Poll results

Thank you for voting. The Title fight is now on. Your mission is to create a new title, designed specifically for the cable TV series of the Journey.

Brief

Prepare your ideas for a new title. DO NOT submit them until the call for submissions.

You will be notified by email and social media as to when and how submissions should be made.

If your submission is selected we will pay you to purchase your intellectual property outright. If we use your title, as well as being paid, you will be credited on the development site as the creator of the title.

Prepare your submissions now, ready for the call.

Who can submit a title?

Any Journey team member. If you have a profile on the site, you can submit. Not a member? Join. 

How to create a title

There are many ways to create a title. You can scroll-down to view our handy how-to links below. In the meantime, here are a few techniques to get you started.

What’s it about?

Game, movie or TV series, the best titles tell you what the story is about. For example, ‘Call of duty’ is about, a call to duty.

Create mystery or a, ‘What if?’

A title that poses the question, ‘What if’ or creates a mystery is equally interesting. For example, ‘Contact’ .

Genre

Genre will shape title. For example, an, ‘Epic – fantasy’ often uses three to four word titles that define what the story is about.

For example, ‘Lord of the rings’   or  ‘Game of thrones.’

Idioms

You can employ idioms that are both literal and that reveal what the story is about. For example, ‘Face off.’ Face off’ means to confront. In the movie ‘Face off’ it is both an idiom and a literal usage. The protagonist and antagonist swap faces and face-off. 

Conflict

Whichever technique you employ, the best titles speak of the conflict.

‘Game of thrones’ speaks of the battle for power.

‘Lord of the rings’ also speaks of the battle for power.

So, where does the conflict lie in the Journey? Scroll-down to read our ‘Guide to Journey’s conflict’ below.

Intellectual property

The purchase of your submission secures the rights to use the selected title for the TV series and all other ancillary rights ongoing but does not oblige Presence Films to use the title.

Terms and conditions

To submit your title ideas you must agree to the terms and conditions. Specific terms and conditions will be supplied with the call for submissions.

Purchase fee

$1000 for the first choice, $250 for the second and $100 for the third.

When?

Do NOT submit your title ideas until we notify you we are ready to receive them.

How long will Presence receive submissions for?

We’ll advise with the call for submissions. 

Reference guides online

http://indiemoviemaking.com/5-tips-to-make-a-better-title/

http://www.salon.com/2011/02/11/just_go_with_it_movie_title_interview/

http://www.chrisjonesblog.com/2011/07/top-ten-tips-for-titling-your-movie.html

http://www.scriptfly.com/articles/movietitles.shtml

http://www.fortheretarded.com/?p=56

Reference – Dream Movies

Whilst Journey is not strictly a dream story like ‘Waking life’ or ‘Lost’ it starts with three characters who have come to our world and forgotten who they are and why they are here. Toowyn’s family, from the other world, try to wake Toowyn through a series of visions. Michael tries to beat them awake and even the King steps in to gently remind him. When Toowyn does finally wake, the entire first season has taken place in just a moment in the other world. It has been a baptism of fire and a literal baptism. 

So, dreaming, alarms and warnings are part of the story.

http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/lucid-dreaming-movies.html

Guide to Journey’s conflict

The main character Toowyn, is a prince without a kingdom. He is an everyman character and the voice for, and the experience of, all of humanity.

His journey sees him discover his purpose, serve the king, shift his allegiance to Kristoff then back to the king again.

This is a battle not just to determine who will rule the kingdom but also to determine the fate of humanity. One among us is the ‘Creator seed’, the next evolution, a creator of universes and a mentor of species.

Toowyn is the key to the identity of the creator seed. Both Kristoff and the King seek to align the creator seed to them. For Kristoff, his survival depends on it. For the king, his legacy as a creator parent depends on it.

The two main combatants

The combatants are layered.

Ultimately, this s a battle between a god-king and his vision for humanity and a disinherited son, Kristoff, the satan-angel, who finds himself replaced by humanity.

Kristoff is aggrieved. He earnestly believes he is the far better choice and that humanity is ultimately flawed.

Values in conflict

From Kristoff’s perspective this is a battle for inheritance of the kingdom and his rightful place.

From the god-king’s perspective this is about his legacy. He seeks to create legacy, for his creation humanity, to transcend and become everything he is and to exceed him, to become a creator of universes and mentor to sentient species.

