PRA Declassified

We finished the Lab on Wednesday and now it’s back to the ho hum of everyday life. On Tuesday we presented our projects to a panel that included a producer, a festival director, 2 distributors and a sales agent.

The response was mixed. Looking back, I think we could have presented a bit differently.

On Wednesday morning we had one last singing session, but this time at St Paul’s Cathedral. The acoustics weren’t as good as I thought they would be. Or maybe we were just off our game. It was impossible to keep a straight face singing next to Matt Bate. Usually Matt C sits between us and I never realised how off-key he is! [he does make up for it with his enthusiasm. maybe I'm just as bad].

We spent the rest of the day going through our presentations from the previous day. We got bit of a grilling in ours. Partly I think there was some skepticism as to why we were pitching an idea that had a substantial amount of live action. Ironic, since we’ve humoured a lot of “live action” people over the years whenever they’ve pitched us animation ideas (some even in the room). It’s interesting when the shoe gets put on the other foot.

The other projects have all had interesting journeys. The characters and their relationships in Ashlees and Sonya’s  film keep changing. Bryan, Sophie and Matt C’s film has now got 2 layers of “Schtick”. It’s gotta be one of the boldest ideas I’ve seen someone come up with and if they pull it off, the film will definitely have an impact. Matt B and Julie’s film has probably changed the least if at all. It was a strong concept from the start and I can’t see it not succeeding.

We’re not to think about our projects for the next 10 days. Good thing too because I know the whole thing has left us pretty exhausted. In late August, Stephen comes back for the next stage and I’m looking forward to seeing this project get closer to fruition.

In the meantime Eddie and I are back at PRA. I have a mountaiload of development related stuff to catch up on and an Information Memorandum to write. Eddie has a pitch to get together and his other scripts. We have a TV commercial and Video Game job going on in the background. Life goes on.

The second week of FilmLab ended with every project in an interesting place. Ashlee showed us some conceptual art pieces representing the characters in her film. There’s now a dog in it that aroused a lot of interest. Matt C, Bryan and Sophie showed us their 40 min film, which helped them address a lot of the potential problems they would have. Matt B and Julie showed us their recordings of people in public places. I was less than impressed when Matt put false subtitles over ethnic conversations. I had to participate more in our own presentation this time. Eddie’s insistence on making everything Lo-Fi meant I had to provide music by playing violin while wearing a bear costume. Bizarre, yes.

We’re now on the last stretch of FilmLab and it’s going to be a tough one. We’ll be “pitching” late in the week to two distributors, a sales agent, a producer and the director of the Adelaide Film Festival. Eddie’s at home sick today so I’m staying in touch with him via Skype. I got locked out of our office. I never lock it and never bring a key. i don’t keep anything valuable in there, but the cleaners still lock it. I had to break in by removing the grate at the bottom of the door. i can’t quite get it to go on again. Not off to a good start.

This week we’ll be moving past the conceptual and working on the story. “Planning” a story without writing it doesn’t quite go with the grain of how Eddie does things. We often write synopses and treatments, but they rarely ever serve much purpose in helping develop the story, but moreso to communicate the general idea to others. I’m curious how the tutors will help Eddie to work on this.

We’re more than halfway through now. Presentation preparations are still going well. Eddie’s getting over some of his blocks. The solution might lie in a furry hat. Reminds me of the “animation hat” Brodie used to wear at our Stepney Studio whenever he was working on a scene.

I’m more involved in the presentation this time. There may be “technical difficulties” with my props. Our presentation is probably a little more planned that our last one, but will still be largely improvised.

The SAFC’s SIP (Screen Industry Programmes), Marketing, Legal and IT departments joined us in our singing today. There were staff there I had never met. Was good to have them join us. I’m getting better at singing and I’m getting my ear for music back. I used to hate singing, but getting the bass parts in a range that’s comfortable is a lot of fun. I used to play the violin and haven’t touched it for about 10 yrs, so it’s nice to exercise that part of the mind again.

Stephen’s lecture was on protagonists and antagonists. It’s a different way of looking at these characters than Michael Hauge’s (Writing Screenplays that Sell). Hauge’s way of looking at it is quite straighforward, whereas Stephen’s was confusing at times. But then again, Hauge doesn’t analyse the variety of films that Stephen does and his analyses come from a very narrow set of formulaic movies. Stephen’s point was that it can be easier to work out your protagonist once you have identified the antagonist (or more importantly the antagonistic forces) that will bring out the change in the potagonist. I think we’re not quite at the point of defining that antagonism quite yet.  Eddie usually works out protagonists on his own and everything gets painted around them in due course.

The SAFC ticks on. Block mounted posters of films I have never heard of or forgotten are getting switched around while anxious actors sit in the lobby waiting for their auditions. The children sit with their parents who range from passivity to the ones who rehearse lines with them. On the other side of our office wall there is a two way door that swings both ways like the ones in a hospital. When people walk through them you can hear a thud followed by a creaking sound that sounds like bedsprings, like a massive weight dropping onto a mattress.

Eddie observed this morning that the SAFC isn’t as big as he used to think it was. I think he might be right.