#helen writes only two genres: a) elsa is dead

[theseerasures]

for your frozen meme: "It’s the kind of bright day that practically drags you outside by the arm: clear blue sky, picturesque clouds, the sun shining down on the grass."

original fic here.

The longing sneaks up on her. One minute she’s still brushing the sleep from her eyes, wondering about the significance of Bruni having antlers in her last dream; the next she’s slip-sliding down the hallway and out the castle, still wearing pajamas.

For some reason the tombstones still take her by surprise. Even when she’s looking for them, they come into view earlier than she expects. The sun is just peeking over the horizon, bringing out the steadily growing green over solid rock. Nature and life reclaiming themselves in six short years. At the foot of each there’s a finely crafted wreath of ice; Elsa must have stopped over here before heading to the castle yesterday.

Weird, how this place still sticks to them like a bur. This isn’t where Mother and Father died, where they would forever rest. It’s not even where their memories live on, but they keep coming back here anyway, even after the bodies have been found, even after the truths have been uncovered. Here, where Anna buried them; here, where Elsa couldn’t.

“I thought you’d want to know,” Anna finally says, fiddling with a loose thread on the hem of her dress, “I’m getting married today.”

That’s all she’s got, really. What else is there even to say? Shame you can’t make it? Too cruel, even for the moments she’s angriest with them.

She doesn’t feel angry right now, just a strange sense of–waiting. Waiting for what? She’s not sure, but she’s willing to stick around and find out. “I asked General Mattias. Remember him? Of course you do, you commissioned that portrait–I asked him to walk me down the aisle, since. You know.”

Anna sighs, decides who cares about grass stains, anyway?, and just sits down on the ground. “I don’t know. I guess I…I guess I want to say I wish you could be here.”

“And I do,” she feels compelled to quickly add, “I really…but then I start thinking about what else might still be true, if you were.”

“How much longer would you have kept the gates closed?” It always come down to this–this thing that Elsa forgave so easily, but Anna still can’t–like the bur trapped itself in her somehow, just under the skin, so she can’t do anything without bumping up against it. “How much longer would you have kept Elsa in her room?” She turns her head a little, looks just in Mother’s direction. “How much longer would you have just let him? How much longer would you have kept everything a secret?”

“I’ve been thinking a lot about this recently,” she says, picking up steam, “What if you never went off to find Ahtohallan? Elsa would have never had a coronation. I might have never met Kristoff. Or what if you had found it and come back? Or what if you tried to find it earlier? What if the Accident happened later? Or didn’t happen at all? What if–”

“What if you never tried to shave all Bjorny-Bear’s fur off when you were four?” A quiet, amused voice asks from behind, “Things might have turned out completely utterly exactly the same.”

“Bjorny-Bear!” Anna exclaims as Elsa kneels down on the grass next to her, “I forgot all about him.”

“I thought you’d try to fix your day-of jitters with a chocolate raid or twelve,” Elsa comments, “Isn’t it bad luck to berate your deceased parents right before your wedding?”

Anna rolls her eyes. “I don’t know, probably.” Between the trolls and the Northuldra and the scary planner they hired to tell them about Arendelle royal wedding minutiae going back seven generations she’s had to wade through enough rites and superstitions to choke a narwhal. Still, she doesn’t want it any other way, and Kristoff agrees: what’s the point of a wedding if it doesn’t celebrate every part that makes them them, right?

(She’d dug up some old pictures of Mother and Father’s wedding a while ago. Their ceremony had looked lavish, sophisticated, and one hundred percent Arendellian; nothing so subversive as a teensy Northuldra compass to mar the hundreds of crocuses they’d stitched onto Mother’s dress.

Mother herself had looked perfectly, genuinely happy. Anna doesn’t get it, and she kind of hopes she never will.)

“And I wasn’t berating,” she says out loud, “I was just…well. Do you ever think about it? What might have happened?”

“If they never died?”

She shrugs. “Or just, I dunno. Whenever.”

