Idea Time

For a while now I’ve been messing around with the idea of having a character obsessed with action movies (along the Tarantino wavelength) and their protagonists by default. Originally, I wanted to focus in on two best friends that decided to set out on a mission of their own. I wanted this mission of theirs to surround the mundane, reinforcing the idea that they could never be who they longed to be because life is not a film. Unfortunately, I ran into several obstacles when it came to time, actors, etc. Something clicked, though, while watching this previously linked side-by-side comparison of Boogie Nights (1997 dir. by Paul Thomas Anderson) and Scorsese works, and I modified my idea a bit!

I still really like and want to work with a character obsessed with action heros, but I'm going to set the opening in my room and focus in on one protagonist instead. Rooms are intimate spaces and, in many ways, portraits of their owners. Thus, I want my room littered with action paraphernalia to reflect the mindset of my opening's protagonist.

A very long photo of my room. (Stuff on my floor- oopsies!)

Using my room as the setting, opposed to a friend's room, will also give me full access to manipulate the set and film reshoots without feeling like I'm stretching a favor. Moreover, instead of having my character decide to go out on a mission, I'd like to have her misinterpret an incident as a call to action.

Type of CD player I'm going for.

I want the opening to essentially be a girl (Kiara) playing dress up in her room, putting on this blend-of-every-action-hero ever persona in front of the mirror. To start her ritual, she plays a funky song. I’ll get into exact shots, angles, etc. in the storyboards, but I want to open with a shot of a CD player on her desk, the sound of her picking up a CD offscreen in the background. I like the emptiness of the shot, and also that a CD player’s outdated enough to make it seem like she stole it from Mom’s “junk section” of the garage.

Kiara slides into frame on a spinny chair, CD in hand. She puts the CD in the player, pressing play, and officially commencing the film. I then want to cut to her standing up and turning into the camera, saying “Hey you. Yeah, you!” This will be the first time the audience sees her and they’ll assume she’s breaking the fourth wall, but following what I mentioned in my “Notes from City of God” post about the camera acting as a person, I want to whip pan to what’s in front of her, revealing that she’s talking to herself in the mirror. I want to allude to this monologue being a part of her daily routine by cutting to shots of items around her room that indicate her obsession with action culture, such as the Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2 DVD’s stacked on top of each other, or a pepper spray keychain lying around her desk. I also want to create a sense of comedy in how seriously she takes herself.

Cutting back, she'll continue her monologue and eventually go on to say "You think I'm playing? Does this look like playing?" pulling out a butter knife. I think a butter knife is fitting because it makes it abundantly clear that she isn’t a serious threat, and also implies that it was the only “weapon” she could find, adding to the comedic aspect of the opening. A few moments after she pulls out the knife, her mother calls her from the other room, asking her to pick up the mail. Kiara runs to turn off the player and shoves the knife in her desk drawer.

If I reach the two minute mark there, I'll end there, but if not I'd like to include her picking up the mail. I want to present the beginning of that in a long shot, emphasizing the lameness of the situation. Moreover, I want to conclude it with her stumbling across a letter she misinterprets as a call to action. I don't know exactly what the letter should say, but I'll decide that later.

Until next time!

CS

photo of CD player from: http://www.quality-wars.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/cd_player.jpg