Internal conflict

The god-king is modelled on a Christian format of a trinity. This is a god who reinvents himself in an attempt to achieve relationship with his creations.

As the god-king, he’s like a white James Brown, a creative genius but a tyrant to work for.

In the son form, he is a zealot, a man of the people, an individual who chooses to walk among the people to experience their journey.

In his spirit form, he is a companion, challenger and comforter.

This is an amateur god, working it out as he goes and getting it wrong more often than not.

He struggles with jealousy. He wants for his children to exceed him but when they do he becomes enraged, (the Tower of Babel effect). The only way he can address the journey of his children is by recreating himself in three forms.

The disinherited son Kristoff,  is not unreasonable. He too has been shunned by a jealous god and all of his reforms and contributions rejected. The worst outcome was to discover that humanity would inherit the kingdom.

Kristoff is a dynamic leader. He is charismatic and charming but he is not a creative and he holds some secret despise for humanity because it is.

It creates a sickness in him that is only appeased by humanity’s suffering. Thus, in the other world he is an oppressor. 

Most of all he believes humanity is capable of all manner of evil without any help from him. They are not worthy however Kristoff will work with some among humanity and whilst Toowyn is initially tasked with quests against Kristoff, the two finally become friends, good friends who team up together.

This does not last but whilst it does, Kristoff and Toowyn both feel they have found true friends and understanding in each other.

Kristoff is devoted to the king. He has a deep love for him and believes ardently that every action he takes is in his service. He is what conservatives would describe to as a patriot, a true believer, a doctrinaire locked into a cause and a way of thinking who believes his actions are justified and in service of a greater cause.

Other combatants – Michael Senninger – The angel Michael

In this world Michael Senninger, the angel know as Michael, is a zealous, officious and arrogant executor of tasks and the law. He is a mix between the worst version of an officious public servant carrying out charter without regards to its impact and a head of the secret police. Even though he remains on the king’s side, he and many of the angels despise humanity.

He and Kristoff are highly focused combatants who truly hate each other.

Whereas Kristoff develops a genuine brotherly love for Toowyn within the whole series, Michael perceives Toowyn and humanity as worthless upstarts who are undeserving.

From the get-go, Michael treats Toowyn harshly and derives a secret pleasure in making his life a misery.

Shrink-wrapped

Consider this, what is the god-head? Odd question? What if all of the entities, the angels and the trinity were the same entity? What if it was a creator-god at war with itself, trying to divine how it should behave?

These issues are not unknown to you. Consider the role of the parent. They are creator, teacher, carer, disciplinarian and more. There is no real school for parenting until you do it. Parents get things wrong but ultimately they are trying to determine how should raise their children.

The greatest goal for any parent may be to see their children become everything they are and to exceed them.

Achieving that will see you wear many hats and make many mistakes so is it so strange that a god would wear many hats and manifest in many forms to achieve their ultimate goal of the transcendence of humanity?

Other key elements

Road

Toowyn is a road builder in our world but also builds a road of life in the other world where the prisoners held are freed and can return to the kingdom.

Destroyer

Toowyn is also the biblically prophesied destroyer of worlds.

Sleeping

Toowyn and the three have fallen asleep. Not literally but they have forgotten why they have come to this world and need to be woken from their slumber.

Evolution and transcendence

This is a story of evolution or transcendence. The question is, will humanity survive long enough for the one among us, the ‘Creator seed’, to transcend and become a creator.

Title reference material you may borrow from

You may build on the reference material or build on other titles submitted.

What happens if someone builds on my submitted title?

Here’s the thing, you submit, ‘Dog day delight’. Someone else steals part of your title and creates a better title, ‘Dog day afternoon’. 

Getting it right is no easy thing. Getting it nearly right wont cut it. When submissions start to be made you will be able to track them sequentially. You may be the writer that steals a half right idea and makes it better.

Whilst we will be purchasing a second and third title, there is no payment for getting it half right.

Title reference material you can borrow from

Grab a title reference and play with it. For example, ‘Prince without a kingdom’. OK, how’s about, ‘The lost prince’ or ‘The forgotten prince’ etc. Reference material is something you may be able to play with to reveal a title. Good hunting. 

Conclusion

To work, to work, let the great minds create.

Questions?

Why not log in and add them in the comments section below?