The First Sketch of school-marm Anna (Anne)

This is the documentation of a "letsmakeamovie" workshop as part of the movie programme called Free Cinema on Tilos Radio Hungary.
Participants of the 8th edition: 12/11/2009
Editor: Killa Köllő (Trillian)
Quest: Edina Fecskó, psychologist

Side-notes to Andriska (Andy)

While our previous amateurish psychology wasn't astray, it had to be corrected at some points. We discussed the problems of the last edition with our expert, and it turned out that our point of view resembles the bio-psychosociological model of psychology.

Edina emphasized that we shouldn't handle the 11 year old Andris as a small adult, considering that this age has some psychological attributes that cannot be observed later. This age is where we enter into the concrete operational stage: the child is able to overview some situations, the stage is characterized by decisions in context. The child is not able yet to abstraction, and his system of social relationships is different from that of the adults. We have to consider these factors when matching him and his reactions to the situations.

We had an idea to make the characters older, because we will possibly have an older audience, but our psychologist made it clear to us that identifications isn't dependent of the age, we can recognize ourselves easily in a younger child.

Another question that raised during the last edition was the possible effect of the disaffected faily on the boy: the father who is rarely at home, existing basically only on paper can have the same destructive effect on the boy as the absence of the mother?

At the age of three, the boy falls in love of his mother and starts to rival his father. When, in absence of a rival ha wins the battle, his symbiotic relationship with his mother holds up, and the separation will always be hard for him. Furthermore, in the egocentric world of the child, he can feel responsible for the father not being with them, making him frustrated.

But at the beginning of the puberty, this is the absence of the male model that can cause problems, since it is very important during the buildup of the gender role, and is there isn't a model for the boy, it can lead to intense hesitations and even serious mental problems. Secondly, the mother means the total acceptance to the child, the unconditional love, while the father is the stimulant, he represents the social norms, his functions are to control the discipline, he is responsible for the development of social skills. The importance of the first is quite obvious, but we should't forget that the second can be of the same importance, especially for boys. The tense relationship of the mother and the boy can even be destructive to the soul, when it oversteps a line.

Now, let's consider the sketch of the first adult character:
School-marm Anna (Anne)

Physiology:
- Gender: female
- Age: 52
- Height, weight: 165 cm, 55 kg. thin
- Hair, eye and skin color: long, coloured auburn hair, usually in bun, grey eyes, pale-white skin
- Posture: very straight
- Look: extremely elegant, moderate, she wears well-creased skirts and chemises in grey and violet shades, she secretly paints her toenails, look grave
- Flaws: her upper denture is a dental prothesis, but it isn't obvious for the first look

Sociology:
- Class: upper-middle. She has an aristocratic past from the side of her mother, but doesn't have an effect on her wealth. She hasn't got a family. She takes her job very seriously, out of which she just makes a living.
- Occupation: chemistry teacher in elementary schools, she works as an educator since finishing her educations
- Education: college, educator
- Family life: She lives alone, har mother lives in the neighborhood, she lost her father when she was a child. He was a musician, and his airplane crashed when ha was on tour. Her mother was a physicist, she taught physics in high school, but when she got a crackup, she was relieved of teaching. While she gave up practice a long ago and she doesn't even misses it, she is still very up-to-date of theories.
- Religion: reformed, religious, but she handles this as her private affair, she doesn't want to evangelize
- Race, nationality: Hungarian, her father is kraut.
- Position in the community: she preens herself in the role of the severe teacher, she respect all her colleagues, but she honors those who she considers very cultivated. She stands up for her right, but she scrupulously cares for staying away from scandals, she considers sallies to be unworthy for herself.
- Political relationships: she has no political relationships, but she is a true conservative
- Pastime and hobbies: concerts of filharmonics, she is truly devoted to classical music, she is a very good pianist; although she has revulsions towards IT, she has just started an IT course, because she considers it dangerous that her students understand this field better then her, maybe they could even use this knowledge against her.

