Pitch

As Santa Clara students, we have experienced some of the tracking methods that Doctorow presents in his novel. Although less extreme methods are used here, we are nonetheless being tracked. Our access cards are specifically coded with numbers that identify each individual. Whenever we swipe them to get into our dorm, eat in benson, or attend a sporting even as a ruff rider, we "check in" somewhere. At other schools in high- crime zones, students are required to pass through metal detectors when entering the school and police officers roam the campus to ensure that all is under control. I think it would make an interesting marchinima to take a school, which could be Santa Clara, and take security to extremes, mimicking the security measures in Doctorow's novel and expanding on them with some real-world measures taken to maintain national security. I think the best way to portray the story would be through a journal or blog of some sort, which could be recorded by one character or multiple characters. Borrowing characters from Doctorow's book, the plot would develop around a few student's quest to destroy the security system that tracks them. These students would use the activists that Doctorow alludes to in his novel as models. This would mean that instead of being secretive in their actions, Marcus, Van, etc. would expose themselves from the start. This would communicate to the audience something that I think is important: for a movement to succeed, it needs to have leaders to represent it and communicate with higher powers in a meaningful way, so their actions are not viewed as terrorism.