
-Our main character goes on a little fact finding mission or inspirational montage and suddenly realizes
there was one small flaw with the plan and now knows how to set things in motion.
-The new slightly altered plan is going better than ever.
-About 60 min into the movie, 40 min into this section, the main character realizes the plan is actually
out of control and may destroy the world as we know it (or just get somebody hurt, or create more
problems for everybody than there were in the beginning, or result in overdue library fines.)
-ALTERNATELY, they can just realize they don't need to do the plan and that they think they have a
better plan, but it's not all there yet.

ACT III (last 20 minutes):
-Our main character simultaneously comes to the realization while he's planning to set things right that
the definitions of success in the world are antequated and no longer relevant. The world is a different
place, and maybe it's time we all settled for something a little more realistic and less greedy in order to
be happy. (The audience sees the clues and imagery for this, but is not told yet.)
-The main character manages to convince everybody else that this is in fact true and everything begins
to be set right once he explains it to them (in slightly different angles to each of them, making one
complete matrix of an explanation to the audience.)
-He must then DEFUSE THE BOMB THAT'S INSIDE HIMSELF. Or go out on a limb to fix one stray unfixed
thing that's incredibly dangerous. This moment is supposed to be the climax, so whatever that can end
up being.
-He fixes it, and everybody realizes that they can be happy if they just ignore people's stupid advice.



If we do something like the movie Crash, where every member of the cast is an equal protagonist with
weird crossing paths, then it just gets a little more complicated. Each character will have to come to that
realization on their own little story arc, but will have to be involved together as collaborators and the
antagonists of eachother. The cast probably can't be friends from the get-go then, and they'll have to
hold positions that end up screwing over eachother. Given the subject matter and the fact that it's a
musical and the songs will convey their own stories in a sense, I don't think it'd be that hard to write the
Crash version at all. We should probably nail down some other stuff before we commit to writing it
though.

And then it comes down to plugging in the solution that goes wrong in the end, so here's a list of
examples:

PLOT MECHANICS/SOLUTIONS/DEVICES:

At the end of act i, the cast decides to START A CIVIL TERRORIST ORGANIZATION LIKE FIGHT CLUB THAT
WILL MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE THROUGH ORGANIZED PROTEST.
By the end of act ii, it's spiraled out of control to the point where the government is investigating it as if
it's a real terrorist organization and they've got to undo it.

At the end of act i, the cast decides to MOVE TO CANADA TOGETHER, A UTOPIA OF SOCIAL
RESPONSIBILITY. THEY BEGIN SCOUTING OUT A SMALL TOWN AND TRYING TO GET JOBS THERE.
By the end of act ii, they realize that Canada is no better than here, the jobs they secured up there are
even shittier than here, and they've got to make amends at their current jobs.

At the end of act i, the cast decides to START UP A ROBIN HOOD SORT OF HACKING OPERATION/SCAM
TO STEAL MONEY FROM THE GREEDIEST PEOPLE AND DISTRIBUTE IT TO THE POOR.
By the end of act ii, they realize that this big company was actually not being greedy, and now they're all
about to go to jail.

At the end of act i, the cast decides to GO LIVE AT TYLER'S UNCLE'S ABANDONED HAUNTED SUMMER
CAMP AND START MAKING A LIVING OPERATING IT AS A CAMP.
By the end of act ii, they're all trying to escape after finding Joey's testicles decapitated and hanging
from a doorway but the ghost has locked all the gates surrounding the camp.

At the end of act i, the cast decides to MAKE A HIT SELLING ALBUM TOGETHER. (It would be very funny
to juxtapose the good songs people are singing as dialogue with horrible music they're writing)
By the end of act ii, they realize that none of them can sing or write and they're about to throw away
their collective nest egg to some manager who obviously is going to keep it all himself.

At the end of act i, the cast decides to FACILITATE SOME SORT OF PUBLIC FORUM THROUGH THE
INTERNET FOR EACH TOWN TO TAKE MORE CONTROL OVER WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THEIR LIVES.
By the end of act ii, they realize that everybody is totally fucking nuts and all these people are ruining
the town by approving totally hideous things.

At the end of act i, the cast decides to ENTER A CONTEST TO BUILD A WORKING PIECE OF FARMING
MACHINERY OUT OF UNCOOKED RAMEN NOODLES. (I can't think of anything better right now.)
By the end of act ii, they realize they have been eating most of the ramen and they spent all their money
on the entrance fee and the ramen.

At the end of act i, the cast decides to ALL BECOME JOURNALISTS AND FIX THE WORLD THROUGH THE
GLORIOUS MEDIUM OF PRESS THROUGH THE INTERNET.
By the end of act ii, they realize that journalists are douchebags and nobody gives a fuck about what
people say on the internet.

