Hello all! So today I'm going to basically sum up the idea I have for my film, and a couple of other details I have planned. To start, I want to describe the central idea of my film. As I described a previously, there's a lot of inspiration that I'm still continuing to use from my AS project. The biggest similarity is the Wes Anderson inspiration, which I plan to incorporate extensively throughout my production. However, I think my main inspiration for my film is Amelie, a quirky french film that I instantly fell in love with. A lot of the stylistic choices in Amelie resemble Wes Anderson's, so I will be merging components from both. I'll discuss this further in my "Inspiration Post" coming shortly.
The story of my production is quite simple:
The main character is a young man, with a special watch that was handed down to him. The story takes place in a local coffee shop, where the boy walks in and sits down next to a pretty girl at the bar area. He tries to commence a conversation, but almost immediately she shuts him down. Suddenly, the boy goes to the bathroom, and looks down at his watch. The viewer then learns that the watch allows him to go back in time 1 hour, with unlimited uses everyday. He uses this function and tries to talk to the girl again, this time having more insight on her personality and coffee order. He orders the same drink as her and starts the conversation differently, which catches her attention, but only for a brief moment. The boy uses his watch yet again to try and approach the girl more effectively, and continues to try again and again until they finally have a a meaningful and lasting conversation. His plan has finally worked, and he's making moves with this pretty girl. Then, in the middle of their encounter, a man approaches them and kisses the girl. She introduces him as her boyfriend. Feeling defeated, he walks away from the girl and her lover, but as he's walking away something catches his eye. He sees another girl sitting across the bar, giggling at him, as she adjusts a watch of her own.
My film is supposed to be quirky and cute, similar to the vibe that Amelie gives off. Originally, I wanted to do a sort of Black Mirror-type film, which is a T.V show that features some technological advancement in each episode that could alter society drastically. The episodes are rather dark, but really well done and have great ideas behind them. I decided I would include the technological advancement aspect (the watch), but would make the story lighter and more feel-good. Overall, I'm picking and pulling inspiration from a lot of different places, but it'll make my production my own. Along with the main idea of the film, I'm including certain stylistic details that I think will really enhance the entire story:
- Narration in french: I decided that my film will be similar to Amelie's in the sense that it will be in a completely different language and will have supporting subtitles. I have French family friends, and a lot of them offered to contribute to my production. Since dialogue would be hard to match with the french audio, I think my production will have no dialogue and will be fully narrated.
- Original score: Last year I really struggled to find good audio for my production, so I knew it was something I really needed to improve with this film. Thankfully, I met a really talented individual who will help me write and produce an entire score for my film. I'm excited because we've already been experimenting with a lot of different inspirations from other movie scores, which I will link on my "Audio" post this week.
- Tangible Titles: Last year, I included a lot of tangible titles in my production, a stylistic choice that is commonly used by Anderson. I love having physical titles in my work, and I think it's something that really stood out in my film last year. This year I want to do the same thing, but perhaps not for the title. I think I'd rather have that onscreen.
- Specific color scheme: I also did this previously, but I'm going to play with the white balance on my camera to either get peachy or yellow tint shots.I want to make the atmosphere very warm and fuzzy, giving off a very comfortable feeling. For the color scheme, I'll also coordinate outfits, makeup, and other necessary mise-en-scene elements.
- Transitions: I think I want to do something interesting with transitions, instead of just cutting directly from one section to another. I don't want to go as far as Tarantino's chapters, but I do want to do something creative like that. I'm thinking of either doing very Wes Anderson(ian) long takes, or maybe even showing a record player every time time is going backwards in the film.
- Title: these are just some title names I have in mind; Point Blanc, Reality in Motion, or Indefinite (these could also be in French)
I hope this gives a better insight on what the main idea of my film is! I'll go in MUCH more detail with a lot of these features I plan to use, but for now this is just an simple rundown.
Since the film and its content is also very simplistic, I'll be focusing more on the artistic aspects of the production. My short doesn't necessarily have a deep meaning to it; it's cute, funny, and meant to leave the audience satisfied and content. One example of a short film like this is this year's Academy nominee Garden Party. The story of this piece is also rather simple: "A luxurious villa and its grounds have become home to amorous, hungry and accident-prone frogs and toads. While they enjoy the bounties on offer, including caviar and macaroons, the amphibians uncover the whereabouts of the villa's owner." The story doesn't have any crazy significance, but its quirky and fun. Another of this year's nominees, Negative Space, is also focused tremendously on art direction and is a gorgeous claymation production. However, the film is based on the relationship between a father and son, and has a deep emotional undertone. I think I'm more inclined to having a short film like Garden Party, in the sense that the story is simple and doesn't have huge emotional significance. I really like the simplistic nature of my story, and it'll allow me to focus a lot more on my art direction :-)
x Maria
Cited:
Oscar.go.com, oscar.go.com/nominees/short-film-animated/garden-party.
Cited:
Oscar.go.com, oscar.go.com/nominees/short-film-animated/garden-party.