Elsa hms thoughtfully. “I used to, more,” she replies, “In my room. Mostly about how much happier everyone would be if I didn’t exist.”

Anna takes in a sharp breath.

“Sorry,” Elsa says, looking immediately apologetic, “That wasn’t appropriate for today, I shouldn’t–”

“It’s okay,” Anna says, waving her off, “I’m the one who dragged myself to a graveyard before sunrise, remember? Pretty sure we left appropriate behind like, three years ago.”

“If not before,” Elsa agrees. Then she looks up at the tombstones herself. “I don’t think about them much now. What-might-have-beens, I mean.”

“How come?”

“There are just too many possible variables in play,” Elsa replies, “What if Runeard had survived his treachery? Mother might have never left the Forest. We wouldn’t even exist. Or what if she had, and married Father anyway? What would have happened to us, if Runeard still had control? Who knows the damage Arendelle might have caused then. Our past already haunts us enough without adding what-ifs into the mix. Better to just focus on our lives as-is, I think–no more and no less.”

Anna just stares at her.

“…What?” Elsa asks, a little defensively.

“You sure look like my sister,” Anna says, “But you can’t be–something halfway reasonable about the past just came out of your mouth.”

“Hey!” Elsa gives her a playful shove. “That was one time.”

“If by one time you mean one full-time job…”

“Fine, fine,” Elsa laughs. She gets up and extends a hand. “Come on. If we’re not back by eight to get dressed, Kristoff will hear about it and get a coronary.”

“He really might,” Anna agrees. She lets herself be pulled up, then uses the momentum to wrap her sister in a hug. “I’m happier you do exist,” she says into Elsa’s shoulder. “You?”

She pulls back. Elsa’s eyes dart around the clearing for a little bit, but then she lets out a sound like a mix of weariness and laughter. “I’m…getting there.” She’s looking steadily back at Anna now. “Most days. Today, definitely.”

Anna nods. “I’m happy,” she says. Looks past Elsa now, at Mother and Father’s graves. Maybe this is the thing she’s been waiting for–to be able to tell them that, and have it be the truth.

Maybe it will help them rest easier. She hopes so.

The sun has fully risen now; Anna can feel its heat on her back. When she looks back at her sister Elsa is smiling at her. “Good,” she says, picking up Anna’s hand. “Let’s get you married, sis.”

Anna smiles, too. “I’m ready to go.”

[kickstarter-promotion]

Another Amazing Kickstarter (INNER GHOSTS by Paulo Leite —Kickstarter) has been published on http://crowdmonsters.com/new-kickstarters/inner-ghosts-by-paulo-leite-kickstarter/

A NEW KICKSTARTER IS LAUNCHED:

INNER GHOSTS is a scary ride into the heart of a woman who’s about to face a longtime enemy – a demon in the making – for the last time. What brings these two characters together and what they will do to each other is just one side of our story. 

What will happen after that, will blow your mind!

The goal of this Kickstarter campaign is to give us some FINISHING FUNDS that will allow us to finish the film with the best sound possible. Yes, the film is completely shot and edited. All digital effects are finished. We’re close to the end of this amazing journey.

INNER GHOSTS is a horror feature film entirely produced in Lisbon, Portugal.

“If ghosts can function and remember who they were, even though they lack a physical brain, then the brain is not the only place where we store key information about ourselves. The soul is the key.”

HELEN is a neuroscience researcher trying to develop a revolutionary therapy to treat degenerative brain diseases like Alzheimer’s. To prove her theories, she needs to run cognitive tests on ghosts: beings who apparently can act and remember without the need of a physical brain – suggesting that unresponsive patients whose brains are too damaged to function can be accessed, somehow, through their living souls.

After the death of her mentor, Helen finds an apartment inhabited by benign ghosts who agree to be tested. The problem is Helen renounced her gift 15 years ago after the loss of her daughter when she made a vow never to contact the other side again. Things start to change when an artist called ELSA begs Helen for some spiritual training hoping to get rid of a demon who has been haunting her for many years.

