Filed under: media industries 1 | Tags: brainstorming, cinema, questions, reading, topics
This week’s reading was really helpful and I’m going to give it a go in this blog post in terms of some of the things we discussed in last weeks tutorial. Our overall if you take it topic is a combination of independant vs international filmmaking and cutting edge original films, which is so broad it’s completely ridiculous. The reading shows some steps in terms of narrowing broad topics in to particular narrow areas of research that not break into the ‘too narrow’ domain. One of I guess the sub-topics that I wrote down was building reputations in the film industry, which is still very broad, however it links with other things that i wrote down such as marketing, retaining quality filmmakers and building a brand. So, say I stick with these ideas as my very general sub-topics. Now the job needed to be done is to focus that topic. To do this the reading suggests that you use words such as: ‘conflict, description, contribution, and development’ (p. 43) to tune your broad topic into a more developed focused one.
So say my broad topic is: building reputations in the film industry. This can be focused into something such as ‘The contribution of marketing in creating a larger Australian film culture’ or ‘The importance of the contribution of branding in order to build Australian film reputations.’ Or something of the like this narrows down something broad and looks at a certain area of topic, the first example being the study of marketing and the second being on branding. It narrows the path of study into how reputations can be built, and focuses in on one specific example. The next thing the reading wants you to do is turn your now narrowed topic into a claim rather than a statement.
‘The contribution of marketing in creating a larger film culture’ to ‘In Australia there is a crucial need to promote and market films in order to instill a larger and loyal reputation for Australian cinema’
Or something along those lines, anyway it is expanding the original idea into something a lot more specified.
The next part of the reading focuses on moving a focused topic to questions. Firstly you must ‘Identify the Parts and How they Interrelate’:
What are the parts of your topic, and how do they relate to one another?
Why is there a need to promote Australian cinema? How will marketed films create a loyal Australian audience? Will certain parts of marketing and promotion work more effectively in order to build the reputation of Australian cinema?
How is your topic part of a larger system?
How have other national cinemas effectively marketed their films? What is the general consensus about Australian cinema? Does web dominance give new and improved outlets of how we can market Australian cinema?
Secondly, you must ‘Trace Its Own History and Its Role in a Larger History:
How and why has your topic changed through time, as something with its own history?
What were the original perceptions of Australian cinema when it began? How has the Australian cinema experience changed? What are the major factors leading to the changing nature of Australian cinema? Has the reputation of Australian cinema changed over time?
How and why is your topic an episode in a larger history?
Why is Australian cinema so badly received compared to other national cinemas? What examples of Australian cinema have been received well due to international marketing? How has the digital age changed the possibilities in terms of how Australian films can be marketed? Why is a loyal audience important?
Thirdly, Identify Its Characteristics and the Categories that Include It
Well I don’t really understand the questions here as they seem rather vague, therefore I will skip this for the moment.
Fourthly, Determine Its Value
What values does your topic reflect? What values does it support? Contradict?
Does marketing undermine the value of the film simply as a film? Does marketing undermine the value of the film as art? Can an art film be marketed and still be worthy of its artistic value?
How good or bad is your topic? Is it useful?
Are films already marketed successfully in Australia? Are some films unmarketable? Is there any point in marketing films when films are dying anyway? Is it more useful to look at how the web is changing marketing strategies?
The next step is to evaluate all your questions, which I will come back to shortly.
Reference:
‘From Topics to Questions’ in Booth, W; Colomb, G; Williams, J. ‘The Craft of Research,’ (p. 40-52). Chicago: University of Chicago University Press, 2nd ed. 2003.
In our meeting last week I wanted to know a little bit about Gina’s story in order to set up the interview in terms of thinking about location. I asked her to give us a sort of list of words that would describe her car crash story. I wanted to use these words similarly to our first video exercise where we were given a word we had to capture. I did this because I wanted to start thinking about where we would film Gina’s interview. She described her car crash as:
suprising, scary, shock, nobody screamed, 12 hour hospital, uncomfortable, painful, angry-mad, got over it, swearing, disorientated, wasn’t allowed to move.
