Lost The Plot

I don't think ever explained how or why I picked the name for this blog. At the time of creating it, I had already been thinking about my film and wondering about how the plot would unfold. What would the plot be? I've been reading Ronald B. Tobias' 20 Master Plots, a very helpful book that I definitely recommend, and I remember how he mentioned that there has been a degree of dispute over how many plots there are but, when it all boils down to it, there is only one.

 Our theme of dislocation, as I've stated before, is great. According to The Free Dictionary, it is disruption, disturbance and disorder, my initial reaction being reminded of chaos. In its thesaurus, it is described as 'an event that results in a displacement or discontinuity', and 'the act of disrupting an established order so it fails to continue', so it's a breakdown; a discontinuation of something. This is always interesting to watch at a safe distance.

Daily life is full of chaos, no matter how much we plan ahead. On the other hand, fiction contains reason. That is to say, there is always reason for the breakdown or discontinuity of certain events in fictitious work. It helps to spice up the story, and we watch on for a resolution, to be satisfied by how the new equilibrium comes about. Of course, that is generally how most stories should be structured, noting Todorov's equilibrium theory, which is how The News and commercial breaks would put their respective stories and commercials in a particular order because they want their audience feeling good at the end of the showing, but also ease them into the less cheery stories or commercials.

The stages in Todorov's Narrative Theory.
Often reduced to three: Equilibrium>Dis-equilibrium>New Equilibrium

 The initial equilibrium is the normal state of which the story and characters within are used to. The disequilibrium being the event that causes disruption of this, and the new-equilibrium is when everything has been resolved, or the story is wrapped up. Nothing will ever be the same again though because of the disruption, hence the word 'new'. Considering these stages, they generalise themselves into beginning, middle, and end, respectively. They are good structures to abide by, but sometimes we don't like writing necessarily happy stories, which is what the theory may suggest on the surface. Personally, I'm a fan of the bittersweet ending, but we can still make it work without daunting the audience. It just takes a lot more thought.

 This is a very basic structure for creating a story. How the beginning, middle, and end will unfold will highly depend on a combination of the plot, archetypal characters, and the genre of the piece. From there, you flesh it all out to give off the illusion of uniqueness. We need to follow rules in order to make something work, but we can go our own way about it, again, as long as it works and works well.

 Tzvetan Todorov wasn't the only essayist to theorise about the structure of story or plot. Mythologist and writer, Joseph Campbell, laid down a more fleshed out version known as The Hero's Journey. From looking at the fables of religions from all over the world, he concluded that there was a template to all those figures, such as Jesus of Nazareth of the Hebrew faith, Krishna of Hinduism, The Ten Labours of Heracles'  of Greek myth, etc., noticing a common pattern among them. This sparked off the idea of character archetypes.

The illusion of uniqueness for each story can be cleverly instilled in an audience by using a combination of ingredients. These ingredients are characters, plot, and genre. When it all boils down to it, there is only one plot; The Hero's Journey. The main reason as to why they change over time is so they can appeal to its contemporary audience. In order to connect with the characters on screen, we must find ourselves thrust into a recognisable world; one of which we can easily relate to and perhaps compare with our own lives. As they say, even the likes of Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings contain elements and characters that we can get onto the same level with. I can't really say the same about the soaps but that's beside the point.

 We're all on the same journey, but every individual story is told in its own unique way, even if the general premise is the same as another. I used a reference from Victoria Lynn Schmidt's book, 45 Master Characters, like I've probably mentioned somewhere before. I based my character, Barney, off the character archetype named after Greek god of the Sea, Poseidon. The character is an internal sea of emotions and, using his traits of both good and bad, it helped me to flesh out a story and his personal journey of battling his own inner demons and how it affects those around him.

As Easy As Pitching A Tent

Gosh, I don't know what I'm talking about; I never even learnt how pitch a tent.

