THE other REALM by Juliana Reis

(THE OTHER REALM)

By Juliana Reis

premise and defense Yeah, the world did end up ending, even if at the cost of Nostradamus’s foredoom, of the Mayan calendar and the millennium bug. Whether it was the global warming, the comet’s passage or the rupture of the industrialized countries’ supremacy, we will never know exactly what was the last drop. Unfortunate, just now that Brazil was the next big thing. Countering sensationalist representations, the final moment came as the beginning was described: a light vortex, in a kind of big bang. The only shot right on the target: on the apocalypse theme, The Ride of the Valkyries was well noticeable in the background.

logline The world has ended. And, all at once, more than 7 billion souls disincarnated and landed at the same time at the other plane, which is no longer the other.

tags human relations, quantum physics, dramaturgy, sustainability, humor, contemporary society, spiritualism, consumption, science, paradox and lifestyle, end of the world and social chronicle.

And how do we know all this? That’s easy. We are on the other side of life, on that which we got used to calling the other plane, the Zenith, a parallel universe inhabited by emancipated souls and pure light spirits. The fact is that “other” was how that world could be called while this one existed. Now, it is the only one that is left and it becomes the main arena for the acid humor dramas of our series, which confront the grandeurs of spirit with the weaknesses of its carnal and all too human version. THE OTHER REALM

marketing defense and target audience We live in 2012, a year much guided by the end of times concept, announced by the Mayan calendar, but equally under impact of environmental treats, the global warming, the geopolitics hegemony rupture, etc., all of that giving an apocalyptic tone to our perspectives of future. To such historic moments, a wave of moral values revision is always allied, as well as of concerns of spiritual order and even religious. Dramaturgically speaking, the series arises as a possibility of dealing with such fears, risks and possibilities, within the scope of the human, approaching such debate, without losing count of the humorous situations and of the emotion that it involves. THE OTHER REALM assembles humor and emotion in the dealing of matters of moral background and of behavior in our global society. Given its dense tone, with no loss of the humor, the project characterizes both for the universality and originality of its point of view about themes of great interest to Brazilians, such as life after death, sustainability and contemporary society; as well as for the level of dramaturgic quality of the best international series. The series is aimed at the young adult and urban public, men and women from 18 to 49 years old, consumers of high quality series and cultural products from cable channels.

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The series still has potential to gather the spirituality related products consuming niche to this sum, which informally adds to a mass of more than 30 million Brazilians. And this, even if THE OTHER REALM does not intend to address religion, taking an approach that is more related to the popular imagery and to the fantastic realism.

pilot

device and format

The episode zero reports the moment of collapse resulting in the end of Planet Earth and humanity. It takes place on a neutral space, a monitoring center equipped with millions of screens, on which images of the end of the world come, followed by news of the chaotic confluence of more than 7 billion souls wanting to land, forcing entrance in a spiritual plateau exclusively reserved to the purified beings, the superior minds and the free spirits.

Above all, it is worth affirming that, even if the context may seem bulky and complex, what really is of interest and will be fitting to the development of the episodes of the series is precisely the unfolding (or digression) of great global/universal/environmental/mystical events in the local and subjective levels in human relations. In other words, human nature’s base conflicts will be treated, such as “family ties”, “individuality affirmation in groups”, self-esteem, ambition, self-sacrifice, dilemmas of moral, affective, pragmatic orders, and others.

It is fitting to highlight here that this is neither about imposing a catastrophic tone to the facts serving as the premise of our series, and much less about establishing super-production budgets. The most important thing will be focusing on types that, native of several “tribes” composing the contemporary Brazilian people, are going to form the team of characters of the series (see list, ahead) and in what they were doing at the very moment of the end of the world. In this context, two main opposing forces are established, the disincarnated and the angelicals, in which the two protagonists of the series are introduced, Laura Lee, a superior being (spirit), instructed in the arts of helper of passage from planes, and Hugo, marketer, recently condemned for a white-collar crime. These two characters are going to lead, each from their clam’s point of view, the torturous (but not humorless) process of confrontation and adaptation to this new cohabitation reality.

Each episode will obey to the following device: a 6 minutes flashback prologue, on Earth, at the moments preceding the end of the world and around one of the central characters specific of each episode. Solar and realistic images, filmed in exterior scenes with agile editing establish the local cast of the episode, but also the thematic universe to be treated. From this introduction, we reencounter this character’s point of view, already at THE OTHER REALM, living a plot in association with one of the tags and revolving around the confrontation and adaptation between both worlds (the carnal-material-vicious-human and the spiritual-virtuous-angelical of the superior plane). Each episode shall treat the macro intrigue of the series (to cohabit and, then, surviving this cohabitation) and, at the same time and in parallel, the micro intrigue defined to each one of them, with cast and problematic of their own.

