After viewing and blogging about each of the eighteen short films that make up the Eduqas Short Film Collection, the research stage of the coursework process is completed. It is now time to move onto the second element of coursework: pre-production, the first order of business being an outline of my production idea.
Idea
The keystones of my film idea involve the concepts of both Metacinema and breaking the fourth wall. The basic plot of the film depicts a student who is attempting to conceptualise an idea for a short film. Perhaps opening on an establishing shot of a house, the opening scene of the film will display the student sitting at a desk with an iPad, hopelessly unable to come up with an idea.
After displaying a closeup of blank Notes page, the student begins to type and we then cross-fade into a visual representation of what this idea is. We fade to a highly stereotypical horror chase scene in the woods, before coming to an abrupt end (perhaps a comedic resolution). Out of frustration, the student deletes the typed idea before leaving the desk. Coming back later, the student receives a message from his teacher urgently asking him to submit his idea before the deadline. As the student begins to type, we fade to another hypothetical idea involving a cliché scene of the romance genre in a café.
In a state of desperation, the student continues to frantically type as we rapidly cut to different scenarios in a sequence. The film ends with the reveal that the student’s final film idea is in fact the film that that you are watching.
Due to the film involving the portrayal of multiple hypothetical narratives, my film could nicely classify under the ‘narrative which has parallel stories’ brief.
Otis Morley’s A-Level Film Studies Blog 