Week 004 - Scripts

Am reading through scripts.
There's a great site movie-page.com.
I downloaded Lost in Translation from it - and was just struck at how wonderfully written it was - all 138 pages.
So I am on the hunt for more scripts - just as a read and to gather a good feel for how it is structured. I'm trying to stick with movies I know so I can get a visual in my head as well as reading the words.

I ran into La Jette (12 Monkeys adapted from it) and it just read like a story! I know that it was a montage film anyway, lots of still images, but it was interesting to see it all just like a narrative.
Hence how the story could function as a script anyway.

But I thought it'd be good to get a crack at it.
I tried to script VB in the past, but it always got horrifically stuck.

Hannibal
La Jette
Notting Hill
The Ring
You've Got Mail

Week 003 - Scout Locations.

Nobody wanted to walk - so we drove instead to Churchill National Park.
It's very nice there.
Wild.... with butterflies(!) so definitely something to consider.

Kalli still wanted to head into Belgrave, which is fine by me, but I just worry about conflicting schedules and having enough time to get up there to film etc.

We drove around for a bit in the Park - I personally think that it's a good potential and we can definitely do it there, without having to traipise into Belgrave, and plus it's quite central to everyone and not so far.

We finally decided that since Ruben wanted something a bit more concrete in terms of script/storyboard, we'd sit down in spare time and just slash my story to bits, finding out potential things to film etc.

Kalli and I had a mini group meeting after the boys left for work and both agreed that the film was hard to script/storyboard. I told her that I prefered to just get to a place and look it out and work with what I have - i.e. okay, here's the place we're filming and let's film it from this angle.
A more hands on approach, I guess.
But knowing we had to have something concrete - Kalli got the idea to do an animatic.
Like a prelim shooting basically.

Which sounds like a good idea and definitely gives us a direction to head in.
I think I might also look at some of the prelim footage that I've done in the past to garner some ideas as well as also editing the story to workable bits.

As for research: I'll look into the social elements and implications that the story and film hold, and this will also fit in with the rating system - and how we can garner and lead the project towards meeting this requirement and feasibility.

Week 003 - Proposal Concept Completion

Had a busy weekend.
Managed to chase up Peter's document because I knew from Kim that he had done so - but was puzzled at why I hadn't gotten anything till a group member from Studio 2 asked if I had gotten the things from Peter (he's also in my group for that - good for logistics) which lead me to check my junk mail, and there they were.

So I finished up, document today, just corrected and amended tenses, grammer, etc. Wanted to make it as readable as possible, and not wanting to have the lecturer be jarred in any way through the marking process. :p
Sent copies to everyone to persue at their leisure, but printed up a hardcopy to be handed in.

We're going scouting after the lecture tomorrow - we got permission from Ruben. That will be fun.
We'll meet at my house and then head off from there - I think we'll take one car and drive down to the area (even though we can walk - it's going to be hot... :p)

Week 002 - Communication.

Just a side note to add that Kim jsut emailed me to say that there was going to be a delay in his documentation - which I really appreciated. I had jokingly said that our due date for sections to be handed in to me so I can collate and proofread and make any necessary changes had to be done by Friday 12pm...

... I hope he didn't take it seriously. :p
Hence the email - but it was a nice gesture, nevertheless, I've never had people emailing me to let me know why they're late in certain things and getting together stuff before in my 3 years of group work (which, yes, weren't too many, but there were quite a few).

It certainly raises my confidence level that we're going to work well as a group.

I made some changes to Kalli's section - just took out the "I's, We's", it might be pedantic, but I was always told not to do so in essays/docos, so I just picked up the (good?) habit.

Now to chase up Peter's section so I can add it to the pile and make some changes. Kim's section was dependant on Peter's section, so understandably his might be a bit delayed, since he just got it.

Week 002 - Project Concept.

Just done my part on the project concept.
Well what I can do now without one of the documents I had written about the short film. I want to look over it to see what and why I had written the story, what my justifications were - well I need to read up about sex crimes and strange-rape in any case before I attempt that paragraph. :)

We're working quite well, we were discussing potential places to look at and have gotten the go-ahead from Ruben to look at some of them during our studio, so long as we hand in the doco. So, we'll go to the lecture and thus meet up; I'm having a quick meeting with Lindsay about the Macromedia Internship and then we'll be off tos scout around near my place - it's quite wild and rather 'treey' over there, so it should be quite ideal.

The other place, Kalli had suggested was Belgrave, but I pointed out that it might be difficult... I personally feel that we should be somewhere closer as it might get fiddly time-schedule wise as it takes quite a bit to Belgrave. I know it takes around 40 (in good traffic and a good run) to get to Lilydale, so maybe at the most it'll either be half an hour or the same time to Belgrave since they're quite close together.
And since they were thinking of heading to the Dandenong Observatory, that can take up to 40. (and that's at night)

But its worth a look nevertheless, if we decide that the place around my place (and quite central to everyone) is to be vetoed out.
We're also meant to slash my story to pieces, so I'll have a look at that over the weekend.

