Choices, Choices

     I finally have some ideas for narratives I would like to make. I do not have fully fledged stories to pair with the ideas I have, but I am going to detail them and offer the potential pros and cons of running with these stories. 

(By the way, the tonality post I made last week has not aged well with my ideas.)

I. Gluttony

Genre: Psychological Horror(?)

    This film would be told from two perspectives and would be more of a symbolic representation of a greater concept of being addicted to consuming media. The film would open with a man who is cleaning his empty living room with a very depressed or stale look on his face. After a few shots of him doing this, he would sit down with a bag o chips and start watching tv. Then, the shot of the man on the couch pulls out to reveal that his life was playing on a video entitled "24 HOUR DOING NOTHING LIVESTREAM" and we also see that another young person is watching. The viewer's room is drab and dank, giving the impression that this is all the person does. After a few shots developing this idea, the person's sibling would walk in(assumedly from a family gathering in the house outside the door) and have a dialogue with them, and through this dialogue, the idea that the viewer watches what she does to feel less lonely. The sibling would reply with something along the lines of "how could you be so lonely in such a crowded home?" and the viewer would reply with something like "This is the only thing I can define as real." I imagine whatever followed this line would be some Lynchian-type imagery of the sibling vanishing and the viewer walking out of the room to reveal the same couch and empty living room as the man from the beginning, and it ends with them sitting down on the couch in the same way as the man from the beginning(maybe another pull to reveal the same live-stream?) The point of this idea would be to be a symbolic representation of this normalized gluttony in absorbing media common of today's kids. 

Pros

• Very little actors
• Can be filmed at my house or a friend's house
• Would not need a big crew
• The living room i visualized was mine, and the spacious layout alloys for many shot types behind and around the subject.

Cons

• The message could be much dumber and less deep than I expected
• May not be scary whatsoever
• Commentary is either too straightforward or not straightforward enough

II. House Invasion

Genre: Dark Comedy

Much less deep than the last idea, but possibly a bit more fun to film. The story would begin as a standard yet sloppy house break-in, and the house owner would the upper hand when he has the burglar at gunpoint. After either shooting the burglar or recognizing the voice of the burglar after confronting him, the house owner would come to realize that the burglar was an old friend of his and the two would immediately act like there was never any immediate danger or threat in what they were going to do to each other. The two would have a fun dialogue by the kitchen counter, possibly showing the burglar congratulating the house owner on his gunmanship and the house owner accepting the compliment and telling the burglar that he learned his skills from a class he took his wife and kids to(a throwaway line meant to pay off later.) When things seem great and all seems to be good for the two of them, blood would suddenly splatter all over the burglar's face in slow motion to reveal that his partner who was waiting outside came in and shot the house owner. The main burglar would freak out and feel bad, but suddenly be reminded that the whole point of the visit was to rob the house. As they are about to walk out the door, they would suddenly be stopped by a little girl with a nerf gun. The two would think it was cute and the main burglar would greet the girl kindly (implying that he knows her already from knowing her dad) and before he could finish the two would be shot by the little girl(real gun.)

Pros

• Funny, possibly more fun to watch than the first idea
• Can also be filmed in one area
• Minimal props needed

Cons

• Hefty reliance on the script
• Lighting could be awkward
• Are guns allowed??

    I have other ideas, but I think these are the two that show the most promise. I'm leaning a bit more toward the first idea because I would rather work with cinematography than work my writing chops, but I will make a decision by the end of the week. 

Advice on Writing a Story

    Today, I watched a video that did end up helping me understand what the planning process of brainstorming a story consisted of. Though it seems kind of corny or unintelligent to derive information from such a quick video, I really only wanted to hear what he said about how to target the starting point of creating a short film. 

    This video gave me a great tip on the importance of creating value and meaning through a specific audience one would like to target. The creator had this to say about it:

    "This may sound a little counter-intuitive, but rather than originality when you're writing your short film, I want you to focus on entertaining yourself or a really close friend of yours. Make your audience specific so that you can make your film more specific."

    While I still cannot say I have fully formed ideas as a result of this video, this quote really resonated with me for the rest of the day enough that I felt the need to comment on it. Where I initially tried to take a concept and reverse engineer a film from whatever concept could come to my head, I have now adopted the strategy of taking stories and conversations I can remember having with my friends in the past to formulate some sort of story behind it. I don't plan to adapt a story a friend has shared with me or anything like that, I had many interesting 3AM conversations with friends that I know I can base entire stories around.