When she was discussing these different emotions she put a lot of emphasis on the hospital and being uncomfortable as she was not allowed to move. We started talking about the interview and we decided to film it in a white space and film the interview very uncomfortably, so the audience feels Gina’s discomfort. We decided on the white space because it mimicked a hospital environment. I want to film the interview on weird disturbing angles, yet keep the camera quite static, or perhaps have it moving the whole time. The emphasis will be on making the audience feel high levels of discomfort. If this doesn’t work I was thinking of putting Gina in an uncomfortable position, or making her move a lot when she is talking. This technique reminds me of a documentary I saw over the break called Man On Wire (James Marsh, 2008) which was about the tiperope walker that walked on a tiperope between the twin towers. In some of his interviews he moved around re-inacting bits of the adventure of sneaking into the Twin Towers, he was constantly moving and re-living the excitement of being there very animatedly through his interviews. I think that this could work for Gina’s story as well, and will do something that Paul suggested in class- throw the rule book out and see what happens. Who puts rules in place like three point lighting? Why does our interviewee have to be sitting down? He also suggested that we add overlay to our interview, things that poetically relate to the interviewees story. We will think about this after the interview.
My idea is to explore the lives of the homeless women at Bethlehem Community Inc. However, I’m having a lot of difficulty thinking about how to construct a narrative from these women’s lives or more than a narrative an approach. Christine’s lecture really broadened my ideas in terms of what I can do with my idea. So I will use the different examples from her lecture that she applied to the circus to apply to my idea.
IDEA #1
I missed the title of the film, however it was where a camera man interviewed strangers in a certain place over a week. The theme being to capture the place.
My translation:
To explore the women in terms of the centre itself. How the women interact with the space of Bethlehem Community. Eg. What it means for them to be in this safe environment. It would be casual talking and interacting with the women we come across and asking them a few questions.
IDEA #2 Humain Trop Humain
A film formed around shape, an illustration of the time and process of making cars. The film is about pattern and repetition.
My translation:
Showing the pattern and rhythms of these women. Not really interviews, but what happens on a day to day basis. Forming the documentary around the everyday lives of these women, around their routines and behaviour. Film over one day, or the same time of day for a week. Capturing moments of repetition, and therefore indicating what is important to these women.
IDEA #3 Sherman’s March
A highly personal take, where the filmmaker is also the subject. An old fashioned journey towards love. The filmmaker inserts himself into the process.
My translation:
Becoming part of the environment these women live in a embrassing it. Making myself a subject and joining in doing what they do. It would be about interviewing but also talking about it myself and my revelations directly or through voice over. Interacting and engaging living the lives they live.
IDEA #4 Conflict in relation to Nick Broomfield
Finding the conflict and if you can’t find conflict searching for it.
My translation:
This would be difficult. The best way to approach this would be finding conflict between the women’s past and their current situations. The conflict that made them homeless and exploring this. Also their current conflicts in overcoming those past events and striving for a more positive future.
IDEA #5 Eroll Morris’s The Fog of War
Forming the documentary around lessons. Or some type artificial idea. A very formal approach to the documentary.
My translation:
Finding commonalities between the women and forming the documentary around different steps. I think steps could work as I assume they’ve been through some of the same steps through their life. Formulating questions and being very deliberate in terms of how we film. Collating archival footage/photos and having a well established idea of what shots we want.
Filed under: reflection | Tags: brainstorming, formatting, script, short film
CeltX is the greatest download ever, everyone should use it to write their scripts it’s AMAZING. It does all the formatting for you, especially putting in all the appropriate indentations and the continued elements. However, the reading from last week is still really important because you need it for all the parenthesis stuff and how to do flashbacks and so forth. However, it terms of time saving CeltX is great and allows you to save as a pdf file. It also allows you to view your script in several ways, where you can single out the dialogue and the action if you just want to work on one or the other, and futher allows you to single out just one character’s dialogue so it’s pretty terrific.
