Work in Progress 2008-2009

All the projects this year are exciting…almost on a par with a bowl of pomegranates, two fig rolls and a cup of raspberry infusion.
The synopsis for each project has been sketched and the storylines and visuals are all pretty promising.
The video gives you a flavour of all but one of the projects which is still to be uploaded.

The first scenes from work in progress are from a horror genre project. A seemingly harmless janitor is in fact the stealer of children’s souls. The twist is that when the soul is taken the children behave perfectly in class…(yes it’s a horror FANTASY!)
I love that even in these rehearsal shots, Rory already looks the part with his limp and glasses. The jars are to be filled with red bull and egg yolk. Is that what a soul looks like????
The film is reminiscent of The Faculty Village of the Damned
and Die Welle (The Wave)

The next sequences are from a kind of CSI type thriller in which a student is murdered and there are 5 suspects for the killing. I like how this film starts with the aftermath of the killing. The enigma codes such as ‘who is the victim?’ and ‘who killed her?’ all work well in this project. Work is underway on developing the 5 suspects into different personalities. The narrative structure of the film will also require flashbacks which are not attempted too often by students. It reminds me of films such as The Usual Suspects
And Hitchcock’s classic Dial M for Murder

The Charm is a simple story with a lot of scope for good acting and suspense. A lucky charm is found in a school but all anyone gets who finds it, is bad luck. What’s interesting about the synopsis is that each successive person who finds the charm encounters worse luck than the last owner! I love the shots on the bag in the sequence which reference Hitchcock’s Marnie.

The Next sequence is from an all girl production similar to Heathers And other films like The Basketball Diaries and The Stepford Wives I like the way the four actors are working on visual unity with the same cups and eventually the same clothes. Also the piece is pretty dark since if anyone breaks away from the small, tightly knit group for any reason then they will be punished. And also there are unusual representations in the film where males are the victims.

The next piece (with the syringe!) is a very small scale film similar in big ideas to blockbuster films of recent years like Children of Men Minority Report And I am Legend The idea is that vaccinated girls in a school turn to zombies in a world where there is only one male left who is hunted by them. They are also karate experts so expect some good action sequences!

The next shot sequence is something quite different in tone! A sort of modern ‘stoner’ comedy where two morons decide under heavy influence of TV watching, to become superheroes. Costuming is excellent with poor robes and big pants. I think they are going to take the longest to make their film simply because they’ll be laughing for a lot of the time!
It reminds me of Superbad Be Kind Rewind and Nacho Libre

The final sequences in the film are for another comedy idea. In this synopsis the idea is that a seriously overweight man is knocked into shape by a lunatic grizzled coach. The big aspect of the production will be on convincing the audience about the extent of the weight problem and how funny the coach is! However I’m pretty optimistic it’s going to work out. The film reminds me of classic Jerry Lewis comedies such as The Nutty Professor
Shallow Hal And in a strange way of Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket

The one film not shown is equally as exciting as the rest. Like one of the projects mentioned earlier it is an all female group and they are filming the idea of a sweet sixteen birthday party which ends in tragedy for one of the girls. It is a character piece with some good actors in the group with echoes of
Girl Interrupted I’ve Loved You So Long And
In Her Shoes
More info on progress in a while!