TMA 285: Evoking Childhood project: Director's Statement of Intent

EVOKING CHILDHOOD

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT OF INTENT

This statement of intent is designed to train your mind, eye and heart to shoot purposefully. Prepare it well before shooting. Briefly—but thoughtfully and specifically—answer the following questions. Be sure to read the assignment description carefully and make your answers specific.

1.       Use these questions as inspiration and write about your childhood:

What was your childhood like? Carefree? Painful? Glorious? Mysterious? What specific memories do you have? Sounds? Smells? Tastes? Faces? What did the world look like to you then? How did others see you? What scared you? What did creativity feel like to you? How have things changed for you?

My childhood, looking back, can be summed up in one word: sad. It was a time which I don’t want to live again. I was distanced from everyone. I was only attentive to the things on my TV and computer screens, which usually displayed cartoonish characters involved in frankly silly plots. Up until I was 17, my parents pretty much made all the major life choices for me, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t think about many of them really hard on the inside.

I can remember when I was 3 or 4 and going to a Special Ed preschool because I didn’t start talking until that age. I remember several faces there of specific students and my teacher. While communication has always been my hang-up, I remember thinking that I was smarter than those other kids and I didn’t belong there. While not a memory of mine, a grown-up family friend says he remembers a time when me and my first younger brother were only a few years old, and he gave us both a grape in his kitchen. My brother shoved the grape into his mouth and extended his hand out expecting another one, but I just held that first grape in my fingers, looking at it, examining it, even picking it apart to see what was inside.

That makes me think of times I do remember just staring at objects, meshing and twisting their forms in my head into something else, then planting myself in the middle of a cartoon world I saw on Nickelodeon. To me, the important things in the world were boring, and nothing in it, even the people, was important to me. I think the reason behind this old mind set was that I could never get what I wanted right when I wanted it, and I usually was never right when I did speak properly and when called upon, so I thought, “Why bother anyone when no one makes me feel good?” There were also times that same brother of mine, who was the exact opposite of me, would get on my nerves like nothing else and make me angry with his constant annoyances at me.

When I tried being creative as a child, it usually came out as rehashed episodes or video games I saw before; fan fiction I guess you could say. Sometimes though, I could imagine myself in other places that I would like to see in a movie or on TV that I haven’t seen before, though still without plots. I didn’t start coming up with my own customized characters with original stories until 7^th Grade, with some help from a friend with similar interests.

Today, things have substantially changed in how I view creativity, and way more importantly, the world. I am much more open with people, willing to listen to others, and learning from the experiences I have in order to express myself better and more positively. After a history of events bringing me life-changing maturity, I now feel like, as an adult, I can finally function right.

2.       List 10 or more people, places, or things that remind you of your childhood. Can any of these be used as symbols or motifs to communicate meaning and emotion?

Calvin & Hobbes

SEGA Genesis / Nintendo Gamecube

Model train sets

Oakridge School in Provo (now Provo Special Education Seminary)

Canyon Elementary in Spanish Fork

The Andersen family (life-long friends)

Cul-de-sac in Provo

MiniDV Camcorder

Macaroni and Cheese

My mother

3.       Before continuing, consider how can you subvert our expectations and surprise us? What individual images capture the essence of your experience? How can you avoid cliché? Can you provide a hint of story--even if it is not elaborated on? How can you imply rather than explicitly state? How can you use ellipsis to let the audience fill in gaps? How can color, or lack thereof, help evoke emotion? What about sound?

I’ll film matching shots of objects set against a blank white wall in an empty room with no windows. The uniformity and dark tone of the background shows how isolated and closed-minded I usually was. For an added touch of uniqueness, the camera will juxtapose to a location in the real world (or occasionally, a CG shot) inspired by that object to simulate my imagination inspired by it. Then the camera will cut back to the isolated room, just moved a little backwards with each cut to the next object. Each object or set increases in real size, to simulate growth, but still in the same shell. Each location will start off exactly as we imagined then turn out to be unexpected eye-openers. A child will interact with each object and be featured in each outer location, and these shots will be significantly more colored than in the room.

4.       Describe the progression--the beginning, middle, and end--of this film in three or four sentences? In other words, what happens in this scene as it starts, as it progresses, and as it ends?

In the isolated room against the back wall, a series of featured objects will start out interestingly small, beginning with a single grape, which move into calming images inspired by them, like kitchens and forests. Then, as we see bigger objects, such as a TV and video game setup, the images get more complicated as fights erupt between brothers and imaginations get bigger by imagining flying through the sky. In the end, the distance between the wall and the camera grows so great, we can finally see the open door/move out the open door, and discover the outside world. A child resists the urge of a computer in the room to stay, and walks out the door with the computer in hand.

5.       What, specifically, would you like the audience to understand? How do you intend to communicate that information?

I want my audience to know that I was isolated, distanced from the real world, until I found a way out of that life. The empty room will be in at least half the shots, but after the camera sees the door, it will become the film’s impulse to leave.

6.       What emotion(s) do you want the audience to experience about your childhood through this film? How do you intend to make this happen?  

My emotion overall is sadness that I was in this self-imposed bubble, and the audience will feel this as they see the child alone to console himself or fighting other people.

7.       What is the first image of the film? What is the final image of the film? Why are you choosing these specific images?

The first image is a grape sitting on a small plate on a small table in the empty room, with a child staring at it. The final image is the child slowly opening the door to the room and leaving with difficulty, with a laptop with a bright screen.

8.       Why is this scene personal to you? Ask yourself, “Why do I need to make this scene?”

Only I know what goes on in my head as I see real things; and sometimes, not even I can. I easily lost attention to whatever I was supposed to give it, and whenever I was questioned why, I blanked out. No one else can determine how I feel unless I give them clues. Making this scene can be equivalent to telling a psychologist about my past and allowing him to reflect back to me what he’s determined.

9.       Before making your shot list, consider: How can you subvert the audience’s expectations and surprise us? What individual images capture the essence of your experience? How can you avoid cliché? Can you provide a hint of story--even if it is not elaborated on? How can you imply rather than explicitly state? How can you use ellipsis to let the audience fill in gaps? How can color, or lack thereof, help evoke emotion?

The empty room will be treated as a prison with an unlocked door, which the central child willingly doesn’t leave. The images I plan to show include simply a single grape, a comic book, a cartoon drawing, a camcorder hooked up to a TV, an old video game system hooked up to a TV, and a laptop. To avoid cliché, each imagined scene inspired by each object will have a different tone, including meditation, annoyance, action, and domestic violence. No dialogue will be used, just what I imagine myself to be doing with each object. While the empty room will have no color to it, the imagined scenes will be full with color.

Most importantly: How can you intensify your purpose or intent for each shot? Can you will emotion into your images?

The transition between the objects and their imagined scenes will have a flash of light off the corner and a rack focus going from focused to blurry and back to focused. The more serene scenes will have tripod or tracking shots at a distance from the child, while the more intense scenes will be handheld and close up.

10.   List two or three potential obstacles to creating a successful film. How can you be prepared to overcome these? Be specific!

-          My desired emotions may still not resonate in the scenes I choose to film. This may be because I have difficulty making solid decisions about many things. I’ll try to be as precise on planning which camera moves, lighting, and actor’s actions will be most effective before the shooting day, so that I may go into it with confidence, which helps me think the most clearly.

-          I may not be able to obtain the desired locations to replicate my feelings. There are both elaborate, realistic location options, or otherwise tacky, small-value options which will require trickery to make the audience believe is real. I must be looking with plenty of time ahead of the shooting days for appropriate locations and make sure I can use them before making the final decision.