Date of Submission

Spring 2011

Academic Program

Film and Electronic Arts

Advisor

Les Leveque

Abstract/Artist's Statement

Dream Lover is a High School musical about a boy named Bobby, and the new girl in town, Brenda. Brenda is not your average 16 year old girl, but a teenage Succubus in search of a mate, or a “dream lover”, to take back with her into her dream world. As soon as Bobby sees Brenda, he falls under her spell. Brenda takes advantage of her new found zombie; using him for milkshakes and as arm candy.

Bobby knows nothing about Brenda, he asks her where she is from, and she responds “Wisconsin”, a place she had to leave due to the death of her last boyfriend. Much of the information given about the characters is vague or false. Most of what Brenda says is part of her cover story. She pushes Bobby around, manipulating him into inviting her to the dance, so she can lure him back to her house for her 16th birthday cake. Brenda has chosen Bobby as the boy she will spend the rest of her demon life with, living happily together back in her dream world.

However, not everything goes according to Brenda’s plan. on the night of Brenda’s 16th birthday, just before Bobby is hers forever, Bobby manages to snap out of Brenda’s spell. He takes the cake knife and cuts off Brenda’s head. He head lands in the cake, where it lives on, singing “It’s my Party (and I’ll die if I Want to)”, while her body chases Bobby through an alternate dimension. Brenda’s body stabs Bobby, and continues to dance along to Brenda’s head’s tune. She doesn’t go down too easily.

Dream Lover is a video made by, and starring, me, Melissa Wynne. This piece is a personal exploration of the American Dream as it exists today in a YouTube world. Throughout the making of this movie, I jokingly told myself, “I’m gonna make me a star”. Brenda is a character who lives a life that I do not, and cannot. She looks like me, but lives without boundaries. She can seduce a boy with the flip of her hair, she sings like a siren, and has a license to kill. She goes from saccharine sweet to sour in an instant, and offers no apologies. I use Brenda as a venue to be a star. Brenda is a character that lives out my fantasies on screen. I consider stars like Justin Bieber and Katy Perry, who found fame by posting videos of themselves on YouTube. The idea that you can become famous by making yourself into some marketable character, and putting it on the internet, is incredibly fascinating. I don’t think of YouTube as the exclusive venue for my project, but know that parts of it are going to end up there. YouTube allows for a kind of unsurpassed self-indulgence. 12 year-old girls and 45 year-old men alike are posting video diaries about the most mundane bullshit imaginable, staring at themselves in the computer screen as they do it. I basically allowed myself to indulge in all of my worldly pleasures; mixing my love of 60’s pop music and 80’s slasher films, as well as fashion and glamor. I played the role of a high school sweet heart, a lead singer in a 60’s girl group, and last but most definitely not least, a bad ass demon bitch. Brenda is a survivor, and even though she loses her head in the final scene, she lives on. After all, I’m too pretty to die.

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