Alpha and Oh, Meghana!
This is the historic first post of my graduation film production diary. When historians of the future finally e-unearth it they will point their slender cyber-fingers and exclaim excitedly, “Here! Here is where it all started to go wrong.” And then they will say, “Oooh, look! There’s a bit about us.”
So. The state of play: New year. New folks. New desks. No film!
Today my colleagues and I were joyously reunited after the summer holidays. To my cruel delight, I find that several of them are as clueless as I am about what to spend their time doing this year. In two days’ time we’re to submit a proposal for our magnum opus graduation film, which must be brilliant, original, uplifting, funny, innovative, tragic and informative, and may not include either monkeys or large-chested warrior women with robotic guns for arms. Unfortunately, this last caveat doubly ruled out my best idea so far.
I’ve been mulling over two separate concepts this summer in the brief periods between work and sleep. Briefly they are:
1) A one-shot live action journey featuring mechanical animation contraptions. A live-action character tells a story on camera whilst in the background, unseen by the protagonist, various whirring gizmos try to communicate an alternative reading of the tale.
2) A cartoon film drawn in biro entirely on parts of my own body. Don’t make that face, I’ll only draw on the nice bits.
Tomorrow I’ll begin to sculpt (read: cobble) these ideas into more solid treatments, and post again with clear, precise and unfilmable proposals.
In other news, following the unimaginable joy of producing our two previous films for MTV, Meg has suggested that we attempt to make them into a trilogy. I explained to her that this involved producing another film, though this did little to quash her infections optimism. Will it happen? Will it be a hellish anim-nightmare of sleep deprivation and junk food? Only the silver-foil-clad historians of the future have the answer.
