Making a film on Paper Focus Group 2019/2020

To get the most out of this group you need to be currently planning to develop and produce a moving-image work designed for the cinema or gallery. You need to be prepared to show material in progress to the group and discuss it and actively participate in the discussion of others’ work.

Why this Approach?

The work of making a film 'on paper' is a necessary stage in any production. It acts as a 'gateway' to making the final project. It allows you to rehearse and consider decisions while they are still open to revision, and it allows you to create material to involve others in the production: from backers of the project to the crew for production and post-production. It creates a flow of documents that form a low cost, flexible place to try out and test ideas.

This approach also allows you to create a practice that acknowledge that, as a filmmaker/moving image artist, you will generate more ideas than are finally fully realised. It creates a process where you can learn, and deepen your experience, prior to the actual physical production of a project.

Topics we will cover:

Each topic will be covered in two sessions: in the first we will outline principles and best working practices, in the second you will bring completed examples to share and review with the group. Sessions will look at the rationale for and the conceptual approach to the documents; as well as practical issues of organising and formatting documents.

Identifying your subject: the synopsis & the pitch document.

Identifying your approach: the treatment & statement of purpose.

Creating a road-map for filming: the script & character breakdown.

Creating a visual world for your filming: the mood board.

Motivating your shooting decisions: the scene breakdown / concept of intention.

Rehearsing shooting decisions: the storyboard or a plan view of each scene

Making it happen: breakdowns, budget & schedule.

Making a Film on Paper: Step One.

Synopsis Using a three-sentence synopsis as a tool for outlining at the most basic level the core topic and driver of your project. Three sentences – each identifying one aspect of your project.

THREE ELEMENTS OF STORY PREMISE create an INVISIBLE STRUCTURE

Beginning - Protagonist: who or what is your project focussed upon. The main character or characters in fiction, the main character/community/situation in documentary, the main visual proposition/relationship to the viewer or audience in experimental work.

Middle - the conflict: what is the desire in your project? What is the resistance in your story? How do these two opposing forces meet and create conflict.

End - Resolution: How does the conflict between desire and obstacle play out.

Character, conflict and ending. All stories have this archetypal structure: if it does not have this structure it's not a story. The structure resonates with everybody because it represents an archetypal aspect of human experience through time. Human beings use archetypal structures to make decisions and to order and make sense of what they experience.

SEVEN ELEMENTS OF STORY PREMISE create an INVISIBLE STRUCTURE

A more advance breakdown taken from

ANATOMY_OF_A_PREMISE_LINE Jeff Lyons

CHARACTER - every story revolves around a person or person-like thing.

CONSTRICTION - pushes the character from one line of action to another (Inciting incident)

DESIRE - with any human being there is desire - what is the protagonist's desire. Make it strong and clear to sustain through action.

RELATIONSHIP - what relationships positive and negative does the character enter into to further their desire?

RESISTANCE - what resistance, friction and hostility does the pursuit of this desire encounter?

ADVENTURE - how do the above throw the protagonist's life into chaos and disarray?

RESOLUTION - how does this chaos resolve in a way that answers (positively or negatively) the protagonists desires and how does the resolution help the protagonist resolve his fatal flaw? The story must result in substantial change - either a radical change, success and evolution or a radical stasis, failure and devolution.

USEFUL ADDITIONAL READING AT THIS STAGE

Wired for story Lisa Cron

A brief and clear exposition of the basic psychological mechanisms that hook a reader into a story.

On the origin of Stories Brian Boyd

A ground-breaking academic work that explores the current developments in the cross-breeding between literary criticism and evolutionary theory. Asks the basic question: why has story telling proved to be a universal human adaptive mechanism.

Hero With A Thousand Faces Jospeh Campbell

theory of the mythological structure of the journey of the archetypal hero found in world myths.

NEXT STEPS TO MOVE THIS FOCUS GROUP ONLINE

We'll plan to meet bi-weekly on ZOOM - I'll send out invitations.

To help focus our online discussion I will use a past production of mine SHOCK HEAD SOUL as an example.

I can then find examples of each stage of the 'paper trail' of the film in my archive and share them with you for discussion. Each session will look at one of the aspects of making a film on paper as outlined in the intro above. To make this more concrete and hopefully useful I will post a viewing copy of the film on a private vimeo link and share the password with focus group members.

As a brief introduction to the project here is:

The trailer: https://shop.submarine.nl/portfolio-view/shock-head-soul/

The website: http://shockheadsoul.com

As we progress through the weeks I'll post relevant documents to each heading below.

Identifying your subject: Research documents, Synopsis, Pitch document.

https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/File:20100710_SHS_SHORT_SYNOPSIS.doc

https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/File:Excerpt_NL_FIlm_Fund_Notes.doc

https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/File:Schreber_micro_history.xls