I thought that I just needed to start writing my script otherwise I never would start because I know what I’m like. I just jumped on the computer and began. I continuously wrote for around 2 hours I think and good about 4 and a half pages of drafting. It is not over-looked in anyway, however I’m really happy with my storyline, which I have again modified in response to Christine’s suggestions. Basically, I need Ryan’s desire to be thwarted even further if she just sold his records that would be it so I made it that she bought the record that he want more than anything but tells him he cannot have it because by not having it it will prove to her that she is more important than his records. Ryan then because he thinks that she is telling him that if he finds the record he can have it searches for it and returns to find her with divorce papers in hands and therefore it is this great moment where he has the record and she has the divorce papers and they just look at each other. However, just thinking about it now I’ve changed my mind about a few things. Firstly, in my script (which you can find the draft of here) it is revealed to the audience before it is revealed to Ryan about the divorce papers. However, I think there will be way more drama if the camera follows Ryan on his search and returns and the audience finds out at the same time as Ryan, so it creates a twist and inherently makes it more DYNAMIC. I also need to go back through both character’s dialogue to make sure there is nothing that doesn’t sit true to the character. I also think that it might be unnecessary to have the other record room, because I might be able to keep the location to a singular room, which would be easier and require less production design.
I mean still there is a lot of work to do, it is just an initial drafting effort, but atleast it’s a start. I’ll keep you posted. On a final note BLADE RUNNER has a fantastic opening screen description that I read on script-o-rama of course. It is filled with highly visual language and I feel like I can see the scene, because it is so visually detailed using metaphor, it’s beautifully dynamic. It also stimulates some ideas for my scene descriptions. I really want to add temperature to my scene, a sense of the weather because I want to create a large amount of tension between the characters, even before they begin arguing, this also leads me to believe that maybe the house should be messy. I want the situation to be fuelled and dramatic, but not over the top. It’s kind of instinctive as well. The characters are stuck in something they can’t escape.
It's magnified and deeply revealed. Flecks of green
and yellow in a field of milky blue. Icy filaments
surround the undulating center.
The eye is brown in a tiny screen. On the metallic
surface below, the words VOIGHT-KAMPFF are finely
etched. There's a touch-light panel across the top
and on the side of the screen, a dial that registers
fluctuations of the iris.
The instrument is no bigger than a music box and sits
on a table between two men. The man talking is big,
looks like an over-stuffed kid. "LEON" it says on
his breast pocket. He's dressed in a warehouseman's
uniform and his pudgy hands are folded expectantly in
his lap. Despite the obvious heat, he looks very cool.
The man facing him is lean, hollow cheeked and dressed
in gray. Detached and efficient, he looks like a cop
or an accountant. His name is HOLDEN and he's all
business, except for the sweat on his face.
The room is large and humid. Rows of salvaged junk
are stacked neatly against the walls. Two large fans
whir above their heads.
I found the feedback I got from my synopsis in credibly helpful and really exactly what I needed to make my script more dynamic and more dramatically interesting, rather than just concluding a full rounded film. Here is the feedback I got:
- make the wife more spiteful, build up the tension further and further- Christine suggested that by the wife simply just selling the records it concludes the drama and there is nothing to take it any further, she suggested that I make the wife more malicious, by giving him some type of task, like a deadline- you can’t finish the collection of that artist. Ruby added to this further by saying that perhaps the wife wants something from Ryan and wont let him buy a record until he does that for her. I really need to think about this because I think stopping Ryan from doing something will really send him crazy and heighten the drama.
- Christine also suggested that I could have an open ending, which because of all this talk about resolution I thought I really needed to tie up the ending. Christine however said that my film sounded too much like Act One, where the rest of the film Ryan would be trying to win her back. She suggested that perhaps it ends with the wife in the process of leaving Ryan, but has not actually left yet. I’m imagining the ending being them still in tension sitting next to each other on a couch, her with divorce papers in her hands and him with a record. There is no conclusion, but it is at the verge of a conclusion.
- I also got some feedback when Christine said to another person in the class that she could tell that my approach to my film was an Engligh, Frenchy approach, which I had not taken into much consideration. I like films about relationships because I think they’re really interesting, especially about love and marriage and things like that, which come up a lot in French and English films, they are bounded by relationships. Relationships drive the film. In thinking about my film I want to make it quirkier, especially through Ryan there is something quite quirky about people that are obsessed with collecting things and I want my short film to almost be a battle between his wife and him. He has to make a choice, because she has forced him too. Therefore there is also a pyschological battle going on in Ryan’s head, do his record’s mean more than his marriage?