We allocated out parts of the document to everyone - everyone got two except me as since I'm doing purpose and overview on the project it was agreed that it would be the largest one out of all the document sections.

One of the discussion we had was about sound: some felt that the film could function it's purpose without the need of having a backing sound track and others (read: me) felt that it would need that something extra. I agree with them that, it was definitely true that it might create an eerie kind of quality to it, but part of me felt instinctively that the audience would need something to focus on apart from the voice/over.

I got the bulk of my argument a day later in Studio 2 when we were discussing sound. One good example is the DVD selection we saw of Unbreakable. The whole moody feel of the Train Station Scene could be something we could definitely try to emulate. The DVD section that we were shown basically had the scene with three different sound selections. The first was simply the effects, mostly diegetic to the scene, the second was simply the sound score and the third was the final cut. Of course, the third cut was the one that gave the full tension and mood of the film. Hence I had a smirk and a gloat in the lecture as to why we should have something in the background - if not as an elevation or addition to the mood and tension we'd create with the image, but also as an audio signature, as something that the audience can focus on subconsciously. Well, if it's a good soundtrack, they won't even realise it's there.

That of course brings forward the fact that if we were to have a musical score, I would be the one that would have to make it as I'm the only one that plays an instrument and is remotely confident about composing - since we're trying to say as far away as possible from any royalty or copyright issues.

Kalli did suggest something about getting free loops and samples of music online, which I agreed with her about but was worried about teh fact that they might say it is to be used for non-profit use, and as we could stand a chance in winning some kind of money or profit from it - the best suggestion is to try to make everything as original as possible.

It's good experience for all of us all around anyway.
Peter had suggested the beach as a location - and I had done a prelim shooting previously in a beach, at night and it came out quite well, I thought.
But we decided with treey places since I do agree, there's possibly much more to film.
Peter has a storyboard - he's so enthusiastic!

I'm still worried about just trying to get through all the docos before I sit down and start getting creative, although I'm one of those people that can't get what's in the head out into paper (as opposed to writing it out in so many words into a story that is...) - and would rather just get out there and film.
But, that's the way I work I suppose - and I should try to adapt to something that I can work with too.
I'm well aware we need a script and we need a storyboard so everyone knows what we're doing.

We had started discussing some of the imagery, and what we would like to include into the film - Kalli posing as the moon-figure... the reason for 'sticky' and patty cakes and how it was a question from the character that, look, we girls always feel the need and the compulsion to look pretty and do everything in our power to be attractive, but look what happened to me.

So our homework:
apart from the doco which is eminent that should be completed by today - hopefully, since I'll be reading it over and maybe retyping it so it sounds consistent (tone, style wise) I would like it pretty soon so we can get it out of the way.
- is to slash my story to pieces and find out things to include and things that are maybe and things that are impossible to film.

Week 001 - w'kend brainstorming.

some ideas that peter discussed regarding the film:
(I think we're getting ahead of ourselves. Concept documentation is due week 3, although I suppose it all relates somehow)
There will be lots to talk about come Tuesday.

Apart from Kim who seems happy to do anything anyway so long as it's to do with film: I'm glad that we've all checked and seem to be enthusiastic about the film itself.

Peter reckons the story is open to interpretation, metaphos and things like that - which I really agree with. The story Velvet Black (VB) still amazes me and blows me away with the myraid of interpretation that it garners from other people. Kalli thought that at the end the character dies, Peter gets the mood of someone aimlessly wandering through life.

Heh. It's interesting.
I think it'll depend how explicit we want to get - but it'll definitely be interesting where the film will take the story and what viewers, seeing it visually and not just in their minds' eye what they will gain from the film.

I'm still worried about getting it from storyform to script form - so that will be the hardest hurdle we have to cross in my opinion.
While peter did suggest a good song - Moby's Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad, I think we're meant to stick with originals? (The one I had previously was Massive Attack - the name slips me for the moment)Peter can imagine the character walking along the streets aimlessly in life. And to top things off to emphasis the aimlessness when the char. is walking she is walking through the crowds... people bump into her and she looks like she isn't even there...
It's probably better, seeing that we want to submit it into competitions.

But that would mean I would have to do the music... since I'm the only one who's dabbled in music programs and is the only one that plays an instrument...
.. that's another hurdle I'm going to have to cross. And even if I did something on the piano, the worry is recording.
But I'll come to it when I come to it, I suppose.

Week 001 - End Week and First Documentation.

