Today in class we met in groups to bounce ideas off each other and direct ourselves in good directions concerning each of our projects. I was put in a room with Ella, Maria, David, Mel, and Tanish, all of whom had really different and unique ideas from each other. it was a really interesting and rewarding experience having this meeting: it gave me perspective into others' planning and working processes and gave me some inspiration with regard to shooting locations, usage of music, and dialogue.
Ella's struggles with shooting locations had me thinking about my own struggles and how I integrated them into my idea, but her issues with lighting brought up new concerns for me. I already had a vision of using natural lighting but I want to make sure I get that soft, warm, kind of hazy late summer lighting and atmosphere and I'll have to brainstorm ways to ensure that. I'm glad i chose to plan around my current living situation, and the other people in the meeting gave their insight and approval, saying it really worked well with the themes I wanted to explore.
Mel is going to have a song play throughout her opening, one that will reflect her atmosphere and style perfectly; this reflected how I want to use an ambient piece in mine (by the way, I asked Christian if I could use one of his songs and he said yes! Stream Ten Mile Point, support independent artists). But this also made me kind of conflicted. Do I want to go for a montage, building atmosphere, introducing the setting and situation, and leaving everything else up to be developed later on in the film? Or do I want to sacrifice style by having more substance, a storyline that you can follow along and build the relatability / coming-of-age aspects? This is something I'll have to figure out sooner than later.
Maria and David had issues with dialogue, and that made me ponder whether or not I wanted to include dialogue in my opening. I did want to include that shot of the character having a phone call, but if I'm going for the montage feel I might cut it out completely and not have any spoken dialogue. I'm leaning towards this, I feel like dialogue is something better to focus on when creating a fuller narrative and developing character relationships, not something I need to work on right now considering my other focuses for the project.
Overall, this group meeting really helped me with brainstorming once I was introduced to other people and groups' struggles and planning methods. I feel like during and after it I was able to mull over different conflicts regarding how I want my opening to play out, and now that I'm moving onto practical planning like storyboarding I can figure out the exact direction I want to go in.
post titled after this song, which in turn is titled after a line in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
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