 Before we properly went into production, we were tasked with pitching our film ideas. We were allowed to be as quirky as possible. I looked up pitch ideas in this regard and found nothing but pitches where the film maker simply talked about their idea. Even on the 'how to's written by executives who have to listen to pitches said that they much preferred pitches where the person just speaks. They said that, otherwise, they just think the person is loopy. Er.

 This didn't particularly fuel me with enthusiasm on the matter. You do, of course, want your pitch to be memorable but, at the same time, you do want the person you're pitching it to to know (or at least think) you're sane. That said, like anything in life, it highly depends on the person you're dealing with, the order that you came in, and the time of day I suppose. Mostly the person you're dealing with though and, in this case, it was our tutor.

 I wasn't going to go ahead with a full on marionette show like the one instance described by an executive in a list that I found. I decided just to go with a simple mood board, to help me pinpoint exactly what I was going to talk about at the time.

 It took me about a week working on the mood board, so I certainly found my enthusiasm again from somewhere. A week seems like an awful lot of time to work on a mood board of all things, but I ended up turning it into a bit of an arts and crafts project. It wasn't over the top, but (hopefully) it would certainly make the pitching process a lot more memorable (and it did!).

 Seeing as there was a rubber duck mentioned in my script (don't ask), I thought I'd go ahead and make the mood board in the shape of one, then, just as the script describes (though this aspect was later omitted due to time restraints, unfortunately), I decorated him to look like a private detective. He has a tweed trilby, a blazer and a tie. Oh my God, I had too much fun making him. Except, just before going into the pitch, I was gutted when I realised I had completely forgotten to stick craft buttons on his shirt. Ah well.

 He was very well received and the pitch went very, very well, so it was totally worth it. Caoimhe, my producer, was in with me and spoke about what we had planned production wise, such as what equipment we were going to use, where we were going to shoot, and who was acting for us. I, on the other hand, talked about the mood board itself; how I wrote the character and the inspirations I drew from and the sort of themes I wanted to use, such as colour, for example. I think Caoimhe was very embarrassed by the duck though (sorrynotsorry).

Bright Light! Bright Light!

I thought that because I'm doing a film noir pastiche that it'd be worth checking out a bunch of lighting techniques for it. I also got a book on Film Noir that introduces you to the genre.

 The book I'm talking about gives an introduction to the french genre of the '30s, informing you of the codes and conventions that you'll often come across. For example, a troubled protagonist, crime themes, femme fatales, private eye detective, etc. Originally I wanted my story resonating around a femme fatale, but I had to end up scrapping her entirely. But that's quite alright. A new story for a new day when I have longer than five minutes to tell it more effectively, but it's interesting how my story evolved throughout this process.

 Anyway, a major part of the genre is the lighting style. I have my troubled protagonist so I need to bring that across with the visuals as much as I possibly can. The reason that comedy is so high key and brightly lit is to assure the audience that we aren't hiding anything from them. What you see is what you get. Not with the likes of horror or noir styled films. Or, if it's a hybrid, it's knowing when to use which lighting style for what scenes.

 It's the scenes that Barney, my troubled protagonist, is lost in his own little world where I want to exploit these noir lighting conventions. I want him shrouded in the shadows but lit in a provoking sort of way. There is a lot of talk of venison blinds that I wanted to incorporate, to suggest the character peeking out into the world without really entering it, simply out of curiosity's sake. There was a board we could have used in the studio before, but it appears to have gone walkies, so that won't be getting used, sadly.

I found the video above ages ago and it came in incredibly handy. It's highly informative and helpful. The speaker even dresses up as a stock character for his video!

 Creating the set for Barney's imagination was to look fake. Not too fake, but we know it's not real. Shrouded in shadows but Barney would be lit up enough to be seen, but to be seen in an intimidating sort of way; the way that Noir Barney wants to come across. But, his character being deeply troubled and insecure, the darkness that he's shrouded in suggests he's being consumed by said personal issues.