Helen reluctantly accepts it unaware of the demon’s true goal. Meanwhile, Helen’s tests with the ghosts are a success. The entities offer her the design of a device that can communicate with the dead (and possibly living patients), triggering a set of events that will bring Helen face to face with the demon she has known all along. After so many years, two enemies are about to meet for the last time, showing us that revenge is a dish best served cold. Oh, but there’s so much more happening!

Over the years, we read many books about ghosts and grew frustrated with the lack of concrete answers some of the most reputed psychics seem to offer. That was when we turned to actual reports on scientific experiments made over the past decades that we began to find some answers.

Some of the ideas and results that were reported were so sophisticated that we were stunned no one ever used them in horror films before. There were so many fascinating ideas that we could not fit them all in just one script. But writing a horror story is a labor of love and, through some several drafts, INNER GHOSTS nearly wrote itself over the period of one year.

We’ve always thought horror fiction (in literature or films) to be the sign of superior minds and a healthy society. You don’t believe in us? Take a look at Soviet and Nazi cinema. They did not produce horror films. Why? Because horror stories are subversive by nature.

They show us things about the universe around us and ourselves that the powers that be do not want you to see. They tell us the truth other genres try to hide. Great horror stories leave no one indifferent. INNER GHOSTS is one of those stories. It will show you something about the Universe that is truly original, disturbing and scary.

Because the best projects and the best people are on Kickstarter.

We invested three years of work in this film. For outsiders, it’s just a horror film. But for us, it is a true passion. We love the genre, we love this project and we love our audience. The good news is that the film turned out better than we could ever imagine. After developing, pre-production, production, editing, digital effects, we’ve got something we’re really proud of.

But we also took the film as far as we could with the very limited resources we had. Now it’s time to bring in the BEST crowd in the world to help us: horror fans. There are no people like horror films people!

Every serious horror fan knows how crucial sound is to horror films. From older classics like ROSEMARY’S BABY (1968) and THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991) to recent films like THE CONJURING (2013), IT FOLLOWS (2014) or THE WITCH (2015) sound is key to a great horror experience.

Unfortunately, a sound mix in a professional studio costs a lot of money. And the same goes to foley services, ADR, music recording and additional sound-related deliverables we must have if we want you to experience INNER GHOSTS as well as you deserve. We worked hard to give you a horror story that will make your jaw drop (really!). We are fully committed to the project’s quality and we humbly ask for your help. INNER GHOSTS is an incredibly ambitious film that needs a sound that will do it justice.

CELIA WILLIAMS is a British actress. She studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Her work has taken her to London and to Edinburgh, to Lisbon and even India. She has performed in a variety of genres including tragedy, drama, mystery, comedy, musicals, opera, radio, television series and feature films. Among many major roles on stage are Jean Cocteau’s THE HUMAN VOICE in London’s West End, THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK, DON’T WALK ABOUT WITH NOTHING ON, and BE MY BABY, also in London; Paulina in DEATH & THE MAIDEN, Elizabeth I in MARY STUART, Nora in A DOLL’S HOUSE, Stephanie in DUET FOR ONE, Gertrude in HAMLET and Judith Bliss in HAY FEVER.

ELIZABETH BOCHMANN has a degree in Drama and Theatre Arts from Goldsmiths College, University of London, as well as short courses on Technical Voice Production and the Method. She has played major roles in PYGMALION, HAY FEVER, THE MOUSETRAP, RELATIVELY SPEAKING, THE PROVOKED WIFE, THE THREE SISTERS and ROMEO AND JULIET. She has appeared on TV in soap operas and in short films, including THE HUNCHBACK, written and directed by award-winning director Gabriel Abrantes and Ben Rivers. INNER GHOSTS is her first experience working on a feature film. Her passion is, and always has been, acting. “The feeling of being able to bring another character to life is an extraordinary sensation, and the challenge is to embody that person with as much truth and honesty as possible”.

