Monday, January 14, 2008

Film-o-rama

It's been a while since I dropped what's going on. But now I've got some free time, and for the first time in a trillion hours the inspiration to rant.

First things first:

The Update Wall Project was something I'd been dropping with no explanation. If you followed it on Flickr, there's already everything in place a la an explanation. But, I'll repost.

In early December 2007, my friend asked me to take care of his house while he was away for three weeks. What originally was a semi-amusing way to communicate with him via facebook, by writing messages and giving weather updates on his whiteboard grew into a board that I decided to add one or two things too each day while erasing none of the old writing, and see if I could fill up the board by the time he came back. At the end of each day, I'd take a picture of the board with my cameraphone. Of the set, only two days are missing (in which I was away), but someone else came by and wrote something on it. Whenever others were in the house while I was there, they also wrote on the board. So there's a few authors throughout.

In the end, the board became a place where people wrote in-jokes, jokes from TV shows, song lyrics, and random little thoughts that happened at the time.

I posted it on here out of mere curiosity of who would follow the daily 'updates' without knowing what was going on. While it only got a few views per day, it was still interesting to follow. However, now that I've relinquished control of his residence, the project had to end.

At the same time, I also tried this as a kind of Internet photo experiment. Although the board serves no purpose other than what's outlined above, I feel like it deserves a complete, organized set to see the full scale of how the board was cluttered by simply adding one or two things daily.


How pointless, eh? Chalk it up to boredom. If you followed it hoping for a grand thing... I tend to let down on purpose.

Let's move on to the real news:

I'm at it again. After suffering from much inspiration deprivation toward a film idea, in mid-December it hit me all at once. I'd been toying around the idea of a girl going crazy and writing it down, but I could never connect the story together. So finally, after giving up on that idea, this new one came and grew into a wildfire.

One Way Out, for anyone that isn't on Facebook, is the working title. However, in a short week from that idea, I'd written a story. From that story, I drew a storyboard to, over Christmas break. I finished it on New Year's and then, starting casting. Somehow, Facebook came through, allowing me to quickly line up a bunch of interested actors/actresses in just over a week over a week, and just a few days ago, I held some auditions.

This is only the second film I've taken this seriously, and the first, Wake Up, was in large part a learning experience.

However, One Way Out, I feel is going to be insane. I at last let my thriller sense take over a film idea and now I've got a setting of 1 girl (Sydney), 1 guy (Will), and a dead body in a room, and a monster in the building that killed it. Sydney takes on the lead role, and the film is her story. Basically, ask yourself this question: Do you think your life is more valuable than someone else's? She balances her nature to be nice and helpful against the thought that it might now kill her to help Will. Meanwhile, Will's trying to team up with her. That's the brief synopsis.

Of course, being that I'm giving this 'director' thing a shot to get me something to graduate with, I've gone insanely picky with who plays my characters. Details are always important to me with character believability, so I'm taking a lot of stock in the lines and the mannerisms. So far in the auditions, I've really liked what I saw from a couple people, and I've still got a few more to go.

As always, there's one nice obstacle. My car has chosen this moment in my life to finally start needing some repairs, and I can't be mad at it cause it's 19 years old, and for the first year I owned it, I didn't have a single thing go wrong. I even took it to Chicago, and like an old girl with new tricks, she just kept going like it'd been rolled off the lot back in 89. So this has eroded some of the money originally allocated for the film, but with some craftiness, it looks like that won't be a problem.

But I confirmed the location just Friday, had some great auditions, have a script that I'm happy with, a story I think is solid, and an ending I think is badass, mindfuck-wise, and the funds to do it. And by a stroke of genius from Wake Up, the makeup artist to make it all happen. Her work is nothing below phenomenal.

Check out her stuff here: Beautiful Creatures Makeup

Anyhow, with camera tests coming up and a probable crew meeting very soon, this feels like it's going to be something huge. I've still got a ton of other stuff to do to make it to shoot day, but it's all worth the effort.

And oh yeah school? I don't have time to think about anymore. With only 3 months to go and me knowing I've punched my "1 course left in my module" ticket, I'm just kicking those out of the way, and the other marks be damned; just as long as they're a pass. I'm sure I'll do my usual routine and land a low-70s average, maybe even a high-70s this year. But it's all details now. I have figured out the system and am hopelessly exploiting its weakness till the end. It's all about One Way Out now, baby.

We'll keep in touch on this one. I've abandoned all social activity with people until shoot day's over. Then, I will emerge with a film, and an opportunity to coast into graduation with something that'll be really worth the money I'm forever indebted to the government for my degree (hint: it's not my degree). Onwards!

Mark

1 comment:

litreofcola said...

Give 'em hell, son. Give 'em hell.