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Ideas and Mini Proposal
IDEA 1 - The Canonical Ambition
Mascot is an idea I had several months ago when I was talking with my family about my cousin's story. After hearing the inspirational story about this boy who achieved the impossible, I couldn't stop thinking about how cinematic it felt. This film will be completely based off of true events, which is the first challenge that this project could face. I would have to face the task of writing a story inspired by real people, I'd need to represent them carefully and accurately especially since I'm making the film out of admiration of their story. The story is naturally very 'cinematic', a character has a goal but an obstacle prevents them, they adapt, and then overcome leading to their eventual victory in completing their goal. When I was hearing the story for the first time, this structure resonated and lead me to want to develop it further.
In last year's FMP, I focused heavily on genre, for this project, I'd want to do the same. Drama would be how I'd describe this idea, I'd direct and write it with such conventions. However, dramas can feel repetitive at times; they can feel predictably soppy or unmotivatingly disengaged. Last year, I watched The Children Act as a part of my research in adult themes, whilst it did cover those themes, I felt the film lacked any motivation to encourage an audience to watch it out of interest. There wasn't anything pulling audiences to it despite how it was also based on a true story. I may re-watch The Children Act again but this time for different reasons, not for theme, but for developing a true story; perhaps not, however, since I felt that the film was lacking in drive, I could instead use the film as a learning curve - What did they do well? What didn't they do well? etc. I don't want the film to feel predictable, or uninspired; when listening to the story, I felt inspired, I want to siphon that feeling into this film so that audiences can replicate this feeling.
The concept:
Nick is a determined, mature rugby player; a modern gentleman personified. His son, Noah, is diagnosed with Perthey's disease (brittle bones, localized in the hip joint) at 4 years old just before he starts school. Emma, Nick's wife, feels concern, she represents the doubt within the family whereas Nick holds strong and acts respectfully defiant surrounding the matter. Despite this actuality, Noah loves rugby just as much as his dad, he watches every Wales game, is always seen wearing a Welsh jersey; he dreams of becoming a rugby player and standing by their side on the pitch, singing the anthem to the nation; Nick is torn by his sons dream and his sons reality. As the story continues, Nick pursues Noah's dream, ignoring the inevitable. Nick ignores the doctors recommendations and takes Noah to the park to throw a ball. Noah grows impatient and runs for a tackle, Nick tries to stop him, but Noah collides with his dad and shatters his hips. As Noah recovers, he begins school, Emma's concern increasingly grows, she polices him more. Nick, however, consistently applies Noah to rugby, he takes him to the rugby pitch every day to kick a ball, but as Noah's condition gets worse, Nick's ambition falls further flat. Eventually, Noah is the one taking his dad to the rugby pitch, Nick's determination has rubbed off on his son. As life drags on, Noah is getting increasingly more frustrated with his condition, limiting him from seemingly more tasks. Meanwhile, Nick learns of a possible candidacy to enter Noah into, to become the Welsh Mascot in the rugby world cup; this only complicates things, however. With Nick torn between giving his son his dream or squaring his son with reality, and Noah faced with bitterness, the film reaches it's climax. Eight year old Noah stands at the top of a staircase feeling defeated, he calls for Nick to help him down. Nick stands at the bottom of the staircase; here he makes a critical choice. He tells Noah to walk down the stairs without help. Noah skeptically trusts his dad, (after all he's been with him through everything) so he takes a step, and another, and another, swiftly making his way to the bottom step - he finds himself face to face with his dad. He's without pain. The final moments of the film show Noah's interview as he retells his inspiring story and manages to take his place as the Welsh Mascot for the Rugby World Cup.
Narratively, it's pacing is jumpy, the story moves forward in time rapidly sometimes jumping between days and weeks and at other times jumping between years. These transitions also need to happen seamlessly, there wouldn't be any information indicating time moving on other than the characters aging. Somehow I'd need to make this story feel contiguous whilst also not confining it to matter of days or weeks, thereby confusing the audience.
Thematically, the story would resolve a central theme which would be accompanied by smaller themes; this would be: Family. The two protagonists are father and son which allow for this theme to be represented through two sets of eyes. I mentioned in the concept's breakdown that Nick will be faced with two choices: his son's dream and his son's reality, I want Nick to be torn by this decision throughout the film, I want to ensure that his character sees the negatives of both. Primarily, in every scene involving Nick, I want his opinion to change, he's constantly asking himself this question and facing the decision. I feel this choice in character progression is necessary to develop and represent the family theme, Nick's goal isn't for himself but for his son, it naturally supports the theme because it's a selfless act. I believe Family (theme) consists of a variety of traits including: honesty, selflessness, teamwork, determination, and many others which I would explore to develop this idea further. Noah would then represent the philosophical conflict that comes against the family. Nick's struggle conflicts the family internally, whilst Noah's conflicts them externally. Noah encounters bitterness, selfishness, loneliness, everything that comes against the traditional family dynamic. He experienced these things from characters in his characters in his story as well as Perthey's.