Psychology:
- Sexual life, morality: she had a big love at the college, that lasted 3 years, than the boy got a scholarship in a foreign country, and they became estranged from each other. They maintained the relationship by daily mails for a while, but than even this was over. She conjectured that the man had someone else, but she never pried into it. Later on she had some shorter realtionships, but she became more and more weary of looking for someone, and she gave the dream of having a family.
- Personal premises, ambitions: She would like to travel a lot, visiting the most famous museums of the world after retirement. Even now, when she has the possibility and there isn't a summer school or an encampment, so every 2 or 3 years, she leaves for a trip to visit countries outside of Europe. She would like to prepare her students for life, she would like to transmit her knowledge, and she hopes that her students will all be great people one day.
- Temperament: She is very proud of her self-possession, that no matter how angry she is, she is able to cover it. Originally she is impulsive, but she has invested a lot of energy to surpress her anger, becasue she is convinced that this is the only way to keep up her prestige.
- Motto: We should be the most strait toward ourselves.
- Complexes: a moderate superiority complex against everyone
- Extrovert/introvert/ambi.: introverted, no one can get really close to her
- Abilities: she slowly says a sentence that is seemingly constituted of gentle words, by which she is able to seriously humiliate her target.
- Good qualitites: in contempt of the surface, she can be indulgent when someone finds the appropriate tone.
- IQ: her literacy is over par, her IQ is average

According to Edina, it can be a good starting point for her role in the film that she is fiend of keeping control, of which a sign is that she chose this profession. Beyond this, there is a need for redemption in her as a transgenerational affect, since her mother was also a teacher. This personal conflict can be played out by the zombieness, she could be the self-sacrificing zombie, who advances as a helper of the children. It would also be interesting to show the great force by which her suppressed emotions flare during the transformation.

A Sketch of a Character

This is the documentation of a "letsmakeamovie" workshop as part of the movie programme called Free Cinema on Tilos Radio Hungary.

Participants of the 3rd edition: 15/10/2009

Editors: Killa Köllő (Trillian), Csaba Toth

The movie in only one sentence

From now on, we will try to evoke in all editions what our film in the making is about. That is to inform our audience: we haven't just left the microphone on. As we were accused on the chat at a given moment of the edition.

The sentence of 15th October that took even our breath away sounded like that: A zombie movie, a horror movie, but also a coming of age-story, a story of growing up, which is also a little bit about that when one grows up, she becomes a zombie and she gives up her dreams, she becomes only a cog in the machinery.

We brought 2 and a half elaborated characters into the edition, but we were able to finish only one. This character is one of our mains. Let's just quote here the sketch itself of the character, along with the problems and reaction that arose:

Name: Andris (Andy)

He is the one who survives, the absolute protagonist

Physiology:

- Gender: boy

- Age: 11

- Height, weight: 145 cm, 39 kg. Here comes the first challenge of writing a screenplay: how tall and how many kilos is a healthy eleven year old boy???

- Hair, eye and skin color: maroon, light brown, white

- Posture: straight

- Look: spiffy, not in the height of fashion, but orderly clothed into nice and clean clothes. A little bit short and slim for his age, the sudden growth typical to the adolescence hasn't started yet for him.

- Flaws: There are no physiological flaws, except some birthmarks on the body, but not one on the face.

- Heritage: slim built, from his mother's side.

Sociology:

- Class: middle class. The father is a sales representative, and works very hard. The mother is a part-time QA representative.

- Occupation: student

- Education: 5th grade

- Family life: The parents live together, but the father has to travel a lot because of his job, he spends only a few tie at home, so the boy is mostly with her mother. The mother is 36, who works as a QA representative, the father is 38, who works as a sales representative. He has a sister who is 7 year younger than him: he loves her, but they cannot play a lot together. The parents met each other by a mutual friend. It was a great love, and they got married after half year of acquaintance, because Andris was on the way. Seven years later, the little sister was born, and fixed a little the soon-to-be-disaffected family life. The father is kind of stressed nowadays, he has to work harder and harder to maintain the comfortable life of the family, but the signs of disaffection star to be shown again. The job of the mother is poorly paid, but is safe, she has the time to take care of the children, the job is without stress, and she is afraid the crises is on the way again in her marriage. She has a nice colleague, who would anytime be disposed to comfort the uncared-for wife.

Andriska seems to have a strong family background. The question arose whether the lack of the father figure is a serious problem in the case of boys as well, or not.

- Religion: none, the family is ignorant of the question.

- Race, nationality: I cannot understand that. Hungarian.

- Position in the community: blatant, he presumes too much, he plays soccer quite well, he is taken seriously by his peers. He doesn't know what would he like to become: maybe a soccer star, but he is likely to consider his father's advice as well, that is to take on an ace job, but he doesn't know yet which one should he prefer: doctor, jurist or economist. Or an architect. He would likely to be a CSI representative in New York, but this he hides from his parents, since he is not allowed to watch the series. He doesn't really like to learn, but he does his duty. His results are a little above the average, but he really likes to go to school because of the community. He and his sister have a rabbit at home, they often talk to it, and he looks after it fairly.