At the end of act i, the cast decides to START A LONG JOURNEY TO UNCOVER THE TREASURE OF MIKE'S
LATE GREAT GREAT GREAT UNCLE, BISHOP PAPROCKI.
By the end of act ii, the ghost of Bishop Paprocki shows them that the treasure is really unconditional
love, and they're on the run from the law for tearing up a cathedral floor.



I'm completely and utterly sold at the moment right now on the one about everybody deciding to make
an album, or maybe a pop opera movie/album thing like The Wall. Obviously the plan needs to be
something that seems exciting but very quickly grows disasterous, and this seems really perfect for that.
It should clearly not be the life's goal of anybody, but a dumb compromise for everybody that seems like
a golden ticket to success. The imagery of seeing a horrible musical performance that then transitions
into a beautiful song with a full symphony about how hard it is to write a song seems pricelessly funny
to me. We have extensive access to probably more than one studio (if we're willing to shoot on off days
or after hours or something) as well as all the music equipment for some sort of home studio scenes.
And maybe somehow their bad music could transform into the actual score gradually when they start to
abandon the project. Or someone could hear a beautiful arrangement in their head, and go to show
everybody and it'll be hideous. If we do it as the pop opera movie thing, then it'll still let us fit in all the
videography jokes, bad filmmaking scenes, etc and the huge juxtaposition of quality with everything will
make the writing seem so much more incredibly intentional and skillful, rather than crass and lazy.
Basically, it reduces our characters a bit and makes it obvious that we're not unintentionally telling the
story of our own lives through a movie about passionate artists; they'll be ridiculous and hysterical, but
relatable. So I dunno, think about that.




SONG IDEAS:
Here is where we will list all of the things we hate enough to maybe make a song about. We already
have a song about moving out with "Livin' it Free," which may or may not need to be modified to fit
what we come up with for the full-length movie. (For example, Bill's part would probably be the funniest
if it's performed by some ancillary character from earlier, and we'll probably be re-recording a number
of lines anyways, but hopefully the chorus line "Livin it Free" can still be applicable.)

-The Worthlessness of a College Degree (ie getting your film degree and becoming a substitute teacher,
juxtaposed against someone who didn't go to school but was either given a job at their parents'
company or just gets lucky with employment)
-Money (taxes, insurance, car payments, other dumb things that suck away our hard-earned cash for no
reason), also anxiety over how many people are in the world, how the money in the world doesn't
actually work in any realistic way, how you getting a job realistically means somebody else can't have a
job, "you exist, therefore you are a burden", guilt for being alive.
-Cars (you need a car to get to your job so that you can make enough money to pay for your car)
-Dealing with legal bullshit in the world, although this could fit into another song somehow, like the car
song, maybe after getting in a car accident.
-Yearning for Simpler Times (possible song for Mike, singing about holding onto your childhood) Another
possible title, "When I'm An Adult", and have an alternating concept in the song that starts with "When I
Grow Up", pointing out the differences between "becoming an adult" (non-ideal lameness) and "getting
older" (ideal dreams that you can only pursue when you get older). The subtext will be about how Mike
is realizing that he's actually reached both those points, and things are not going well.
-Realizing that you're no longer a child because you're actually already turning into an old person (hating
new music, tv shows, culture). This can probably be part of Mike's introduction song. We can maybe find
a way to reprise this at the end of the musical when the character realizes that old people and little kids
can be really similar, and the path to dying can also be the path to rebirth and the path to not giving a
shit about "adults and what they define as success".
-Rushing into Marriage.



CHARACTER BIN:
-Videographer/Moviemaker (predictable, but a great source of realistic material/workplace shots/etc)
-Musician-type (again, predictable, but again, an excessive amount of locations, props, material)
-Computer Programmer/Videogame Designer/Hacker (this could be a fun source of a lot of plot
movement)
-Graphic Designer (a Mac with a copy of photoshop is all we need, relatable character, lots of
complaining blogs by them)
-Journalist (relatable character, easy)
-Psychologist/Social Worker (nice juxtaposition to other creative types)
-Photographer (could be merged with Videographer or separate. Could function as an alternate to the
Videographer in ways to show that it's not about idealism as much as what's right for you. For example, I
(Brian) would love it if I had a cubicle to work on music projects for the rest of my life in an office with 9-
5 hours, but I'm stuck in a famous band and have to play around the world and work in exciting
environments, but I hate it.)
-Veterinarian (no great shooting locations for this though)
-Totally Undecided With No Interests (also a nice juxtaposition to anything other than itself)
-Someone Who's Good At/Interested In Too Many Things
-Office Type Job (I think we could recreate a set for this with good sound design, especially if we kept
them seated in their cubicle, although I think we might be able to get permission to shoot somewhere
with cubicles somehow.)
-Nursing (but getting hung up on chemistry and physics classes, but loving medicine)
-Pilot (meh)
-Graphic Artist (could merge with the Graphic Designer)