Deconstructing Tim Burton's 'Dark Shadows'

I've always held a soft spot for Tim Burton's work. It's eerily magical, and magically eerie but there's nothing to be scared of so long as you allow yourself to embrace it. Like opening a story book when you were a child before bed to escaping the real world to experience this larger than life world. You're left with a notion of sadness, longing to go back to the magical realm of your bed time story, when you close that book shut for the night.

 Tim Burton brings together a group of a people who really complement one another in style, producing these story book like films. Danny Elfman brings the atmosphere alive with his enchanting scores, and the likes of Colleen Atwood places each character in their own special spotlight with her charming costumes. Dark Shadows (2012) is no exception.

 An adaptation of a soap opera that started in the '60s, Dark Shadows focuses on the character of Barnabas Collins, an aristocrat of the 18th Century who was cursed by a former lover to walk the earth as a vampire to ensure his eternal suffering.

 Each major character stands out with their own set of colours; certain features help to illuminate them. Eva Green who plays Angelique Bouchard is the femme fatale of the story;

It's the quirky colours that attracted me to this apparent box office failure. Tim Burton's story book style resonating in this like in every other one of his films, emphasising the faslsehood of the world that the story takes place in. It's fake and you know it, but something just draws you in. Maybe it's that want of escapism of the real world that does it.

 It's Tim Burton's quirky story book look and feeling that is, again, elevated by Danny Elfman's musical score, bringing it all to life, that I really admire. It's certainly something that I would want to try to carry over in my projects.

Evaluation of the process

This has been a pretty fun process despite some of the hurdles we ran into. It's got me thinking a lot about how I would do things differently next time and how to plan.

 One thing that I really wanted to to do, which would have helped, I think, tremendously in the role of director, is having rehearsals. We did have a read through with Barney and Candid (Chris and Michael K) before we decided who would be who (and I think the right decision was made in that department). It certainly helped me in the role of the writer at least, so I could reword certain parts of dialogue so it would make more sense or just sound more fluid and natural. But I still really wish we had rehearsals. That's the bother with having four actors in the one scene. Eesh.

 Directing the actors and engaging with them to help give you the best performance they can is actually quite rewarding in a way. Some actors certainly need more direction than others, whereas some barely need any at all. I suppose it goes straight back to finding the time for rehearsals so you can get the actual shoot done as quickly as possible.

 A few times, excluding read throughs and discovering issues there, there had been necessities to rewrite or rework parts of a scene. We had to completely omit a character (who was the 'voice of reason' in Barney's head essentially) entirely because of just how difficult it was to get them. Thankfully, it was easy enough to adapt as it wasn't a major character that we were missing; we just used a 'key object' or prop as sorts that recurred throughout the script as a replacement of that.

 I would say that the exterior scene, the one where the characters of Barney and Candid are skipping stone, was the most difficult scene to shoot, purely due to the conditions. It wasn't raining or anything like that thankfully, but having to deal with wind being picked up despite using a windshield and forcing us to dub over the scene in the edit, and the difficulty of getting to the tide and back and vice versa was a little bit of a challenge.

That and the final scene. The final scene where Barney tries skipping stones himself after his realisation or 'awakening' I suppose you could say, was far too dark and had to be reshot. The plan was to use a couple of large halogen bulb torches so the night scene was possible but, unfortunately, I just didn't have the money at the time (this shot just before our loans came in so I couldn't have given the film a slight budget like I'd previously wanted to). Needing to be reshot simply as a day scene was needed to tackle this problem, but I also wanted to do it with the torches once I got them. I had an LED torch, but it was quite a small one, so it looked obvious that we were shining a torch in Chris' face. So, from that, I knew it could be done, but it was just tricky. Too dark, and the scene just looks like a grainy mess. That's one of the major problems with exterior scenes at night; trying to find good, decent light sources that are battery powered.