IRIS CAYATTE spent her childhood and teenage years moving from place to place (from the vast Finnish forest to the desert of Alentejo, to Luxembourg and back to Lisbon where she completed the International Baccalaureat at an international school. She is fluent in Portuguese, English and French. At the age of 17, she moved to London where she graduated from The Central School of Speech and Drama in 2008. Since then she has been busy working in major theater productions. On Film she has worked with directors such as Roberto Faenza in SOSTIENE PEREIRA, Fanny Ardant in CADENCES OBSTINÉE and Rob Marshall in NINE.

NORMAN MACCALLUM was born in Scotland but has worked in many countries. In Portugal, before INNER GHOSTS, he was cast as a comedic journalist in one of the country’s biggest advertising campaign ever. Norman has also experience in television, theater and film. His commanding presence and perfect reading of the character gave him a challenging role on INNER GHOSTS.

ANA SOFIA LEITE studied at the Escola Superior de Dança where she won a scholarship that made her move to the Fontys Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in The Netherlands, where she graduated in Theater Dance Performing – Modern Dance. She continued her training through several workshops: Forsythe Improvisation, Feldenkrais technique, Release, Contact improvisation, Fly low, and more. Between 2007 and 2008 she worked with Helma Melis, Sjoerd Vreugdenhil, Eddy Becquart and Paul Estabrook (The Netherlands). Back to Portugal, she was part of the Kamusuna Ballet Company. Beyond being a ballerina, Ana also teaches both classical and contemporary dance. She was chosen for INNER GHOSTS because if her ability to express character simply through movement alone.

AMANDA BOOTH was born in Yorkshire, England. She began traveling early in life and her acting career started when she was thirty-seven when she played the role of Lucky in WAITING FOR GODOT. As a stage actor, she has toured Europe as well as performing several times at the Edinburgh Festival. She has worked for radio and television and been a successful voice-over artist for many years. “Acting is the pleasure of absorbing myself in the task of creating a credible character. It’s like being a detective where you work out the profile of your “suspect” and then assimilate it into yourself” She’s always been a fan of horror movies.

PATRÍCIA GODINHO is one of the most promising young actresses in Portugal. She studied at the prestigious Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema and quickly began getting roles outside the school. Currently, she can be seen at OS JOGADORES, a TV series on RTP Radiotelevisão Portuguesa.

JOÃO ALVES (director) is the director of the award-winning short BATS IN THE BELFRY. He is also a highly skilled storyboarder, animator and digital artist. INNER GHOSTS will be his first feature. João is dedicated to his craft and has a unique eye for detail.

PAULO LEITE (writer/producer) has almost 20 years of experience working with TV and Films. INNER GHOSTS will be his first producer credit. Paulo is also a film professor at Lisbon’s Film School and is passionate about the horror genre.

MIGUEL SALES LOPES, A.I.P., is Portugal’s top cinematographer, having over 40 films under his belt. He was the filmmakers’ first choice and was easily won by the story and the project’s ambitions.

JOÃO RAPAZ is the makeup artist heading a team of the best makeup artists Portugal has to offer. Over months of preparation and weeks of shooting, the producers successfully destroyed their personal lives and relationships. But the work they made in INNER GHOSTS made us proud.

ANIBRAIN was the company selected to produce the digital effects we needed. It was selected after months of research in North America, Europe and Asia for the right company. Based in Pune, India, an army of artists led by Jesh Murthy and Mark de Sousa brought the expertise that made all the difference.

We chose our team carefully because we fully understand the risks of not having the best people. Plus, they all love the project and are fully committed to seeing it come to life on your screen.

“We wanted a Kickstarter campaign that was different from all others. We wanted a campaign that would celebrate the awesome film we are making and be relevant to horror fans and filmmakers who are as passionate as we are about the genre.