- Another bit of feedback I got from Christine when she was talking to someone else concerned consequences, what is at stake? This is easy for Ryan, he has two things at stake- his record collection and his marriage. However, it is more than that when people collect things it is nostalgic, it reminds them of something and keeps reminding them of something that they really enjoy and get a lot of happiness from. I want their marriage to be at breaking point, I want my film to capture a moment of crisis. He will come home with a record instead of some petty bit of furniture, which sends his wife into a spiteful rage, in which she declares that she won’t allow him to buy any more records, until he does some type of huge favour for her, or something like that. This leads to termoil because Ryan has bought atleast one record a week for his whole life, and now she has cracked and said no more. This puts Ryan into a world he hasn’t been in before and as he attempts to do his wife a favour all he can think about is records, and therefore avoids doing the favour as he is completely lost in his own self pity and his wife feels no sympathy towards him, in fact she quite enjoys it. When Ryan cracks and buys a record instead of the favour his wife almost pyschotically starts signing divorce papers, the last scene ends with her with divorce papers and him with a record sitting and staring at one another.
However, I want neither of these characters to be that strong in character they are quirky, but they’re not brave and they do things instinctively. Therefore her rage is almost out of nowhere, because she is so fed up. It doesn’t really have anything to do with the lamp. I need to keep thinking and really establish the core of the conflict. However, I kinda want the whole thing to be kinda petty.
FIrstly it is important to know what a synopsis is. On Dictionary.com it describes a synopsis as:
a brief or condensed statement giving a general view of some subject
In terms of my short screenplay it will be a condensed version of the script itself, a brief outline of the beginning, middle and end. Christine in our tutorial said to make them as brief as possible, consisting of 2-3 sentences, which should be achievable considering our films are only 5 minutes long. I found a really good site that outlined the process of making a film synopsis, even though it described how to write a synopsis for a feature length film it still applies for a short film as well. It outlines 3 steps, in which it says to divide your film into three equal parts the first third, second third and the last third. It says to start by identifying the main character and core conflict. The main aim of the synopsis is to sell the film, it is the first thing the producer will read and if they don’t like it they wont read your script. After outlining the main character and conflict the site says to:
divulge the major plot points that transpire in the first act of your film.
Ok, so when thinking about my storyline, say my film is 5 minutes long so the first third will be just over a minute and a half. It will being with an equilibrium of Ryan coming home to his wife, where the camera presents a picturesque lifestyle- clean house, etc. The camera shows rooms of the house including a room filled with records and presents as pleasant conversation between Ryan and his wife after he comes home from being out. However, what escalates by the end of this act is that his wife asks him if he got a present for her friends wedding, in which he replies that he instead got a record to add to his collection. Actually I’ve slightly changed this idea, what is first presented to the audience is Ryan coming home with a record and placing it in his record collection in a room before he visits his wife in the loungeroom in which the argument escalates and she goes completely insane at Ryan somewhat unnecessarily. This is the end of the first act. The beginning of their argument.
In the second third of your synopsis according to eHow says to:
Escalate the suspense and risks in your second paragraph
in which it also says to:
only tell us the key scenes and turning points that influence the lead character’s actions. We don’t need to know what any of the peripheral players are doing or every single stop the protagonist makes between Point A and Point B unless it factors into complicating the problem or contributing to its solution.
This is where the conflict should really play out, with a sense of some type of resolution coming right at the end. This section in my film will continue a large fight between wife and Ryan, showing him leaving the house because he doesn’t understand why his wife cannot accept his love of records, and when I say she goes insane I mean it, she completely flips out at him. The end of this scene shows him returning to his house and finding all his records gone, his wife has sold all his records out of spite. Due to this being the height of the conflict, this is the end of the second act.
The third act described by eHow is:
Escalate the suspense and risks yet again in your third paragraph
However, this becomes less apparent because it is a short story there is no time to keep escalating things, you need to get to a resolution. Ryan packs his things and leaves his wife and the next short bit shows him recollecting all his records. Showing him in a fast-forward type of mode filling a room with records again. The conclusion shows him sitting in a room with all his records smiling. However the bitter irony is that he has nothing else, as the camera shows all the other rooms in his house as empty. There is resolution, however there is also something sad about it. His records meant everything to him, that he sacrificed the rest of his life.
There is one more tip that eHow points out and that is:
Too many writers treat the synopsis exercise as if it were a third-grade book report and include cutesy comments such as, “If you want to find out what Farmer McGregor did to the bunnies after they stole his vegetables, you will have to read it yourself.” An agent or production company wants to know that YOU know how to finish the story and that it is a satisying one that ties up all of the loose ends.
