BSA206 S1W2 : 1st Blog and Planning

This is my blog for BSA206 (2019) 

We were tasked with writing down 10 of our favourite movies, this is always really hard to choose, I was tempted to just chuck on what I had back in first year, instead I just avoided this impossible question.  (Here is the link to the one I did in first year anyway, although my opinion does seem to have changed quite a bit: https://bomyburghfilm.blogspot.com/2017/02/bsa106-week-1.html).

We also looked at some lists of critically acclaimed movies, both Hollywood and international. We had to choose some that we wanted to see still, here are the ones I chose: 

movies i'd like to see from those lists


Gone with the Wind Victor Fleming 1939

Downfall Oliver Hirschbiegel Germany 2004

Aguirre, Wrath of God Werner Herzog Germany 1972

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington Frank Capra 1939

Singin' in the Rain Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen 1952

The Bridge on the River Kwai David Lean 1957

Do the Right Thing Spike Lee 1989

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Miloš Forman 1975

Rocky John G. Avildsen 1976

Chinatown Roman Polanski 1974

The Godfather Francis Ford Coppola 1972 A Clockwork Orange Stanley Kubrick 1971

The Sound of Music Robert Wise 1965

Delicatessen Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Marc Caro France 1991

In the Mood for Love Wong Kar-wai Hong Kong 2000

Seven Samurai Akira Kurosawa Japan 1954

Y Tu Mama Tambien Alfonso Cuaron Mexico 2001

City of God Fernando Meirelles, Katia Lund 2002

Infernal Affairs Alan Mak, Lau Wai-keung Hong Kong 2002

The Seventh Seal Ingmar Bergman Sweden 1957

Taxi Driver Martin Scorsese 1976

Network Sidney Lumet 1976

Spartacus Stanley Kubrick 1960

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Then we did a breakdown of the opening scene from Back to the Future, also something I did last year (https://bomyburghfilm2.blogspot.com/2018/02/bsa206-screen-arts-week-2-film-analysis.html), it was a very good blog, so I skipped it this time around.
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Anyway what is really interesting to me is what I am going to do for my project this year, again we're breaking down a director's style and I assume making something inspired by them.

I have chosen M. Night Shyamalan as the practitioner within my field that I will take inspiration from and attempt to emulate within my own experimental work. I have to prepare a proposal for class, accompanied with sufficient research into the chosen practitioner, along with a breakdown of their style and techniques and an in depth analysis into a single scene from one of their films.

At this point in time I am sure that I want to use Shyamalan as my practitioner, I am also sure that I can accurately dissect his specific style - because that's exactly what it is, specific. From memory the techniques he employs and mood that he sets is very distinct and noticeable.

What I am less confident in currently is what scene I will use as the foundation for analysis, as this will need to be particularly evident as a comparison to my own creative output. I will have to scour his library of films to find the right scene, but will be doing so anyway in the research phase of the project. While not sure what scene, as none comes to mind immediately, I am sure that the pickings will be ripe.

While probably too early to be thinking about I do have a story idea that I believe will fit in with Shyamalan's stylistic conventions, it will be the goal that I work towards and my desire is to have a finished short film by the end of the process.

Thus far I have already looked up an article on his techniques and am currently planning on getting access to his films myself for closer inspection. Link to article: https://offscreen.com/view/shyamalan.

I intend to have my proposal and breakdown finished at a very early stage so that it can be out of my mind and so that I can start focusing on the much more personal hurdle for me of actually executing the practical experimentation.

My first course of action:

1) Find up to three artciles/videos where the director discusses his intent

2) Get access to film to watch and take notes, as well as listen to commentaries

These cover both bases of dissecting technique and observing the director's intention.

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At this moment the story idea I want to make is:

A guy's girlfriend leaves to work overseas and stays with a family there who start displaying unsettling behavior, something he is incapable of doing anything about.

