More on Film. 750 Words Saturday, 20 August 2011.

Bulldog

So, today was a day of, well, not very much. As usual.

 I helped my mother take some crap, ok it was a broken down cabinet, to the dump, which took all of about 10 minutes. In total, from loading the car, driving to the dump, off loading the car and driving back. I was kinda hoping it would take a little longer, to waste a bit of time.

 Then I decided to rethink and short I outlined a few days ago, it was bugging me, I didn’t like it at all because it dragged on for to long. So, I switched the male and female characters around, and only went as far as about a quarter of act 2 from the outline. I figured for a short film it would work better that way, and as far as I’m concerned, it does, this puts me at 7 rough drafts since Sunday, 6 days and 7 scripts, not bad.

 As that rethink succeeded very well, I figured I’d need to do the same thing with another two tomorrow. And also try to get a few more done, to rough draft phase at least.

 I have 14 ideas, 7 are in a rough draft, 2 are simply VFX test/learning videos, 2 are new ideas added today, 2 need a rethink and 1 might need to be removed, due to its scope/size. It might be a little to epic, I’ll keep the idea and maybe I well write it out, a more detailed outline maybe, but It’ll need to be held back for a bit.

 The two new ideas, one was an idea I had for a TV show about 4 years back. Yeah thats not going to work so in stead of scrapping the idea I thought it might work as a web series, in stead of 16 one hour episodes, I’ll just have 16, 15 to 20 minute episodes. I’ve already done a ton of work on this already and so it should pose much of a problem cutting it down to size, I have lots of material so I can either have really dense episodes are more episodes. Ether either I guess.

The other idea came from watching short films on Vimeo, Duel and the Hitcher (Rutger Hauer’s version) I needs a lot of thought and I still need to outline it properly but if I do it right I think it’ll be great, can’t wait to get started on it, but first I want to get all my original ideas in rough draft form.

 Ok, so once I have all this done, I can start, from the first idea and rewrite rewrite rewrite, until each is shootable, print and shelf until I can make it. I also should write up a shot list for each script as well, work work work. I like it though.

 I’m trying to write films that only need 3 or 4 people to make them, meaning no more then three on camera at one time, with the fourth behind it. Ideally, me one other dude and two chicks. If only i had friends. Who wanted or were at least interested in making films, but they don’t and John is two bus rides away and I wanted expect him to travel here, and seeing as some are set at night, it would be a pain in the arse. I do have another idea though.

 Somewhere local, I saw an ad in my local chipy, is a drama school, I wonder if I go along to that and just say that I’m a film maker looking for talent, would they let me sit in and watch. If I find people I think would be good enough, I’m sort of a snob, I can see bad acting like a fat man sees cake, I’ll offer them the rolls, of course as I have no money they’ll have to work for free, so locals would be better then people who need to travel, but what I can offer them is showreel material. By using the raw footage from the shoot I can run off a 5 minute video for each of them with their best bits, put it on a DVD and let them have it to use and edit how they like. And if they need, I can make a showreel for them, and burn a DVD movie.

 I’m a nice guy that way.

  Also, I little selfish, as I see it if I do all that I’ll be able to get them back if I need them for another film. Another thing I think I should be looking for, is a Producer, someone to work in that capacity for all my films. Someone I can learn from. Of course in all the films everyone gets a credit and can use them to show prospective employers later on. Yep I am a nice guy.

 Its all a learning curve, I’d like to see how good at this I am. So I’d like to start with a good script, get good actors, and shoot a film, then send as long as it take in post. I want that first project to be a catalyst. Thats thing at makes me say “Yea, I can do this” and then with each subsequent film learn something new, do something different, and get bigger. Until I decided to that next stage is simple. A Feature film. I can take the short films to the British film council and the Lottery Fund to get the funding/budget I’d need to make it.

 What it could happen, right.