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production and art design This major dramatic space of the episodes, corresponding to the â&#x20AC;&#x153;superior realmâ&#x20AC;?, is minimalist, neutral, stylized and interspersed with peaks of light; the camera is fluid, handheld, worthy of the subjective pov, and the frame rate must be accelerated enough to create a subliminal atmosphere, only noticeable by the senses, but not consciously by the spectator. The shots are going to be more closed and intimate. It is fitting at this point, to mention some visual, narrative and dramatic references, picked out from our panorama of television and film dramaturgy: Six Feet Under (for the darkly humorous look it takes over naturalist situations), In Treatment (for its intimate tone and handheld camera), Dogville (for the stylization of the narrative space).

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concept and motto These would be the dynamics in two seasons of THE OTHER REALM; Season 1: Seven billion of souls land all at once in what is defined as the final dwelling place. As celestial as such dimension is, it would be impossible to escape from the treats of logistic chaos and shortage and not put to risk any and every kind of balance or harmony, hierarchy or organogram (think of the mix between an aviation crises raised to the thousandth power with the entrance of middle-class China in the global consumption market). Each episode explores a tone in the vast conflict palette that such a situation engenders on the local and inter-individual levels. The mainspring of the series revolves around one same (classic) objective to both groups: changing everything so that everything remains the same. This way, the emancipated spirits search for alternatives so that the spirit evolution process may have continuity, or simply a place to return this mass of vices, vanities, and material and human needs. On the other side, all this people that land, without having time to improve their spirit, come with their basic needs, weaknesses, impulses, limitations and mundane sins.

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characters Season 2: The news of a strayed spaceship, wandering the cosmos since the Planet’s disappearing, arrives at the other Plane. In its interior, astronauts of different nationalities, among them, a skinny woman of lofty IQ and the most hilarious head of hair of the anti-gravitational space (see http://www.youtube.com/embed/ doN4t5NKW-k), who represent what is left of materialized humanity and one last hope for men, as well as for the recapture of the reincarnation flux for human spirit upgrade, as long as the rocket’s crew members manage to overcome their chauvinistic and anachronistic rivalries to install a more procreation auspicious atmosphere, in this succinct space that represents a new chance for the human genus. The relation between these two poles, THE OTHER REALM and the space bus, both of stylized, yet contrasting, visual production, would sustain the intrigues of this phase, loaded with dramatic irony, in a narrative evolution of the series, in which all of the disincarnated, in combine, act (with more or less ethic) trying to intervene in the crew’s destiny and betting on a 3rd season, in the form of feature film, centered on the possibilities of colonizing a new planet apt to the development of human life. And of the reincarnation process.

Here is the profile of some of the central characters of the series: Laura Lee: Angelic being. Spiritual helper of conciliatory nature, native of the superior astral plane. Aids the spirits in transition to the more evolved vibrational camp. Of Chinese descent, young expression and mignon structure, was a nurse in past lives and acts as a midwife of the recently disincarnated. In the context of our story, the mission of managing the crisis and inherent conflicts of the confrontation between the superior plane inhabitants with the super population of newcomers will be attributed to her. She is conscientious, keeping impartial in the resolution of intrigues, for she knows how to put herself in the place of others. Peace and non-conflict proclaimer, she feels an inexplicable attraction to Hugo, with whom she ends up establishing a disagreeing relationship, but loaded with erotic tension. This lack of balance is going to give her the occasion to remember the pains and delights of human inferiority, which causes her a great internal anxiety. Indecisive personality, lacking objectivity and confused, inclined to the common good, and slow in making decisions, to which afterwards, nevertheless, she sticks (traits that Hugo can’t stand). She has a hard time exposing and imposing herself, and feels valued giving herself to others. She can, however, have explosions of temper when she gives in too much to the wishes of others.

Hugo: Marketeering entrepreneur of doubtful character, undisputable charisma and assertive personality, Hugo was recently condemned for whitecollar crimes and receives the end of the world as an excellent alternative of personal impunity. Competitive, pragmatic and quite Machiavellian, in the ends that justify the means existentialist way, opportunist and unattached to details, he has a covert sense of superiority, and is more focused on efficiency and results, having good ideas and argumentative skills, even if with difficulty to acknowledge his own failures. He is married, but left his wife back at the limbo, and soon establishes a power struggle, unfolded as moral/sexual tension with Laura Lee, who rescues him from the Threshold, despite not being ready for the transition. Because of her, he suffers serious vibrational problems until adapting to the subtleties of the astral matter at the superior plane. But not long after he can adapt to the new vibrational frequency, he puts all of his capacity to lead and conduct processes into action, more or less moved by his own cause. He conducts the main plot as antagonist, leading the wing of the recently disincarnated, and is going to make a more “opposites attract” than a properly romantic pair with Laura Lee. In the dichotomy between dissonant interests and indomitable attraction, the duo heads the cast, which is going to be divided between two groups: the angelicals and the disincarnated;

