FILM DISSERTATION PROJECT!
I'm not entirely sure how excited I am that this will be my last project at university. I'm excited to do the work and hopefully come out at the end with a good film, but I don't think I'm quite ready to leave uni. Time flies. :S
I must admit I didn't do much film or scriptwriting during the summer. I was rather busy working to make sure I had enough money for rent and bills as I do not live with my mother and student finance does not last forever.
For this final year, I decided to follow the path of directing. At the end of year two it was agreed that myself and Ineta would work together - she being my producer. We met over the summer to speak about deadlines and script. In this meeting we decided that I would come up with three concepts for a script and that in the next meeting we would discuss them and decide on one.
I had come up two concepts but could not think of a third one.
The concepts:
Idea 1-
Title:
‘In my head’
One line description:
A look at one way a relationship can go from being great to an absolute tragedy from the man’s point of view.
Description:
A happy couple who are deeply in love and living together, find themselves losing each other due to one, uncertainty. For a very short while the girl needs some space and doesn't know how she feels, her partner accepts. Although he accepts, he can’t help but to wonder why, and this is when he begins to seek deeper in his head and questioning everything. “Why? Does she love me? Did I do something wrong? Is it me? Did she cheat on me?” These are but some of the things that go through his mind. It carries on for so long until he becomes hostile and starts making his own assumptions. His irrational thinking causes the downfall of a possible great relationship.
Style:
Filming wise I would like this to be very simple/ordinary. No extravagant shots.
In post-production I would like to play around with colour/sound, using them as metaphors. I imagine the film starting out in colour and good sound meaning all is great. As the film goes on and things start getting worse I would like to see the colour be sucked/fading away until the very end where it is black and white.
With sound the same principle. At the beginning we hear everything properly, ambiance and dialogue. When the man starts doubting himself and everything around him, I want minimal sound, again faded away, and we begin to hear crispier dialogue as we enter his head.
Idea 2-
Title:
“Untitled”
One line description:
A young man who can read minds uses his ability to become more than what he is.
Description:
With the ability to read minds a young man listen to the thoughts of others looking for their opinions of him. With this, he begins to change by in order to “better” himself. Day-by-day he seeks deeper and begins behaving in a way that he deems appropriate to others. Trying to be more each day and still not being able to feel happy or making others happy he realises that even with all this he cannot please all nor himself. He loses himself and ultimately others who he loves.
Style:
Unlike the first idea, I would like to keep the image/colour and sound the same throughout the film. This idea is more direct and not so much about using colour and sound as metaphors.
Much like the first idea, I would like to focus on the mind. By that I mean we can hear what the thoughts of others that he hears so the audience can understand what he is change and why.
Decision:
Ineta read what I had sent her and she then got back to me.
This is what she had to say:
Good morning, Miguel. So I read both of the ideas and I like the second one more. It feels like we could do so much more with it. I am not too passionate about the first one though... What do you think? Should we do the second one?I agreed to do the second Idea. When we next met, we spoke about how much time we had until third year began and what we needed to achieve by then. Ineta made it clear that she wanted a solid script by the 6th of October. I felt enthusiastic and agreed.
Things didn't go quite as planned. I started to write a script and for the most part I was happy about it. However, it took more effort than what I expected, thus, making it feel unnatural to me. I felt as though I had to think too hard about what to write. I was also going through quite tough(to me) personal issues at the time and it made it even harder to focus on what I was doing. As a result of this I kept on missing deadlines. For a while everything felt like an impediment. AM I HAVING WRITERS BLOCK? I don't know but I cannot focus.
As time went on, I became a little more frustrated with and realised the story I was writing was just too complicated for a 12 minute film. I toned it downed and changed the characters a little more. I wanted to focus more on the mind reading aspect of the film and the main protagonist's girlfriend as a catalyst to him losing himself more. Once again, I worked myself up and del confident about the script... I was wrong. Still having problems with it.
First day back at university
We started this year off with a two hour lecture with all out classmates and Sharon, Eddie, David and Helen. They spoke to us a bit more about what this year will entail. The pressure is on, but its also very good. Towards the end of the session we had the chance to watch some of the recent graduate's work from last year. I was quite impressed with their work and later got to hear what they had to say about their work and working relationships. A graduate named Inga caught my attention when she spoke about ending her work with her first director. She explained how it was never anything personal but due to the way they both work it clashed a bit and so they went their separate ways. That same day I decided to speak to Ineta about the future of our work together. I explained to her that I was going through some personal issues and for that reason I could not giver her 100% dedication at the time. I value her way of work very much: she is strict, straight to the point and punctual. There are some things I need to take care of before I can dedicate myself fully to this. I hope it won't take long. As of yet, I am looking for a new producer, with the hopes of coming out at the end with a great film. :D
Week 1 friday workshop
I am a little ashamed to say that I missed the morning session :( However I did go to the second one where David and Anna introduced us to the crane and steady cam to use with the Black Magic camera.
They began the session with the crane. They explained to us to use it properly and how to set it up. Not long after it was time to work on it ourselves. We designated roles to different people: director, camera op, DOP, actors e.t.c. I was an actor in this task. The goal have a shot where with movement from the crane and use the space wisely. SO... Ruben (Director) decided on a little sketch where myself and another 4 people would sit around a table playing poker - I was the dealer.
We all tried hard but things, in my opinion did go a little slow. I bare in mind that it was the first time we were using this kind of equipment but because I was an actor I had to wait quite a while. We did get there in the end. :D
Secondly we moved onto the steadicam. They gave us the basics of how to set it up and test that it was balanced correctly by showing us the 3 second test. Later people got a chance to try it on. Florentina went up and tried it first. Soon after we came to the conclusion that the steadicam wasn't always female friendly as it can be quite restricting to a woman's chest. -_-
I quite enjoyed this session, but I must say that it did get quite slow at times.
Week 2 friday workshop
Week 3 monday seminar
In this seminar we had someone new. Patrick, A lecturer we had never had before. He began by explaining that this was a one off session and that he probably won't teach us again.
Anyway... the focus of this session was our project proposal that we have to hand in in week 7. Patrick talked to us about what a project proposal entail and with the help of a powerpoint her gave us a good idea of what kind of format the proposal would have to be written in.
PITCH
Schedule:
No comments:
Post a Comment