Have been thinking about the first documentation - maybe a little premature, but I'm excited to just get down and into the nitty gritties of trying to make this film work (god knows I've tried on my own and with a friend but nothing has worked so far) but we all have to wade through the documentation first.

Feeling heartened by how quick me and Kalli put together the documentation 'proposal' (I hope that what we thought was needed was what was actually needed. Considering that the guidelines we got in the lecture weren't too relavant to us, but hopefully we used what we could and amended the rest) I'm hoping we can be equally quick in getting together what we need to hand in documentation wise just so we can put all our heads together and nut out how exactly to do a script so everybody knows what is happening.

That, is going to be the hard bit.
I didn't think that a script would be so hard to write till I attempted to nut it out myself during the holidays.
Project Greenlight had some resources though, which I think I will go back and look into - can you imagine, I can't even write a short film 15-20 minutes long and I considered writing a screen play of 120 pages to submit to the competition.

Anyway
I remember them saying some stuff about script writing (Kalli had written a script herself, so I may email her and tell her to bring it in on Tuesday) on their website: http://projectgreenlightaustralia.tv so I think I'll go back there and try to mull through it again.

Week 001 - Proposal Sheet.

Currently working, well sorta finished the proposal sheet.
Kalli told me her ideas and wrote down her paragraph, I wrote down mine and we just collaborated and our sheet was done basically in one sitting, in about an hour.

I'm glad for that.
We think a like and we both like the same things and have been keeping out for festivals and have been pursuing (read: dabbling) filming outside of school, so it was great to have someone to be enthusiastic with.

We researched film festivals and competitions together over the internet, and were both very interested in the Siemens 90 second video, shot on a camera phone.
http://www.stkildafilmfestival.com.au/siemens.html
And are both very tempted to try and enter - even though the dateline is the 16th of March.

But first things first.
After looking at Melbourne International Film Festival, TropFest, St Kilda Film Festival, we finally found one that was within our dateline for the subject while also being doable. I.e. not in May, April, March.
In The Bin's closing date is the 29th of July, so that gives us the semester to complete and also time enough to submit our piece to the competition.

We talked about the film - Velvet Black, Kalli also mentioned a script that she had written, but I think we're sticking with Velvet Black, though I did encourage her to either film it later on or try to incorporate it somehow into Velvet Black... nevertheless I told her not to give up on it.

I had spoken to Peter about it the day before and he had in mind the same kind of look and feel that I did: somewhat montage in style, we'd see the what the character sees but interject and cut it with blurry, out of focus shots of the actual rape, the events that lead her to that point out from her mind.
I think that's a good mood and place to start from anyway.

Week 001

I'm really excited.

After all the upheavals we had about groups: everybody in pairs and nobody wanting to leave anybody behind or wanting to split anybody up, it was finally all organized.

I'm a bit worried at the minute that Peter won't be too happy with it - I'm not sure how he feels about films and I feel a little bad that I had to speak on his behalf etc, but I think this was the best for everybody. We didn't split Kim and Kalli up and we got to stick as a four, 2 pairs. I don't think you can ask for better than that.

So we're doing a film.
I'm really excited because it's something that I've been dabbling with out of school and I'm even more excited because it's actually a film that I am currently "struggling" with at the moment. I have been speaking to friend/actor about it who has some film background (having done two films for the VSA stream, but in 3rd year) and I thought she would be the best person to have on board to help me convert this story idea I have into film.

I got horribly stuck on converting from a story (which I'm well aware we HAVE TO do) to a script.
So I'm excited about the prospect of having 3 more heads struggling with me and working through the process.

I sent off my short story to the others and have gotten approval from Kalli who seems excited to start, so that's making me more excited. :)

Basically it's a short story that I wrote for a writing subject I did in 2003 which got collated along with others and published into a book.
I always thought it might make a good film and a friend that I discussed it in passing with said that it would make a very strong film.

I'm only worried about the content of it: because I wrote it when I was also concurrently studying ideas about stranger-rape (how that is what is always portrayed in the media, but more often than not, it's someone you know) and ideas about sex crimes.
The story is primarily about a rape that has taken place or is taken place but the character has completely blocked it out of her mind.
Hard to explain.
I'm loathed as it is to say what the story is about because I'd rather see how people react to it and what they believe is happening.

It seems to be that it's something that shouldn't be said and something that does make people uncomfortable.
It's not a subject that the general public really wants to know about or deal with - which on the one hand is fair enough but on the other, seems saddening. But I don't even want to say what the story is about!

But I'm excited to take this on, I'm excited to finally get this slow lumbering project off the ground and have people to breathe fresh air on it and give it a new lease of life.
I'm also very excited to be doing something I'm really quite passionate about in the last year.

I'm also glad that we won't be faking clients anymore (not that we really have one) because I didn't really enjoy that.
On a side note: I wish I could've done the dinosaurs.