What Are We Shooting? (Ideas)

• I saw a girl today leaning over to fix her bike, and her hair hanging down looked like tentacles.
• I talked with Kirby today about bike rage vs. road rage. What if someone started taking anger management pills and discovered that the fantasies they had about beating someone up actually happened and the people turned up dead?
• things that are only slightly inhuman (cgi models, manequins) are creepier than things that are completely inhuman (werewolves, teddybears) -- an interesting idea posited as the uncanny valley, I'd like to use some imagery that takes advantage of this "slightly off" dynamic.
• Jon wants to use subtitles at some point in a slowly building dramatic short.
• Jon also mentioned Curb Your Enthusiasm's method of improv dialogue as to give it a realism.
• Kirby adds: The director's commentary for Steven Soderbergh's "Bubble" has some insights about using non-actors. The most important point was to let them say the dialogue in their own way. He just told them the points that had to be made, and they made them in their own way. He didn't audition people -- just interviewed them for about a half-hour, often choosing people who simply were the characters. (I'm a big fan of the performances in this film.)
• It would be a fun thing to play with director's commentaries -- Benny mentioned it'd be funny to make up prices for every shot as if the no-budget aethetic was chosen because it was fashionable; in the past Jon's also mentioned playing with commentaries.
• Craig M adds: An idea to add consistency and a thread that would weave throughout the finals pieces would be to use a common image system. An image system is a cinematic device used by a director that uses a common visual element - water, for instance - and creativily uses that element throughout the film - rain, garden hose, swimming pool, cold drinks, etc. A great example of an image system is the recent film C.R.A.Z.Y. which uses a water theme throughout. Nothing needs to be decided upon now, as the best image systems appear organtically as the script is developed, but it could be something cool to think about.
• same phrase (the world is scraped clean) in each short: it's overlaid with each previous recording of it so that each time it's said it becomes stranger
• selling fast food (or other min wage job) that caters to rich alien species
• Craig M. mentioned that getting various musicians/composers/DJ's to score it in an improv style (maybe a live screening/scoring session), and then choosing the best performances from each or mixing them together in a cool way. Might be an interesting way to go about it.
• Both Craigs have mentioned that 90 minutes for a script is longer than it needs to be -- 75 or 80 minute pieces are also considered features. Craig W. warned that it's hard to keep the narrative tension in a short much longer than 10 minutes, so that's a challenge I'll keep in mind when I'm writing it. Even though 80/6=13.3 minutes I think I'll write 15 pages for each story (1 minute is approx 1 script page) anyway to give us a bit of editing wiggle room.
• Craig M. has an idea to 'pad' things out a bit - very short, visual interstitials that could be the work of another, more abstract filmmaker, or contributed by the ones signed up already. These bits could include the opening and closing credits, plus act as common bridges between the pieces and add 7-9 minutes to the run time. Just an idea...
  
  

  CRAIG M

  strong female character
  • a dash of comedy
  • someone violently destroying a piece(s) of technology
  Idea Two Concept - the world's first digital pandemic; computer-to-human infection. no one knows if it was spread by teledildonics, Bluetooth-enabled cell phones, WiFi networks, GPS or your iPod's corrupted MP3 metadata (or a comination of all of these things), but people are somehow getting computer viruses: spyware, adware, worms, trojan horses, phishing attacks, malware, spam and more...
  Theme - trying to hold on to love. Idea One one theme that came to me was the idea of "accelerated cultural co-option", which basically means how fast "cool" is absorbed into the mainstream. especially these days with blogs, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, targeted Google ads, and 'cool hunters' - it seems that the time from when some kid somewhere says the next hot catch phrase (or wears that outfit, or listens to that song) to the time when everyone is using that catch phrase is becoming smaller and smaller.
  
  an image i had was that a character would say something, then moments later thay would see it on a billboard selling Sprite. i think this idea is about the idea of 'personalized media' taken to it's riduculous conclusion. how can someone be an individual when their individuality is immediatly copied?
  

  Craig W

  Possible Locations
  • parking lots
  • radio tower at St. Clair & Spadina
  • tops of high buildings
  
  I would like to explore a story that works within its own internal logic, without having to explain the logic to whomever is watching it. It should be as if the audience is peering into another world - a world that isn't aware of an audience and doesn't feel the need to explain itself. The Aeon Flux cartoons did this well, the movie, unfortunately but not surprisingly, did not. Also an inspiration is Slow Bob in The Lower Dimension, animator Henry Selick's (Nightmare before Christmas) short film. Code 46 and a clockwork orange also. The Matrix would have been great if they didn't feel the need to explain everything to us all the time. Maybe I've been reading too much Herzog on Herzog.
  
  It would be neat to see the same actors in different incarnations in each film, much in the same way that Aeon Flux would die in one episode to be alive again in the next with no explanation, and that there was always some sort of version of Trevor Goodchild, even if was a gang of Trevor Goodchild Spider creatures.
  
  

  Jon S

  • Jon wants to use subtitles at some point.
  • he favours a slowly building dramatic short.
  i was talking to a lady today at swiss chalet. she is a nurse at a local seniors home. yesterday one of the alzheimer's patents escaped which apparently happens a lot. they had to run around the annex looking for her. i thought about developing a short video about a bounty hunter that gets called to retrive these people. could include "flashbacks" of what the alzheimer's patients are experiencing. probably not appropriate for this project, though. anyone know any senoirs who might be interested?