We tried to pack as much value as possible as early as possible, so our backers don’t have to spend a lot of money to get nice stuff. On the other hand, we have some STUNNING rewards for those SUPER DUPER backers who feel like giving a little more. Got questions? Let us know and we’ll get back to you right away.

Here is our first reward. The A-Class goes for a pledge as low as just $1.

Our B-class reward has something really useful.

The C-Class reward gives you another great tool to help you make your horror film. And how about a thank you tweet for 25K people? Sweet!

The D-Class reward gives you the film INNER GHOSTS in the format of your choice. It also gives you a pretty revolutionary reward: “Marketing and Developing Your Horror Film”. Yes, there are books about film marketing and development. But their approach is usually “one book fits all genres”. Well, this one is specifically about HORROR!

Get a real film credit with our E-Class reward. For just $49 you can become an Associate Producer. That’s pretty awesome. Also, you get a t-shirt that shows your love for the genre… and more!

The H-Class allows you to add amazing stuff to the previous rewards. It comes with four options of add-ons.

      Now we enter the Premium Rewards. The I-Class reward gives you a personal Skype session with director João Alves. Or you can go a bit higher and get the J-Class reward: one of the demonic paintings straight from the film set (only 10 are available though)!

The K-Class is really special: come to Lisbon for a private screening AND be part of our group in every festival and market we attend. We’ve been going to most festivals and markets for years and we know them very well. Learn HOW they work and WHAT they can do for your project. We’ll give you the best tour you could ever imagine! Travel, accommodations and accreditation costs are not included, but we’ll advise you on the best solutions (we’ve been doing it for years). Take a look:

The M-Class reward is pretty special: some gorgeous 16-inches demons you will love! Only 10 are available for now.

And now for something completely different: the N-Class reward! Give us one tweet and we’ll put it in the film. Here’s a suggestion: say “I love you” to someone special right in a horror film! The rule is simple: 140 characters + one image.

The P-Class will give you a full day with writer/producer Paulo Leite, wherever you are. All costs are included! It will also get you a co-producer credit. However, you are NOT just getting a credit: let us go over your horror project and give you some precious insights on what you can do to make it even better. that’s what co-producers do.

Q-Class and R-Class will give you two very important movie props. “The Device” and “The 3D Boddy Scanner”. Only one of each exist. Pledge now before they’re gone! (Or before we change our minds!)

Our amazing special effects team made these two heads for a very special scene. Get them separately (S-Class or T-Class rewards) or get them or both (U-Class reward). The level of realism of these heads is impressive!

    After the bang, we’ll end our rewards in style! V-Class reward: become an executive producer. Put your company name right after our own. W-Class and X-Class will give you remake or sequel rights – or both if you pledge for the Y-Class reward. Get access to our Intellectual Property and use it in your own film (scroll down for the conditions that apply):

(***) Those REMAKE and SEQUEL rights come with a few conditions:

1 – The REMAKE rights include SCRIPT, TITLE, STORY and CHARACTERS. Starting from the first day AFTER the end of this campaign (providing payment succeeded), you’ll have a period of 10 months to start PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY (SHOOTING). After that, you have 6 months to finish the film.

2 – The SEQUEL rights mean only ONE sequel (not ten) that MUST be titled “INNER GHOSTS 2”. It can be a sequel to our film or a sequel to the remake (you choose). It includes the CHARACTERS, the TITLE and any STORY element you need. The SEQUEL rights are yours for a period of 24 MONTHS, starting on the first day AFTER the end of this campaign (providing payment succeeded).

3 – You cannot sell, loan or give as collateral these rights or use them in a way other than making the afore mentioned film(s). After those afore defined periods of time, the Remake and Sequel Rights revert back to the original producers.

4 – The INNER GHOSTS producer will receive a credit as Executive Producer on the films that result from tue acquisition of these rights.

5 – No equity, promise of equity or any other value is needed, asked or offered for/with these rights. We want to fully comply with Kickstarter rules here!

INFORMATION PROVIDED BY Kickstarter.com and Kicktraq.com VISIT PAGE SOURCE