 If I had the time and the money, there is so much that I would have done differently. I'm dead happy with how everything has turned out so far, having a good crew helping to get things done, like Caoimhe on producing, Andy on camera, and Matt on both sound and camera at certain times, it definitely turned out looking really, really well. It's just needing more time to prep far more thoroughly rather than having to 'just do it' and being able to reshoot certain parts if needed a lot easier. Problems can arise at the last second but it's just knowing that it isn't the end of the world or knowing that it can be easily tackled if you hold onto that drive to keep going with the project is that you need. The same message the film sends out.

The Production Processes

Wow, it's so easy to lose track of the blog when you really get into filming the project.

 I'm just gonna use this particular post to show some of the actual production stages of my film Duck and Cover (thank you, Scott)!

The most difficult parts of any shoot, as I have found with every project so far like ever, is getting your hands on (reliable) actors and locations. Then you need to work these guys around a date and hope to goodness that nothing sabotages it in whatever way, shape or form.

From already personally knowing actors, it certainly made the search a fair bit easier. Getting them all free at the same time, however, is a completely different hurdle. Especially when the particular scene they're situated in is only available to us on one day at certain times for a couple of hours only. That said, it was a dream breeze getting the cafe scene, Barney's place of (voluntary) work, for us to film in (thanks, Calvin!). The main issue with that scene is picking up the hum of the fridge while recording dialogue. This, along with the exterior beach scene where it was far too windy even with a windshield as it turned out, should be overcome with a dubbing session. Just, as I said, trying to find a time when all (or, at the very least, most) of the actors are free to do this. Dubbing can be the end of it, as watching many a film on The Horror Channel has taught me.

Thankfully scenes that took place in Barney's head were readily available to us. Just as well too as we had a nifty lighting grid to work with to help us create the film noir effect that we wanted, as well as having room to move about the dolly and slider (thanks, Stephen) to give us slicker and more professional looking shots, adding so much more to the cinematic effect. Dead, dead happy with how those turned out, so a shout out and big thank you to Matt for that very productive day.

 The first of anything that we recorded were the narration segments with Barney (Chris Girvin) and Doug (Michael Warren) with Matt, our sound guy.

When brought into the edit suite along with the footage of the studio shoot, it all came together so nicely; it feels so alive and I'm very pleased with that.

The Bones Of It (Part II)

 Our tutor for this unit, Sharron, gave us a proposal sheet about a month ago. Basically, it's asking us about the key features on how to structure our film. Here's mine, although bear with me that it's in mostly note form:

• Original Thought (Initial Idea)

Use of unreliable narrator - narrator/voice over; Visual contrast between reality and imagination by playing with the codes and conventions of the pioneering genre of French film noir by employing a pastiche approach to neo-noir;

• Characters (names, descriptions, personal profile, sketches, etc.)

Barney and Candid as the protagonist and deutagonist respectively. Their character structures stem from inspiration drawn from Victoria Lynn Schmidt's book on 45 Master Characters. The character archetypes employed for Barney is The Artist, based on the Greek god of the sea, Poseidon. Candid's character comes from a supporting archetype known as The Shadow, who is used to personify the troubles of the protagonist.

•  Story (start, middle, end/conflict & resolution)

(i) The situation and fantasy aspect in regards to the character of Barney is establish, where we find out his setting, his aspirations, and generally how he reacts and deals with people and his demons;

(ii) Barney gets himself into a secret casual relationship that he tells us about, but believes it will hinder his future prospects and thus it begins to deteriorate. Between this and hiding away from Candid, he pushes everyone away, too self-centred to care how he affects those around him. It only takes so long before it all takes its toll on him;

(iii) Barney, upon pushing everyone he cared about away from him, reflects on himself and his life, his actions, his feelings and emotions. He acknowledges that it is probably too late to fix what he has just ruined, but takes it upon himself to learn from this experience and use it to better guide him for his future. He ends his story on a bittersweet note with a glimmer of hope.

•  Genre

Neo-noir pastiche; comedy-drama 

•  Audience
• Why You Think This Is A Good Idea

Can easily relate to the protagonist involved; a message that we should thrive to be the best that we can be, and to not allow our insecurities to consume us until it is almost too late just as Barney did.