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Lesson 1
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7 Replies
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Subject line: Madeleine’s Guidelines for Parasite
What I learned doing this assignment is:
Part 1: I think I have a project that fit the requirements of the contained movie. There a small issue I have take care of.
Part 2: Although Parasite feels like a “big” movie, it’s basic setup is already very contained. The impressions of it being a “big” movie are elements such as the natural disaster, which is spectacular, but also the many extra scenes in different locations. But as the assignment 2 showed, if necessary, it can be adjusted.
ASSIGNMENT PART 1: Select Your Project
A. It can be done as a contained story: Yes in general. There is the issue about “stunts”, which I don’t know yet how to handle.
B. You can write a pitch in one or two sentences: Yes that should work out.
C. There is something unique about it: Yes, I think so.
ASSIGNMENT PART 2: Adjust a Produced Movie to Covid Guidelines
A. People: Two families, a couple and two employees, along with a large group of extras.
B. Stunts: Natural disaster.
C. Extras: Many extras in scenes such as shopping, worksite, and emergency shelter.
D. Wardrobe: Exclusive wardrobe for the Park family.
E. Hair and Make Up: Negligible.
F. Kids and Animals: A teenager daughter and a young boy.
G. Quarantine: Have large amount of extras for shots throughout the movie.
COVID GUIDELINE VERSION:
A. People: The story needs the two families, the couple and the two employees (12 people), many of the extras can be cut.
B. Stunts: The natural disaster can be cut and be changed into a heavy rain or an incident, which floods the Kim’s apartment.
C. Extras: the shopping, worksite and emergency shelter scenes can be cut without changing the story.
D. Wardrobe: the exclusive wardrobe of the Park family can be reduced.
E. Hair and Make Up: Fine as is.
F. Kids and Animals: The teenager daughter and young boy can be changed to an age where they don’t need tutors.
G. Quarantine: Removing the natural disaster and all the extra scenes outside the two main locations (Kim’s and Park’s home).
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Dawn’s Guidelines for Arrival
What I learned doing this assignment… The covid content doesn’t feel realistic now. For example, no wardrobe and makeup? I doubt that’s the case for even the smallest budget movie. However, the exercise is useful for thinking about what to change to keep a budget down.
Assignment 1
The idea I’ve chosen can be done as a contained story.
It can be pitched in a logline but it might not be quite unique enough yet.
Assignment 2
TITLE: ARRIVAL
AS THEY DID IT:
A. People: University students and staff, populated military camp, gawkers, politicians around the world, hospital personnel
B. Stunts: Explosion with the aliens, can’t really think of others
C. Extras: University campus, party goers (at the end), military personnel
D. Wardrobe: Military uniforms, hazmat suits
E. Hair and Make Up: Minimal, at the party
F. Kids and Animals: Daughter at various ages
COVID GUIDELINE VERSION:
A. People: Take out teaching scenes, reduce military, take out hospital scenes
B. Stunts: explosion off-screen or show just the effects
C. Extras: rewrite party scene to eliminate extras, take out military extras and just shoot speaking roles
D. Wardrobe: not realistic to change
E. Hair and Make Up: party scene gone so no issues.
F. Kids and Animals: no change, the daughter is instrumental to the plot
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Subject Line – Leslie’s Assignment for A River Runs Through It
What I learned doing this assignment:
I learned how to create and reduce movie ideas into one location without taking away the scope and depth of the idea.
My experience evaluating the five ideas:
I evaluated the ideas with a contained location and limited characters from the beginning. It was easy once I had the container. The rest of the guidelines followed easily.
2. Movie Outside the Covid Guidelines
TITLE: A River Runs Through It
AS THEY DID IT:
A. People – Multiple characters
B. Stunts -none, fights
C. Extras – minimal
D. Wardrobe – minimal
E. Hair and Make Up – natural
F. Kids and Animals – none
G. Quarantine – easy to achieve
COVID GUIDELINE VERSION:
A. People – main characters
B. Stunts – none
C. Extras – none
D. Wardrobe- any clothing from 50 or so years ago
E. Hair and Make Up- appropriate to the time
F. Kids and Animals – none
G. Quarantine – easy to achieve
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Griff Lambert’s Covid Guidelines for FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL
What I learned doing this assignment: Covid 19 almost entirely killed the movie musical. Unless we were over those a long time ago and I just didn’t miss them.