I didn’t really know this. I thought there might need to be some type of mystery, however the synopsis really needs to show that you know exactly what your talking about and to what point your script is going to go to. This is my first draft for my synopsis, where I have included all the main plot points:
Ryan’s passion has always been records, his collection being his pride and joy. However, when Ryan comes home with a record instead of a wedding present, his wife decides to seek the perfect revenge. Ryan is shattered, leaves his wif and recovers all his lost records. As he marvels at his new collection, there is one sad truth; he has nothing else.
It still seems a bit clunky to me, however I will keep working on it.
I have pretty much completely changed my idea for my short film, mainly because I really wasn’t happy and wrote my one-liner very quickly, due to a mounting of stress last week- my cousin (who I love with was in hospital). I decided there were so many flaws in my storyline, especially surrounding character motivation and desire; why would Annabelle want to find the novels she didn’t really care about? I couldn’t really resolve this problem so I decided to start brainstorming again and really think about what I wanted to achieve with my script. My brainstorming was all over the place, so I don’t really want to bore you with the tedious notions of my brain. However, I think I really discovered the best way for my to brainstorm and that is on paper. I know that I’m meant to keep track of my ideas on this blog, but sometimes I need to leave the internet and screen world behind and resort back to that old method of pen and paper. I found the non-linearity of being able to write anywhere and made thinking more spontaneous. As for my new idea…
I started by first flipping my original story to have the person that bought all of Annabelle’s books as my protagonist and have the money-driven greedy Annabelle as the antagonist. This weeks lecture and reading really helped my focus on protagonist and antagonist, enabling me to think really clearly about character and because it is recommended that we only have to characters it really limited your options- one has to be the protagonist and one has to be the antagonist. However, I still didn’t find much conflict in the scenario and then just thought of the idea of the collecter. It’s always interesting when people become obsessed with something that can mean very little to a lot of other people.My first idea was to had a man thats pride and joy is collecting something. However, when a greedy other collecter wants to buy our protagonists collection the protagonist must decide whether money or the collection is more important, especially when the buyer becomes more and more obsessed with buying the collection, really playing on the protagonist’s mind. I was having a little trouble finding resolution in the ending because I had this great visual of just the protagonist sitting in an empty room with nothing, but that creates no resolution what-so-ever and would be highly disappointing to the audience. So, I scraped that idea and started thinking about who else would be annoyed or go against someone collecting something, if the protagonists desire is to grow the collection, who would want to make that desire impossible to achieve? I then thought the envious wife, who thinks their husband likes their record collection more than them. This got me thinking even further, however I wanted our sympathies to still lie with the collector, not the wife. I therefore decided this:
The husband is meant to go out and buy a wedding present for a friend of hers and then when he goes out and spends 200 dollars on a record instead it is enough to send the wife over the edge to the point where she sells his entire record collection. I orginally thought that he forgot to buy her a birthday or anniversary present, however I thought that would elicit sympathy towards the wife instead, I therefore wanted it to be something reasonably petty. Due, to the records being the protagonists pride and joy he packs up and leaves her to re-collect his entire record collection. After he re-collects all the records he finds himself happy with the entire collection, however the subtle irony is that he has nothing else.
I like this because there is resolution but there is something bitter in the resolution, which creates a dynamic drama. There is a really strong desire and a thwarting of that desire. I feel like this has all of the key ingredients to a good story and therefore good screenplay. I decided on records because I wanted to think of something that is logistically in terms of props easy to find a large amount of, it is also nostalgic and people often hold on to things that have a nostalgic presence. I think that I should probably re-create a one-liner:
When Ryan (35) buys a record instead of doing his wife a favour, what extreme will she go to in order to punish him? What will be the ramifications for Ryan and his most valued possessions?
