Getting ready to pitch

Derek and I recently presented 'Deep' at a lunchtime 'Research Bites' session.  And so it has now been offered it out to potential collaborators.  We've had discussions with Performance and Dance lecturers and Derek has also talked to staff from the Film, Music and Illustration courses.  We have Jane Pugh, the script-writing lecturer looking over the script for us.  There is a buzz at last!

Rosa Mulraney is on board.  We are very pleased that she is interested in helping us as we are going to need a serious bit of organising.  


And excitingly, Derek, Rosa and I have met with the Falmouth based film production company, Dog Bite.  Matt Walsh is keen to help us with the live-action elements of the film and has agreed to work within our budget constraints to find clever ways of cutting costs.  Working with DogBite will really push the film into a more professional environment for the students.  We will have the option to make use of their green screen studio facilities for some of the scenes, while others would be shot on location.  They have agreed to work with some of the student collaborators and give them a taste of the pressures and standards of a professional environment.

We've also discussed the film with three of our level 2 students - Kirk, Freddie and Callum, who we feel could be useful in helping us to pitch the idea to other students. Derek has put up a notice on the DA home page and a couple of emails offering help have trickled in already.


On Weds the 30th May we are pitching this to the students.  How the idea is pitched and therefore received is going to be very important in getting good collaborators on board. Derek and I are working on pitch material, me on some concepts and Derek on a kind of potted history of film.  Matt Walsh from Dog Bite Productions will be at the pitch too, which is great.The next step in the process is to cast actors for the live action parts of the film.  Derek has identified a possible male lead amongst the performance students and we are hoping that the pitch will bring forward other actors.  


As we work towards the pitch, there will be posters and emails going out left, right and centre.  Things are moving fast and yet, strangely we have yet to begin...

We now have a script.  Our very own Derek Hayes has been hard at work writing the most deep and obscure juxtaposition of scenes known to University College Falmouth.
I have been going through it with him, taking some of it out and shifting some of it around.  I found it interesting how keen I was to engage with the characters in the form of a more traditional narrative structure, while Derek has been staying closer to the original idea, which was to be totally abstract, while giving us a tantalising glimpse of a story.  Obviously, the result will be somewhere between the two and in the end we agreed on most things.  It won't be a massive re-write, more of a strengthening, a re-jig and a cut or two.  There are some fantastic visual moments in it and some good jokes (some that I didn't get at all).  But it was the strange, surreal elements that I liked best and this is what I'm hoping will make it really interesting, that our two characters will inhabit a world where anything is likely to happen.

Here is one of the concept pieces, based on a scene from the script.  We both had a go at doing the image, this one is mine, a more organic, decaying scene, but we are going to go with Derek's (which I don't have yet but will put up soon), which is a more orderly, sinister approach to the same idea.  (Does this sum up the difference between us?!!)

We have also presented the project to several of the University staff at one of the monthly Research Bites and appealed for collaborators.  This is really what we now need, to get a good team on board.  And so with this in mind, Derek and I will discuss the next steps at Rick Stein's chippy this evening.
More later...

Kick off

What a coup!  Derek and I have managed to interest the animation producer, Helen Brunsdon in our project. Helen and Derek share a passion for film and I think that is why she likes the idea. 

Because that is what Deep is about, it's a film about film.  

And here is the proof of our meeting with Helen:  

  

We seem to have earmarked a special 'Deep' table in The Riverbank pub here in Truro (Derek and I used the same one for a story discussion a couple of weeks later).  For Helen and I, who live within easy walking distance, that meant that we could have a reckless couple of glasses of wine.  Derek had to be more restrained as he was driving back to Falmouth.  This was just as well as we needed him to be nice and lucid while he explained his vision for the film to us.  

Helen asked lots of questions to draw out the important stuff.  Afterwards I felt I understood it, even if I couldn't yet exactly see it in my head, I could get the themes and the emphasis.  As I intend to art direct, I will need to have a strong vision myself of how I want it to look.  At the moment all I have is the word that surely almost every art director must throw around vaguely to start with: I want it to look 'stylish'.  

With this word firmly planted, I have been getting together some images for a preliminary mood board, having great fun looking through stills from films such as, Metropolis and Saturday Night Fever.  I've found lots of film posters and book jackets that could make nice animation styles, with some adaptation.
At the moment we have so many ideas that it will be hard to pare it all down.  But pare we must.

Helen meanwhile, has sent us a schedule and a list of things to do and Derek is simply writing the entire film (the easy job).  At this stage, we are all pretty excited about making it and have great hopes that it will be the first of many films made in association with UCF.  For all of us and Derek in particular, who has been making films for many years, it is good to think that this can now be tied in with our University teaching, modestly funded and with benefit to all who sail in her.  The combined experience and expertise of Helen and Derek should be enough to make any student want to clamber on board.