Mean Girl

Another 11th hour post.

I did a draft screening at work today, with some of the people who are in the movie, but who aren't on the team, so aren't invited to the farewell speech. I felt so ashamed while watching it. I don't know if it's because I've been working on it for so long, and I'm the only person who knows what it could have been, but the movie felt so forced and boring to me.

The idea was to parody Mean Girls, except have it set in the office instead of a high school. You'd be surprised how much drama there is in the office despite the fact that there are fully grown adults working there. It was a bit difficult coming up with things the characters could say while also having it be appropriate for work. Also, the actors were people who had full-time jobs, so I had to schedule filming between their meetings and mine. It was tough trying to get everyone together. The most important part, was that Grad Daniel wasn't allowed to know what was going on, so despite the fact that he's in the movie, he never interacts with any of the other actors.

The basic storyline is this:

Grad Daniel (Cady Heron) moves here from Japan. He is pulled into a project, where he suggests an improvement. The idea is stolen by the head developer (Regina George) and pitched as his own. This makes Daniel angry, so he works to break the head developer's lieutenant (Gretchen Weiners) and find out the head developer's secret. He does, and outs him, becoming the head developer in his place. However, the project falls apart, and he moves back to Japan.

The story doesn't completely hold together, as I couldn't fit it all in a short time, but I'm glad I managed to fit the following shout-outs in:

• Cady's "I know what you're thinking (about homeschooled children)", in this case, about "Japanese people"
• You go, Glen CoCo
• And none for Gretchen Weiners
• She doesn't even go here
• That's so fetch (that's git fetch - see above)
• being hit by a bus
• a "burn book"
• can't even wear hoop earrings (can't even use while loops)
• "We should totally just stab Caesar!" (we should totally just stab [Steve] Jobs!)
• We have a new kid from Africa (assumes it's the black girl)
• "If you're from Africa, why are you white?"
• On Wednesdays, we wear pink
• The overview of the cafeteria and the cliques
• Here's the thing about Janis Ian
• How do I begin to describe Regina George?
• three-way call attack (teleconference attack)
• I know how this would be settled in the animal world, but in girl world, all the fighting has to be sneaky
• The Plastics 

Maybe the movie was so bad because I was trying to force it to be another movie. I don't know. I think I made it slightly more interesting with a bit more music, and a couple of scenes I put together in RPG Maker MV (because I ran out of time to actually film people).

A few scenes had to be left out completely, as I wouldn't have time to put them together.

Overall, I'm pretty sad about this movie. I think part of the problem was that I just wasn't feeling it. I couldn't get the creative spark I needed, no matter how much I tried to force it. I actually came to resent the movie at one point, which is never a good thing. But Grad Daniel is really important to me, so I think it was worth it, even though I'm up at midnight putting together the blooper reel. I hope he enjoys it tomorrow. To be honest, I'm not entirely ready for him to leave, but I've had the better part of half a year to prepare, so I don't think I was ever going to be ready.

Oh, and pro tip: filming something in a hallway is a stupidly bad idea. Not only do you piss off all of your co-workers with the noise, but your audio ends up with a lot of echo. NEVER AGAIN.

I'm also really good at writing mean things about people. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.