Another theme I'd represent in this film would be religion. In previous projects I haven't covered such a sensitive theme before, I have considered it, however. In my Year 1 FMP, I almost developed a sitcom pilot episode involving a christian family. I thought I would struggle with this idea due to representative issues (not wanting to offend religious groups and/or otherwise related). For this project, however, the family I'm basing this story off of are christian's which means I need to accurately and professionally represent their faith. In Hollywood, religion is often avoided as a concrete theme, most of the time they can be labelled as a throw-away characteristic to appease the 'token diversity' character every film needs today. Whilst I don't think this film needs a central focus on Christianity, I do want to represent the religion within the family respectfully and not disregard certain principles and details that they (the real people) may or may not want to include.
I would want to take on the director role for this project. Tommy (a friend) has shown interest in working alongside me for this project and wants to use this story as an opportunity to flex his skills as a cinematographer for his own FMP. This would allow me administer more of my focus towards directing and writing specifically, which means my research can be more thorough in these areas without also requiring me to research into camera work as heavily as I would do on my own. With this freedom, I could explore niche-er areas that I couldn't have in other projects, such as: directing actors to motivate a scene through performance over visual imagery, dialogue direction and how expressions, dialects, stresses, and other speech patterns can affect the feeling or emotion of a certain line; and since this project could involve a large scale production team, I would also be able to focus on directing an entire team to deliver on a creative vision where I can present the message I want to tell.
IDEA 2 - The Confinement
For the research unit last year, I tasked myself with creating a series of posters, two being inspired by original ideas and then the others being inspired by existing IP's. One of the posters was advertising a sci-fi thriller film: 30 Minutes. A War-Room-feel short film inspired by the film Apollo 13. When watching Apollo 13, I loved how it captured the nervous energy in the control room just as much as what was in the capsule. I want to capture the intensity of the 'control room' in this short 5 minute film without needing to show the space expanse or the physical mission itself. For this project, I'd want to demonstrate that a thriller can be made without needing horrific jump scares or large scale VFX shots to be exhilarating; but instead just through the power of words and cinematography.
I would focus on the cinematography and writing for this project, telling the story through clever camera movements and complex dialogue techniques. For my year 1 FMP, I made a drama, but wanted to keep the audience gripped; creatively, I approached this by filming a 'thriller' but without the jump scare. For this idea, I'd want to do something similar, but this time, I'm actually filming a thriller. Rather than amplifying the drama genre conventions, I'd use the traditional thriller conventions: Red Herrings, ticking clock etc.
Concept: NASA begin their day quietly, monitoring an ongoing mission involving the launch of a one man shuttle to Mars. But the day suddenly turns a corner when they receive a piece of distressed transmission from the shuttle. Director Clarks (head of the program) is a determined, level headed commander, who makes it his mission to find a fix the problem. He struggles to keep his team at ease as more of the fragmented distress signal reaches HQ. Eventually, a pieced together damage report comes through showing a leaking respiration tank and damaged hull; there was a collision. Tension rises as they learn of the condition of the shuttle and the unknown condition of the astronaut; until... Astronaut Elliot Varnum pages an emergency comm. Clarks puts through the transmission, it's clearly live. Varnum begins to express the condition of his shuttle and then himself; he's okay, but not for much longer, his voice is noticeably shaky. As Varnum's feed continues, one of the team find a quick fix to the respiratory leak, saving Varnum. Time is running out, Clarks tries to describe the solution but Varnum seems to ignore him; at this moment, Varnum begins speaking as if they're his last words. He gives a message for his wife, his kids, he thanks the team--Clarks is convinced they'll bring him back, but Varnum is clearly spiraling and can't help himself. Clarks takes over the desk and begins manually trying to fix the problem whilst still in communication. The time is running thinner and thinner, Clarks is getting closer and closer. Varnum cuts off. The team goes silent. Clarks demands an update; one of the team then say that the ship's condition is no longer reading as damaged. The team cheer victoriously until interrupted one last time. 'Director, Varnum's message had a delay of 30 minutes.' Clarks stops in stunned silence. The rest of the team gaze into the giant monitor displayed on the wall, silent, stunned.
Writing this project would be a tremendous task; most of the story is completely told through dialogue alone. This would require clever, precisely studied dialogue, which is what most of my research will incooperate. One of the main issues I could face with this idea is the set design, the film is set within one room, how would I make this one room look like a control centre at NASA HQ? Something I'd need to figure out during my pre-production phase. But because of this issue I'm not too inspired to move forward with this idea.
Unlike last year, my access to actors isn't so much of concern for this idea; I surprisingly know quite a few adult actors thanks to my association with CADS, a local production company, and my summer film project from last year. I feel my directing skills wouldn't have much room to grow in this project so I wouldn't want to put my focus on that role during for this idea.
IDEA 3 - The Backup
I'm aware that if I do end up pursuing the Mascot idea I will be working closely with an external party which could lead to interrupting the project entirely. Because of my last FMP, I know how difficult it is to come back from a complete reset weeks into your project; if I formulate this idea now, then I know I am prepared for anything. The idea in mind is to create a scaled down version of the Mascot idea; use the full script, and film a couple of the demo scenes. That way I can stick to my research and pre-production planning without losing out on any past work.