Part 1: I have a story that can take place between two neighboring suburban homes or townhouses. A quiet loner moves in next door to the Neighbors From Hell. Tragedy ensues.
Part 2:
FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL:
AS THEY DID IT:
A. People: A big cast of nicely dressed, beautiful people, some of them actors.
B. Stunts: Minor stunts mostly involving Hugh Grant falling down.
C. Extras: Plenty of these, scampering about various weddings and a …funeral.
D. Wardrobe: They are beautiful people so they want to be in fancy dress. Unless naked.
E. Hair and Make Up. Yes, yes, yes…
F. Kids and Animals: Bound to be some at the less well-heeled affairs.
G. Quarantine : Never heard of it.
COVID GUIDELINE VERSION:
First off, retitle to: FOUR FUNERALS AND A WEDDING
A. People: It’s just an older Hugh Grant as a dour funeral director and his embalmist, Igor. Set in a funeral parlor in a tiny hamlet, the cemetery is just out the back door. The funerals are all very small and sad, just a couple of mourners because the chapel isn’t big enough for a crowd. After four sad, tiny funerals Hugh Grant decides he’s in love with Igor and they get married in the chapel.
B. Stunts: None, except for Hugh Grant falling down.
C. Extras: None. The few mourners will all have speaking roles and be paid SAG scale.
D. Wardrobe: Gray and black, mostly suits. Could be reduced to one suit.
E. Hair and Make Up: Yes, please.
F. Kids and Animals: Maybe a dog that Hugh Grant adopts and then trips over.
G. Quarantine: Minimal crew and no Craft Service (hiring older actors like Mr. Grant will result in less on-set demand for snacks and require serving only weak tea.)
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This reply was modified 2 years, 4 months ago by Griffith Lambert.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 4 months ago by
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Subject line: Mauricio’s Guidelines for Knives Out
What I learned from this assignment:
Part 1: I believe I have come with a project that can be adapted to the contained model. My interest is in making interesting narratives within the contained model that are financially feasible to produce, not necessarily to satisfy Covid Guidelines.
Part 2: We analyzed Knives Out as a contained movie. Yet, although the narrative is already highly contained, it still offers opportunities to make it much simpler by creatively replacing shooting locations and scenes that require stunts and/or several extras, while still maintaining the tension and keeping the stakes high.
ASSIGNMENT PART 1: Select Your Project
1. Go through your five ideas and determine which of them can easily fit the Covid-19 guidelines. For the moment, don’t list the ideas. Just tell us your experience of evaluating them based upon the guidelines.
A. It can be done as a contained story: Yes, I am still debating between two of my projects. In one of them, I still must resolve an issue with stunts, FX and wardrobe. My other option fits the model better in terms of containment, but it would need a lot of work in character development. B. You can write a pitch in one or two sentences: Yes, in both cases I can.C. There is something unique about it: I believe both are unique.
ASSIGNMENT PART 2: Adjust a Produced Movie to Covid Guidelines
2. Pick a movie that is outside the Covid Guidelines and give us your thoughts on how they could make it in the current production environment.
TITLE: Knives Out
AS THEY DID IT:
A. People: 24 characters and 11 additional cast, including 10 Drysdale/Trombley family members, 3 detectives, 3 household employees, Marta and her family.
B. Stunts: High speed car chase, performance driving, ladder climbing, laboratory fire.
C. Extras: 11 extras such as firefighters, pedestrian, waitresses, members of the press, etc.
D. Wardrobe: Dinner party smart, plainclothes outfits, police uniforms, firefighter uniforms
E. Hair and Make Up: Dinner party smart
F. Kids and Animals: 2 teenage kids, 2 dogs
G. Quarantine: Considerable number of extras and actors for the exterior scenes
COVID GUIDELINE VERSION:
A. People: Reduce one police officer, eliminate Sally’s character (the lawyer’s assistant at the reading of the will scene), eliminate Marta’s sister.
