Well, this week has been creative hell for all of us. Having devised 5 or 6 very detailed ideas, then having dropped them by Tuesday, I began to think that all of my creative energy had been exhausted.
We started off with some very vague notions. My first suggestion was that of a comedy chase sequence, a parody of Hollywood action movies. I also devised a couple of other ideas regarding loss of identity and an act of self sacrifice in a post-apocalyptic future.
Danny picked up on an interesting quote from one of the Psalms, which seemed to underpin nicely the ‘Facing the Shadow’ idea. Max and Cath began developing an idea that involved a man being treated for his phobia of the dark.
I began to question my comedy action thriller. I clung onto it for a while, trying to get around the practical problems it would have presented. It would have involved two characters, a hero and a villain, having a high-speed chase down-hill on scooters. The first problem I could see was that it would have been difficult to shoot, various angles and constant sound effects required. It would also have been hard to create a 5-10 minute film on the basis of this idea. Max voiced the concern on a number of occasions that comedy is difficult to write. While I did agree, I don’t think it’s any harder than writing a drama.
I decided to go back to the drawing board anyway. I was inspired partly by a Doctor Who serial from the 1970s, in which the Doctor enters a false reality, a computation matrix, and finds himself in a surreal environment in which logic does not apply:
I decided to put a human character in a bland, baron wilderness, and subject him to harsh trials and challenges. Working backwards from this, I decided to preset this world as a possible afterlife or limbo, and have the protagonist die or appear to die before he enters this environment. The film would finish with a darkness or blanket of greyscale engulfing the landscape, and the protagonist turning to face the oncoming force, as per the brief.
Once again, this idea fell down in terms of practicality. There were scenes involving strange beasts and elemental forces beyond our control. We also decided that finding a baron, featureless location close-by was going to be a problem. I then dropped this idea in favour of a completely new one that came to me on the bus, on the day that I write this entry.
My final (hopefully) film concept is that of a romantic science fiction comedy. A girl called Jenny, in her 20s, is astounded when a man appears out of thin air right before her eyes, claiming to be from the future. The truth is that Gareth is a rather reluctant employee of a gimmicky time-travel messenger service. The idea is that you pay to have messages sent back in time to friends and relatives. Jenny is bemused and a little sceptical at first, especially as it seems that this message is from herself, a much older version of herself, from the future. But these messages seem to be alluding to a relationship she is yet to have. All becomes clear when one day on a jaunt into Jenny’s past, Gareth’s hand-held time manipulator malfunctions, and he has to spend his time waiting for the link to be re-established, in the company of this young woman.
Cath and I are meeting tomorrow to try and finalise the idea that we are to pitch in Friday’s session. I believe she has polished up the original ‘fear of the dark’ concept, so it’s either that, or mine, I guess. One thing is clear though: we must finally decide tomorrow.
Gulp.
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