I'll be rolling two timelines into one direct narrative: Before and After.

Before is when she moves and he's talking to her as she becomes uncomfortable in the household and

After where she has been murdered and he is still communicating with her ghost (the audience is unaware of this and its reveal serves as the climax of the film).

I have split the story in three more manageable segments:

1) The Past

These are from when his girlfriend is still alive in the story, she calls him over messenger and the tension builds as it becomes more and more clear that there is something very much wrong with her accommodation in Australia.

2) The Present 

This is where the protagonist has trouble re-integrating to society and secludes himself from people, which worries his mother who sets to righting this and help him get on with his life. At the end she discovers that he has been grieving over his girlfriend the whole time and that's why he is acting so strangely.

3) The Calls

These are also in the present, of course as the audience we assume all three segments are taking place in a linear stream. This segment of the film are the calls to his girlfriend after her death, whether a ghost of he's just crazy, they are more reminiscent of the past and comment on him having to move on. This is also how the film wraps up his arc as he decides to talk to her no longer.

The suggestion here is that she is in a type of hellish purgatory and unable to escape, but can communicate to him. 

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I've even worked out a rough timeline for the story:

1) Past : The GF is being driven to household and talks to him, talks to him at night - things are strange, different than last time she stayed with the family.

2) Job Interview : He deliberately boycotts his chances of getting a call back, and his mother picks him up - displaying parental concern over his well-being.

3) Present Call : He talks to his girlfriend outlining the problems he's going through, showing how much he misses her and we get hints of creepy things happening where she is. 

4) Dinner Scene : He's forced to come to dinner with his household and some drama unfolds.

5) Past : Things escalate with the bad man, the protagonist suggests that she weaponize herself, a notion she's uncomfortable with. She's called to dinner.

6) Therapy : He sees a work Councillor who his mother has suggested look at his mental well-being, he doesn't open up a lot.

7)  Present Call : He opens up to her about similar issues as was asked by his therapist, in direct contrast. She tells him he shouldn't be so hung up on her and move his own life forward.

8) Past : Scene where he is in her pocket as she goes to dinner - suspenseful and we hear what the bad man is like.

9) Reveal : The mother snoops around his room and finds out what's really been going on - realizing that the girlfriend died some months ago and that the protag has been talking to no one. She consoles him and tells him she knows the truth. They hug it out.

10) Present Finale : He gets a call from her one more time, when he doesn't answer it comes up anyway and he talks to her, we get a hint that she is in a purgatory of sorts, he tells her he can't see her anymore. His arc is complete.

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This is almost a beat sheet of sorts already, which would be the next step for me. After that I'll work at the treatment, I'll jump from writing to researching the director and back - it's good to have time away from the story as well in order to see it in a fresh light again so this process will be very helpful I think. 

I'm very happy with the story, I think it has that Shyamalan thing going for it, but I'm also very nervous about writing the actual scenes because there are quite a lot of levels to explore. As I continue developing the story I think things will become more refined and clearer in my mind. Of course the dialogue will be in a Shyamalan style - which isn't always natural - so that makes it a bit easier as well as more interesting to do. 

Inspiration for this story is from my own life, when Marcella went back to Germany she stayed with a Turkish or Persian couple for a while and the man courted her (even though he was almost sixty and had a wife living in the same house), this sent me into paranoia and I was certain his intentions would escalate. It didn't happen, but I did experience a sense of being hung up and obsessed with my girlfriend who was now so far away - I needed to move on and find purpose in my own life again, which took a while. When I originally concocted this story the situation and theme were always there and integral to the purpose of telling it, that hasn't changed, I've just refined it a bit. Of course I concocted it in the time that she was away so I don't know how my depiction of main character's obsession has changed but I noticed it even back then.

My next blog will be the beat sheet and notes attached describing each decision I made, I did this with Screenwriting before and found it immensely helpful, surprisingly a lot in actually developing the characters.

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