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other characters Iolanda: military pensioner, sophisticated old lady, independent and cheerful widow, even if having already surpassed the plenitude of her third age. Vain and completely redone with several plastic surgeries, she is not in the least willing to give up her bodily materiality. She doesn’t give up and, being her second husband in the final stage of a pancreatic cancer, she already keeps a flirt alive with the applicant for third. The end of times interrupts her recycling and confronts her with all of them all at once, husbands, departed and dying, and pretender. Now she can’t escape and is going to have to choose between one of them; Emílio: married with Larissa (authoritarian and suffocating woman) for more than 15 years and father of 9 year old Renato (sweet boy who loves his dad). Just before the end of the world, he discovers that he is in love with his new male colleague at work. Now he sees the current situation as the ideal occasion to come out of the closet; Antônia Guarani Kaiowaa: pretty woman, with a strong and independent personality, neo-hippie and adept of healthy eating habits. Charms men wherever she goes and most of the times she lets herself be charmed by them, but without getting attached to any. Previously working at needy communities, she is a militant idealist, exalted, exuberant and intense. She can’t grasp how she ended up with other souls equally lost, since she considers herself more spiritually evolved. She believes she deserved to be at a more advanced stage, in the same league as Laura Lee, with whom she is going to establish a competitive relationship; 10

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transmedia Carlos Guilherme: Uruguayan, mix of Spanish teacher and personal trainer, brawny and ladies’ man. It is suspected that he used to be a rent-boy, for he was always seen in the company women who were much older and wealthier than him. He loves his own image and is totally addicted to technology. He is on every social network and uses them both to leverage his work as well as his love life. His relationships end up becoming as superficial as his network of virtual friends. He has an enormous difficulty in dealing with his profound and inexorable off line; Adolfo: Religious, believer in the end of the world, waited for Doomsday and the transition from the material to the superior field on his knees and with open arms. Accountant, a virtuoso with numbers, he is in search of perfection ever since he was a little child. He would be an unbearable intolerant if it weren’t for his sick shyness. He likes to give and receive criticism, is in constant search of improvement, and discards compliments. Rigorous and unconfident, he matured for discipline, organization and ethics very early, things that bring him serenity. He has a great sense of justice and integrity. He couldn’t help his deception when realizing that his new astral dwelling place doesn’t even come close to his idealization of paradise and is willing to correct everything he sees as flaws. In constant confrontation with Hugo, he is going to be given the capital role in the management of the crisis triggered by the demographic explosion and he is going to commit to prioritize and to put into action a plan to create a sense of order at the superior plane;

Development, in parallel of the feature film project having the following treatment:

Uélintom: on the go to becoming the phenomenon du jour of Brazilian soccer, he already promised a new fridge to his mother, a slum dweller. Death comes to interrupt his rise to Glory. He could be what we call a ghost with unfinished business, given his wish to return to the material world, if a material world there still were.

The advances of the Sciences left the discoveries of other planets opened, which creates the alternative at first and, then, the possibility that allows the human astronauts to settle and the souls to reincarnate back to be able to go evolve somewhere else. Equally to be developed, a online news journal and multimedia app that will work with the series since its pre-launching step, as a teaser, as well as a set up tool for our dramatic premises.

Ariele: still a girl, killed by a stray bullet. She was already there, recently arrived, when it all happened; Marcelo Feiser: an engineer with great boldness, one of the pre-salt technology signatories. He emerges on the plot without any splurge, but becomes important when a strayed and forgotten spaceship is discovered;

juliana reis

Danilo: bipolar teenager who managed to kill himself (second trial) a while ago. He can’t stand to see the world arrive right behind him;

Project’s author and series’ script editor.

Cícero: a convict rehabilitated in five years, out of 30 to which he was condemned. Sober for 20 months, he took part in a NGO’s team working with creative economy, and was an expert in the making of carnival hats made out of Cheetos bags. He arrives already promoted as an angel.

Professional screenwriter, has been working for Murilo Salles, João Jardim, Henrique Saladini and Kim Chapiron. Disparos, her debutorial feature film as a director, had its theatrical release in november 2012 and was award for best cinematographer, editing and supporting actor at Rio Film Festival last october. THE OTHER REALM

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