To be honest, me being completely non-religious I had never really been exposed to this concept untill I watched Seven, the 1997 film by David Fincher, in which a serial killer kills his victims according to the 7 deadly sins. It is an amazing film, with an amazing concept, yet it’s already been done and probably wouldn’t squeeze into a five-minute film, in fact that would be impossible. Therefore when approaching my short film I don’t think I will have such a complex approach to the theme. I thought I would do some research into the seven deadly sins in terms of exactly what they mean and then nut out where my character will fit. I found a site on the seven deadly sins, which places each sin against its opposite and therefore gives a type of comparison, for example the opposite of pride is humility and therefore:
Seeing ourselves as we are and not comparing ourselves to others is humility. Pride and vanity are competitive. If someone else’s pride really bothers you, you have a lot of pride.
It gives more insight into each sin by highlighting it’s opposite, giving a more precise indication of exactly what pride means. In terms of the other 6 deadly sins, their opposites are: Greed/Generosity, Envy/Love, Anger/Kindness, Lust/Self-control, Gluttony/Temperance, Sloth/Zeal. I think it would be kinda cool to have a character that is a kind of mixture between the two, for instance is extremely generous towards other people, but then hordes money and possessions that could infer greed. You get the drift, so it’s almost like a conflict between two opposite traits. However, that wouldn’t really create a dynamic storyline. So this is kinda what I was thinking along the lines of, because I know a lot of sloth-like characters, that would create a really dynamic short story. Something along the lines of:
24-year-old delusional Daniel is doing nothing with his life, except for drinking his life away and watching television. With no life prospects and no ambition Daniel finds himself kicked out of his share house, with nowhere to go.
I need to think of a catalyst, which will turn Daniel around or let him crash even further, with a small aspect of hope at the end, however there needs to be something learnt along the way. I was also thinking of some really successful artist, who has always been lucky with success, while being incredibly sloth-like in his/her approach to work. However when he/she finds that all his/her work has mysteriously disappeared from a gallery, will he/she finally learn that effort does count. Therefore something like this:
Annabelle always found art easy and made millions of dollars from not much effort. However, when all her art mysteriously disappears from a gallery, will she finally learn that effort sometimes counts?
However, in some aspects this needs to be worked on because I want to draw in another character, perhaps the person who stole the art is a envious competitor or maybe it’s just someone that collects a ridiculous amount of art in a gluttonous act. However, representing this may be slightly difficult because I would need to collect a ridiculous amount of art. Maybe, I could swap this around to perhaps an author and then someone buys/steals every copy of one of his/her books.
Annabelle always found writing easy, never putting much effort into her work. However, when all the copies of her newest novel mysteriously disappear, she must discover why anyone would want them all. Will her encounter with the eccentric maths professor that traps her in the words of her book change her perspective?
I really like this because it leaves a lot of options open for me when I begin to write the script. When I was thinking of who would buy her novels I thought of someone who you would never expect to be eccentric and never expect to be interested in novels. I have more interest in this character than Annabelle because I really enjoy quirky characters, and I want Annabelle to be very conservative and unemotional, someone who writes from what she has learnt rather than experience and emotion. The conflict lies in her meeting the maths teacher, where there is this thwarted desire between her being particularly lazy doing something she knows she can do well and doing something she actually wants to do. As with the maths professor his gluttonous act towards literature will bring this conflict to the forefront because even though he is a maths professor his absurd collection of literature will help her realise that there is more to life than doing what you excel at and making money from it. I like the idea of being trapped within the words of her book, which will also thwart her desire because it brings on this idea of never being able to escape, when she really needs to in order to find this new sense of what she wants to do. I also like how it gives a quirky spin to traditonal narrative.
In terms of theme, she represents the sloth, but also greed in a way because she is being greedy in terms of creating money out of something she finds easy and pays little attention to. In terms of the maths professor I like this idea of gluttony but really in a almost positive light because it will really make her realise that she as a writer doesn’t enjoy literature as much as a maths professor.
In the week one reading on narratives it makes a point of traditional storytelling starting with an equilibrium, then that he equilibrium is disrupted and then a different equilibrium is formed. I think in terms of my short narrative it starts with an euqilibrium of Annabelle being a successful writer, not realising that it is something that she doesn’t really enjoy. It is disrupted by the professor who makes her discover that writing isn’t really her passion, it is almost his. A different equilibrium is formed when she does something about it and feels a sense of happiness.
I will work on this further throughout the week to get to a full synopsis for next weeks hurdle.
Reference: Branston, G. and Stafford, R. The media student’s book, (p. 32-48). 3rd ed. London: Routledge, 2003.
