Studio Shoot #7: Script development and Meetings with Direction Team

 Meeting with Ellie and Vicky in preparation for meeting with direction team, head of art department (Ellie) and the DoP, myself. 

I sat in on a meeting where they were developing the story in preparation for the next direction team meeting. Referring back to points from the previous whole crew meeting with Rosie and our own questions about the script, we were able to start from here in order to come up with ideas on how to develop it. In order to do so i had them write all the key themes on a separate piece of paper and then write all the questions we needed to answer on other bits of paper so we had it all laid out in front of us and was more visual what we had to do.

What was the man's back story?

What is the man's purpose in the room?

Over all theme?

What is the plot twist/ conflict?

What is the ending?

It was pointed out that the protagonist needed a stronger back story as we needed to understand him in order to accurately portray his mind. To answer these questions, we started looking themes in relation to his mind as this was a the key place the film would be taking place in:

Losing Memory/ Trying to remember something

Self healing from some sort of trauma

Losing a particular item 

Primarily focused on the idea of losing memory, the idea of looking at memory loss, amnesia made more sense and ideas began to spiral from this. 

What was the man's back story:

Man who suffers with amnesia is struggling to retain his memories. 

How we COMMUNICATE this to the viewer:

1. man is introduced on a bench wearing his dressing gown and bedroom slippers

2. has a hospital band on his wrist with his first name blurred our and last name visible - emphasise the idea that it is amnesia from an accident

3. In the interior set, the furniture is covered with white clothe to show that some things are unidentified or blanked out in his brain.

4. Post-it notes around the room that remind him to do things such as 'appointment at doctors at 12' or 'Sarah coming over on Thursday' 

5. Developed idea of pin hole pictures (inspired by artist Amy Friend). Having a wall with lots of different picture frames. Some have images in them whist others don't. The ones that do have fragments of the images missing to highlight he doesn't remember certain aspects of that memory. This maybe either the location, certain people or objects in each image/frame accompanied with pin holes.

We bounced ideas between us eventually developing the script:

- Ended up deciding that there would be two figures, Figure A would be the metaphor for amnesia or memory loss and it would be stealing from FIGURE B, the protagonist, whose memory was being lost.

- The set would be a place he was familiar with so maybe his living room or bedroom, however it was all covered up and there were aspects of it that were missing.

- He would be find a key in a chest and would test it on the door and would see that it fits, 

- the ending: he would walk out of the room back in to the void and we would see that although he has the key, he would forget to lock the door. In this shot we would see figure A in the background ready to reenter the house. 

In this meeting we were able to identify key issues and tackle them and figure what the character needed and what the story needed in oder to be stronger and fully developed. I felt that it was a super successful meeting because of this. Our next steps from here would be organising a meeting with the two other people from the direction department, Rodrigo and Leah and going over the script with them. 

MEETING WITH DIRECTION TEAM, ELLIE AND MYSELF.

After sorting out the script we had a meeting with Leah and Rodrigo and discussed the script and they really liked it and felt more enthusiastic abut the shoot which was really nice. They came up with lots of additional ideas on how we could show the amnesia such as have a scar or a shaved side of the mans head to show that he had surgery and Rodrigo suggested a person who would be up for acting the role which was exciting! Leah did some research and found some really interesting things such as people who put a red ribbon on their finger to help them remember things and that some people also come up with different ways to help them remember such as putting a clock on a plate and setting the clock to a certain time to represent them eating at a certain time so they don't forget. In this meeting Rodrigo also suggested that Vicky be the official director as she was more involved with the basis of the script and instead he would be 1st AD.