(more abstract character ideas)
-Someone who was on top of the whole financial game, doing everything that people recommended one
should do with their money, got screwed by AIG and the stock market, and putting them next to
somebody who did absolutely nothing and now they're both in pretty much the same boat.
-Someone who uses pot recreationally, and decides they're quitting cause they want to do something
with their life.
-Someone who is addicted to coffee/WoW and it's obviously a much larger inhibitor on their life than
the pot smoker, but it's just cool to be addicted to coffee/WoW.
-Someone who has a really cool job, but actually took it because they wanted money to pursue
something commonly thought of as boring. (The Brian May story basically, a 20something astrophysicist
PhD who founded the rock band Queen to make money to pay for Astronomy equipment, got caught up
being a rock star, but eventually ended up where he wanted, as a freelance astrophysicist and an
astrophysics professor at a college.)
HOW ARE ALL THE CHARACTERS RELATED?:
-In a guild/clan on an unnamed videogame?
-Friends from Middle School/High School
-Live In The Same Building and somehow all became friends
-Totally Random Connections (like the Gang)
-They're not related in any way, and all cross paths during the telling of the story (ala Crash)



BAD THINGS THAT CAN HAPPEN TO ADVANCE THE STORY OR PLOT:
-All your equipment can get stolen
-Get rejected from Grad School, and then get thrown off your life's trajectory
-Lose your job (either from being framed, or being fired for being a girl and being assumed that you can't
do certain things)
-Pot smoking character decides to quit to do something with his life, but decides to sell his remaining
weed to a friend, and ends up getting caught.
-Computer programmer ends up deciding to stop hacking for fun / scamming people for money on the
computer, and pirates a program to write up resumes to send to software companies, and that one
piece of software somehow triggers feds to come arrest him.
-On the same IP address, they find the musician's computer, which is filled with thousands of MP3s, and
the RIAA decides to fine him even though he owns CDs of half the music on there and he's never made a
penny off his own music.)
-Get a ticket from a red-light camera and have your license revoked (even though that doesn't happen in
real life, we can say that the specific town they live in does issue them as moving violations)
-Some incident of tremendous public embarassment, online or otherwise
-EXCEEDING YOUR MONTHLY BANDWIDTH LIMIT AND WHATEVER DIRE CONSEQUENCES CAN OCCUR
-Getting physically injured in some way
-Running out of money and at the same time realizing that you actually owe somebody a tremendous
amount of money.
-Developing a bizarre physical illness like fibromyalgia
-Medical bill debt
-Car crash, and a frivilous lawsuit attached.
-Getting audited by the IRS
-Identity theft/Credit Card fraud, and all the bullshit you have to go through when it happens (i can write
about that at least, even though it's not horribly epic.)
-Realizing that you're stuck in a life you hate after being pushed into it by everybody else for over 10
years and you'd have to
start over to do anything about it. (Remember, the character back-stories we write for everybody don't
have to be revealed until maybe the end of Act I or something if we want to take our time ramping up,
that way realistically large life problems that happen later will still seem epic.)
ACTORS WE'RE WRITING FOR:
MAIN:

-Mike
-Tyler
-Brian
-Terry
-Joey?
-Olivia
-Caitlainne

SUPPORTING/ANCILLARY:

-Joey?
-Eileen?
-Brian Peters's friend Karen (40 Something, volunteered herself for any part in it, professional singer,
could play a mom or older person probably)
-Brian Fife (didn't ask, but goes without saying.)
-Joe Dillilo from the Brian Fife movie (didn't ask, but goes without saying.)
-Sam Swanson (lead singer from Dormlife. Didn't ask, but would probably want to do it, if only to further
his career. Would work well if he was playing basically himself.)
-The Bishop?
-Jeff Kranz of Grand Theft Marmot fame




LOCATIONS TO WRITE THE MOVIE TAKING PLACE IN: (Remember that a lot of what people will walk
away from this movie with is the imagery of certain things happening in certain places. A great story will
just make a great story.) (-* indicates an amazing location where we could do lengthy scenes, -#
indicates an ok location, -! indicates somewhere we could get a quick shot or two before we're
discovered)

-*Our houses/yards. Friends houses/property. Based off of how good they look, access to lights, shots,
etc.
-*Many recording studios, both home and real
-*Studio Parking lots (particularly Solid Sound)
-*Videography Studio
-*UIC (and the million locations there)
-*Train Stations (both the unmanned ones and the one downtown)
-*Public Chicago Landmarks (like the fountain)
-*In various parks/playgrounds
Charlie Brown Park
FRG Park on the river
Langendorf
In the weird train waterway thing in the back of Langendorf
-*Cuba Marsh/Forest Preserves
-*Evanston/Northwestern Beaches (I'm sure there's more good beaches, but Northwestern has a nice
little elevated peninsula)
-*Cemetaries
-*Tennis Courts/Basketball Courts