B. Stunts: Remove the car chase scene, change location of Fran’s murder scene to a room within the house’s premises.
C. Extras: Reduce the number of scenes requiring extras by changing to locations where no extras are required. For instance, change the conversation scene between Marta and Ransom that takes place in a restaurant to a walk in the park; eliminate the scene in which Marta walks through a hair salon as she escapes the police; Replace Marta’s home scenes with Zoom calls to her mother, eliminate the press gathering in front of her home. Replace the laboratory fire scene with a press headline.
D. Wardrobe: Fine as-is
E. Hair and Make Up: Fine as-is
F. Kids and Animals: Fine as-is
G. Quarantine: Reducing the number of shooting locations and scenes that take place outside the Harlan’s household, reducing extras and removing stunts limits the need for quarantine.
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Adite’s Assignment
What I learned doing this assignment: Irrespective of Covid, it’s always good to have a high concept script that can be developed with the contained model.
Assignment Part 1: After looking through the ideas I had listed, a couple of them definitely fit the “contained model” bill; can be pitched in a couple of sentences and have something unique about them.
Assignment Part 2:Title: An American Pickle
How it was done:
A. People: Two main characters played by the same actor and a ton of secondary characters.
B. Stunts: Though not too many, these mostly involved the type where someone lands a punch on another or drops into a vat of brine, or cops chasing the guy, etc.
C. Extras: A huge number of extras, including people on the street, reporters, factory workers, hospital staff, audience at a press conference, etc.
D. Wardrobe: No special outfits, except for a couple of police uniforms
E. Hair and Makeup: Nothing special.
F. Kids and Animals: rats! (though I think these were CGI)
G. Quarantine: Shot pre-CovidCovid Guidelines Version:
A. People: Casting the two lead characters to be played by the same actor (Seth Rogen) is in fact a very Covid-guideline-friendly move. The number of secondary characters can be drastically cut down. The introduction scene where Herschel and Sarah are introduced could be reworked. In fact the whole sequence could be done in animation or like a cartoon strip. If Ben were to be the narrator — since he is an app designer — this would work well with the storyline too. That would also cut out the whole additional cost of building the village where Herschel and Sarah used to live a 100 years ago.
B. Stunts: can be easily cut down.
C. Extras: can be minimised.
D. Kids and Extras: the rats are important! And CGI rats would work.
E. Hair and makeup: As isF. Wardrobe: As is.
G. Quarantine: Could be easily achieved. -
Cindi’s Guidelines for EVERYTHING MUST GO
What I learned doing this assignment: Many features of a movie can be eliminated without changing the original concept. Even though this movie was produced in 2010, it was already pretty well contained. The movie took place over a period of approx. five days and the setting took place mostly with the main character living in his front yard.
Assignment 1
My ideas could work well in a contained area. The idea can be stated in a logline. I’m still tweaking the uniqueness aspect.
Assignment 2
TITLE: EVERYTHING MUST GO
AS THEY DID IT:
A. People: Mostly only the main character with a few brief interactions with the neighbors.
B. Stunts: none
C. Extras: only a handful at a rummage sale.
D. Wardrobe: nothing special, everyday casual, even sloppy clothes.
E. Hair and Make Up: nothing special, minimal, everyday casual look.
F. Kids and Animals: 1 kid about 14-15 years old, mostly riding his bike. Several koi in a pond. (I noticed in the credits they listed an animal wrangler for the fish!)
COVID GUIDELINE VERSION:
A. People: Instead of having face to face conversations with the neighbors, the neighbors could yell to each other from their own yards. Or make paper airplanes with notes and shoot them back and forth. It’s a comedy/drama so anything creative would be fine.
B. Stunts: none
C. Extras: they are essential to the outdoor rummage sale, but they could be spaced out more. Or they could even gawk from the street or from inside their cars.
D. Wardrobe: People could bring/wear their own clothes.
E. Hair and Make Up: People could buy their own makeup and do their own hair.
F. Kids and Animals: they could eliminate the koi pond, it wasn’t necessary. The kid was essential, he was old enough to behave, he was only in a few scenes. If they needed to replace him, they could use a young looking 18 or 19 year old without any issues to the movie.
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