A Modest Proposal

A Grandiose Proposal

For my capstone project I am going to attempt to write and direct a short film inspired by the works of post-modern and meta fiction artists such as Charlie Kaufman, Jorge Louis Borges, Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, and Federico Fellini.  Jason McKahan has agreed to be my director.

Escher

The story will follow an author who is unable to get his book published because publishers feel it lacks heart.  In an effort to write a story with heart, he sets out to write a roman à clef about his own life, but he soon becomes lost in the world he has created.

I am currently in the writing stage of my project.  I have outlined my script and am working on an in depth treatment of sorts. Once finished, I will begin working on the actual script.   I'm not sure how long the script will be, but I estimate it will be around 30 pages, which should make the film around 30 minutes.

Drescher

I have been thinking about the aesthetic and technical aspects of production.  I have already started experimenting with some of the special effect shots that I am considering in order to gauge whether they will actually work and whether they are worth the time I will have to put into them.  I met with Jason on Friday to talk to him about one of the more daunting, at least for me, concepts I have been toying with.

The term "roman à clef" literally means "Book with a key."  This works out great for me because my early concept for the film was the author in the story would be able to access the world of his story by inserting a special key into any door.  The shot that I was worried about was having the main character open a door in in one place, walk through the doorway, and be in an obviously different space, then being able to see through the doorway into the space he came from before he closed the door.  He gave me a few ideas that I hadn't considered, and I plan on experimenting with them this week to see what works.

Caden and Caden from Synecdoche, New York

As far as research goes, I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to look into.  For the past couple months I have been seeking out films and books that deal with similar themes and ideas, and I've even read a couple different screenplays in order to study scriptwriting techniques.  My next step in my research will probably be to look at more production techniques such as lighting and camera angles and such, but I feel like I need to get my script finished before I get myself hung up on how the film will actually look and feel.  All I know right now is that I want it to feel infinitely large and infinitely small at the same time.  It's bound to drive me crazy, but it'll be one hell of a trip.