-# St. Anne's/St. Raymond's/Bishop Paprocki's Place?
-# Subway
-# St. Anne's Basement
-# Woodfield Mall
-# UIC Police Headquarters/Jail
-# On trains themselves
-# Roosevelt Music Practice Rooms (They're not particularly amazing looking, but I have access to that
floor of Roosevelt through Paul and that's all that's really on that floor.)
-# In traffic/highway, from in car or from overpass
-# Grandma's Retirement Center
-# My Friend Karen McBride's Office (have to ask her, but it looks office-space enoughish)
-# The abandoned brewery in Rockford that Cari is friends with the owner of
-# Erin Bailey's Hair Salon?

-! Outside Library
-! An aisle inside the library
-! Consolidated Music/Guitar Center where Bryan Peterson works
-! Grocery Store (in aisle, brief shot)
-! Some Restaurants (norte in the back room)
-! Bahaii Temple (outside preferably)
-! Fox River Grove Ski Jump
-! St. Viator/BHS Theaters?



RANDOM SHIT BIN: (Random plot devices, cool imagery, shots that might be worth writing scenes
around, whatever)
-Tyler decides he's running away from home, which causes a huge commotion, with his mom crying, and
we come over and he finally calls one of us telling us he's starting a new life, and we ask WHERE ARE
YOU, and Tyler says pissed off "I don't know, I've just been walking, wherever it'll take me" and someone
says "well, look up at the street sign, what intersection are you at?" and he gives a street corner to the
person on the phone and the person immediately walks to the window, seeing tyler standing under a
street light a few blocks away, and then continues to have a conversation as if Tyler is about to jump off
a cliff or something. Alternately, someone could just say "Maple and Thurman? Isn't that only like 4
blocks away from here?"

-More than once on dates with girls, they've purposely been as mean as they can to people who have
whatever job they currently hold (purposely messing up shelves in retail outlets, or pushing all the dirty
dishes away from the edge of a table in a restaurant and hassling the waitress.) I don't know if that fits
with the themes of the movie, but it's struck me as a strong image.

-Using the phrase "quarter-life crisis"

-It'd be cool to have some really colorful wide shots in Woodfield mall, maybe during Christmas. (We
could rent a wide-angle lens, or Terry can check one out of Columbia) Maybe even a whole segment of a
music video type thing there. We could just duct tape the Camera to a baby stroller and the singer could
even just listen to their track with earbuds, making us practically invisible to the rest of the people there.
We could also try doing some halfspeed shots (with our actor/actress walking/lip syncing at half speed
to make everybody else look like they're going twice as fast, or maybe the opposite effect with the 60fps
mode.

-Getting a chance to make fun of youtube comments/forum bullshit/internet culture and how stupid it's
making kids.

-If we can find any excuse at all to use any amazing looking effects (the head exploding thing, or the
explosions outside thing, or lightsabers) then we should write it in somehow. Only great looking effects
though that we can pull off though. No lightning effects (unless we can make them look real or
something.)

-Any excuse to use truly horrible effects/poor film making (ala Shenmue IV). We can expand on a lot of
terrible effects too.

-Use any material that we're actually working on (Mike weddings? ala Final Jerkoff)

-Have some recurring thing with the red light cameras. Possibly bring up the thing about Toledo giving
all their citizens parking tickets to make money, and then bring up the red light cameras. At some point
bring it up like, "If we really wanted to take advantage of
our generation, we'd be vigilantes and tear down all those red light
cameras. They increase accidents by..." "No, we're too old now. We have too much to lose." "Like
what?" "I don't know." But by the end of the movie, we see that they're torn down by anonymous kids
wearing black.
POSSIBLE OPENING SCENE:
We have an idea about opening the movie with home-movieish footage of little kids talking about what
they want to be when they grow up. Their answers vary from cliche (firefighter, astronaut) to ridiculous
(Spider-Man). Depending on what we get and who our characters end up being, we can juxtapose the
footage of the little kids with footage of them as adults discovering that their childhood dream isn't all
that great. For example, you have a kid say he wants to be a firefighter. And when he grows up and
actually gets to be a firefighter, he finds that you spend your time sitting around the firehouse fighting
with your fellow firefighters about how many hours you're getting rather than fighting any fires. This
montage would end when the last kid says, "When I grow up, I wanna be a cameraman...like you!" At
this point, we see that Mike has been interviewing these kids for some dumb video project he's doing at
work. After some brief plot, Mike can segue into a song about how much simpler life is when you're a
kid, which serves to introduce the overall theme of adulthood sucking balls.