So, after a few days of working in Scrivener, the script was done.
The first draft of my sci-fi short was called “The Curator” None of the characters had names, and some of the ideas weren’t so clear, but it was mind and it was done!
The first person I sent it to was my brother, Patrick, whom I would be relying on for the visual effects and as my main crew!
This bit is always nerve wracking – showing your work to someone…
What if it’s stupid? What if they hate it? Will they see the same things in it you do?
Thankfully, he liked it. Whew!
Having shared the developing ideas with Patrick from the start, he had been excited enough to create some visual effects tests using footage shot for the educational film.
These turned out very well and made us both excited – though the “pocket device” from the story was proving to be tricky to nail down.
I was recording with RJ soon after this and asked him to play the main role in the movie. He agreed and pledged to do whatever it took to get it done! Trusting soul! I gave him a copy of the first draft and waited to see what he thought. Again, I was lucky enough to have him like it!
Some technical and stylistic things needed to be sorted out at this stage.
Although Patrick is very skilled at visual effects and Adobe After Effects is very powerful I really felt that what I wanted to do was to buck the trend of shiny, floating displays and extravagant camera movements…
Quite deliberately, I want to create something in a retro-futuristic science fiction style. This means (for us) no crane shots, few dolly shots, use of split screens, old-fashioned display screens and computer interfaces, use of data disks, 70s style sci-fi costumes and, amongst others, visual effects that aren’t “too perfect.”
With Patrick agreeing, I put together a research list of films to watch – most of which I had on DVD already, with a few iTunes and Netflix thrown in. This list included;
Solaris (Tarkovsky)
Stalker (Tarkovsky)
The Andromeda Strain
2001 A Space Odyssey
War Games
Marooned
Dark Star
Silent Running
Forbidden Planet
The main influences while I was writing being Solaris and The Andromeda Strain but they all were passing through my mind at some pint or another. For me, these movies have things in common and those things are (for me) missing from a lot of modern sci fi… Character and psychology.
George Lucas always said the story should be about the people, not the special effects (which worked well for the first three Star Wars movies… What happened George…?) that’s what I want to get to in this short film – have effects be there but be subordinate and almost un-noticeable next to the characters and the story.
The next aspect of these movies that I loved was that they are almost all psychological dramas. They play with the mind and show us the psychology of the protagonists. Now, in a five minute short film, this might prove difficult, but with a bit of luck we will show the intended character development and motivation in our movie.
I also felt that in modern sci-fi movies, the viewer is sometimes forgotten. Like the shark in Jaws, HAL from 2001, and the “Monster from the Id” in Forbidden Planet, the unseen can be much more intense that the monster shown on screen. It’s the presence that counts.
I want to try and add these elements to the script and the film. Dialogue is sparing and a lot will be told through audio cues… Our locations are unique and interesting and we’re not relying on whizz-bangery. Fingers crossed it comes out even half as good as it seems in my head!
Next time: Technical questions
Are You There? A sci-fi Short Film 