    Additionally, the video stressed the importance of writing the entire story before jumping into pre-production. Before thinking about cinematography and stylistics, I need to detail a definite beginning, middle, and end to my story. For an effective product as a whole, it's important to have the entire story defined before I begin thinking about how it will be filmed(for foreshadowing in the beginning and making the story that comes full circle.)

    I didn't finish the entire video because the only real part I was looking for in my research was advice on brainstorming, but I do plan to turn to this video for advice once I get to the pre-production and production stages of my short film. 

36 Dramatic Situations

 

    In pursuit of a possible narrative, my research brought me across a very interesting concept in the realm of storytelling- George Polti's 36 Dramatic Situations. George Polti was a 19th-century writer primarily known for writing a book detailing the concept, that every narrative follows one of 36 archetypes with variants based on the physical content of the story. As hard as it may seem to accept that "all stories are the same," researching this topic blew my mind once I started looking into it. 

    While the list of dramatic situations is too long to list, I forced myself to do research and read every single one of the archetypes, and it ended up showing me primarily what I didn't want in a story before showing me what I might want. For example, I knew that I didn't want to make a story about adultery, love, or the crimes of a loved one, as I feel I'm too young to understand love enough to make an entire narrative based around it. Also, I feel like making any adventure-type story about supplication or deliverance is not something that could be fit in a mere five minutes. I could be wrong on that, but it seems like a hassle to think about fitting it into such a small amount of time.

    Despite the post I made last week about tonality, I am slightly being pulled once again toward darker subject matters. Reading specific situations like abduction, madness, and ambition. I have ideas I will update you guys on later, and this concept of 36 dramatic situations helped me begin fine tuning my ideas. Thanks George. 

Tonality

    

    Even though I lack a direction in terms of a narrative yet, I have given thought to the kind of tone I hope to convey in my production. No matter what genre this short film becomes, I would rather it be a bit more lighthearted than something darker. It can be dark with some cheerier elements to contrast the dark, but I would instead not make something dark and gloomy. 

    Coming off of a psychological thriller route for my last big project in the film opening, I would find it to be redundant if I went ahead and made some dark and mysterious production again. As much as I enjoy the kind of media that haunts me or has a darker tone to it, I feel like trying to make something of the sort again will honestly turn me into a darker and less cheery person. 

    This all could be a dumb little itch I have and not end up being how I feel once I get an idea for my narrative, but this is just how I feel at this stage of my brainstorming. 

Project Schedule

    I have developed a timeline for the short film I plan to create. The process began this week, and the full project is to be completed in the middle of April. Here it is:

Week one

• Choose project genre(short film)
• Brainstorm narrative of said short film
• Research genre
• blog(2)

Week two

• Cont. Brainstorm narrative(finalize?)
• Cont. researching genre
• blog(4)

Week three

• IF NOT DONE: Finalize narrative this week
• Begin developing a script
• Think about technical elements of piece(look into microphones, editing, etc.)
• Think location, time, actors, wardrobe
• blog(4)

Week four

• Begin storyboarding
• Find actors 
• Buy necessary tech for production(based on week 3)
• IF actors found, develop a filming schedule
• blog(4)

Week five

• if not complete, finalize storyboarding and script
• Film
• blog(4)

Week six

• IF NOT DONE: continue filming(reshoots?)
• Begin editing
• blog(4)

Week seven

• Continue editing
• blog(3)

Week eight

• IF NOT DONE: finish editing
• Research ccr
• Begin ccr
• blog(3)

Week nine

• Finalize ccr
• Make sure all elements are exported and prepared BEFORE Week 10
• blog(3)

Week ten

• Post final drafts of everything to blog/youtube
• Reflection post

    In my roadmap, I believe I have given myself a sufficient amount of time to brainstorm and flesh out my ideas to their greatest heights. I feel like the initial creative process usually ends up being slightly harder than the actual execution for me, so giving myself three weeks to really sit on ideas for a narrative will work well in my favor. I usually binge edit for projects I need to edit and end up finishing them in roughly two or three very painful days, but given that this project is much more important and is foreseeably a video with a longer duration, I am going to give myself 2-3 weeks for it. The time I allowed myself for my CCR is pretty limited as a result, but I predict it will be the easiest component of my entire project so I am in no way worried about time. In general, I doubt that there is too much that will change in my schedule while it's working itself out; I feel I have much more time to flesh out certain aspects of my project this time around. 

I'm Baaaaaaaaaack

 

    It's official: yours truly is back for some more media production updates. I'm starting work on a new project for the second level of my media class, this time a FULL SHORT FILM as opposed to a film opening like last time. I am not sure what I will end up doing just yet, but based on my experience with my last big project, I'm already eager to jump straight into this. My head may be empty, but my heart is full. This is gonna be a fun next ten weeks.