- Political relationships: ignorant of politics.

- Pastime and hobbies: he plays soccer, Wii, and he also likes fencig which he is urged to practice by his parents.

Psychology:

- Sexual life, morality: no sexual life

- Personal premises, ambitions: to play soccer and games a lot, to spend time with learning as few as possible. To know everything better than others, even more than now.

- Frustrations, delusions: It already happened to him a few times, that nothing came into his mind when he was in the center of the attention. He succeeded covering that with humor, but he strongly reclines on his reserved friend, Peti (Pete) when he has to come to a decision.

- Temperament: heated, quick-tempered. When he gets angry, he shouts. He knows that if he swears, ha gets punished by Anna (Anne), and he tries to keep himself to it, but he sometimes looses control and swears, so he gets punished regularly. It doesn't follow from his character that he is quick-tempered, so we should change either the description or this attribute. Maybe he should be sanguine.

- Attitude toward life: Ready to fight. Let's bring justice into the world!

- Complexes: yet evolving, but he already feels to be a little more skilled than others.

- Extrovert/introvert/ambi.: ambivert, he reveals a lot about himself, but there is a lot his friends are unaware of. For example how much he cares for and love his rabbit. Should he bring it to the camp? He could return to save it by risking his own life. But the rabbit and his relationship to him is important fro the point of view of the character, so it doesn't have to appear, it will be enough to show that he is able to take responsibility.

- Abilities: He is quick in mental arithmetic.

- Good qualitites: he strikes the right note with everyone, open, nice boy

- IQ: above than average

The idea came up that we should have a "Nemecsek figure" (note of the translator: basically the youngest and smallest whose sacrifice will be recognized too late) as well. The next edition will take place 4 weeks later and we agreed that we will invite a psychologist to help us in working out the characters.

Let’s Make Zombie Film

This is the documentation of a "letsmakeamovie" workshop as part of the movie programme called Free Cinema on Tilos Radio Hungary.

Date of the 6th edition: 17/09/2009

Editors: Killa Köllő (Trillian), Yvonne Kerekgyártó, Csaba Tóth

DJ: Turiszt

Changing our direction

After the long vacation we have started again our workshop. We have changed our conception a bit: from now we do not call expert to every broadcast but we will go through the phases of filmmaking according to a chosen textbook. The chosen book is The Art of Dramatic Writing, written by Lajos Egri, which is the most suitable for our aims from the books translated into Hungarian. So we are going to make movie according to this book because our previous method simply did not work. Either we did not receive particular advice from the experts or we could not put their advice into practice. Therefore, we are going to work from book.

Lajos Egri was a screenplay writer and he taught playwriting also. The idea of his book, The Art of Dramatic Writing, can be adapted for the writing of screenplays also. It is clear and accurate. This is not the only method but for us it seems relevant so we will try it.

Our first step was that we chose our synopsis which is going to be screened: Zombie-virus in Mátra and we leave the other ideas.

About our plot: the antidote of H1N1 virus is mutated and it turns adults into zombies. So children separate from adults and they have to build up their own society, which is founded on surviving. This situation accelerates their growing up. The generation gap is an important part of the story and some characters are close to be grown-up, thus they are more endangered.

We have a main idea but we do not have any characters, only age category which is not enough outlined either.

Premise didn’t work

The book discusses the concept of premise in the first chapter, which means you need to summarize your plot in one sentence. It is also called logline, but the name does not really matter. The point is that the plot, from where to where to storyline goes, should be condensed into one sentence. E. g. the premise of Romeo and Juliet: ‘The real love defies death’.

We tried to decipher the premise of Alien. We stripped off the plot, the genre, we intended to skin it from every extra. Is it about greed our about obeying the captain blindly? This is also possible: ‘The ambition leads to annihilation’. This is not perfect because we should define what kind of ambition we are talking about. Merciless, we might say. On the other hand the simple ambition does not lead you to dissolution usually. We did not finalize the premise of Alien, we rather were just roving.

We could not define the premise of our zombie film. ‘The growing up is unavoidable’ does not seem good. We do not have character, probably that is the reason. The disadvantage of working from book is that you cannot start where the book starts. E. g. we need more to define our premise then the simple idea. The premise may develop during the writing. There is a group of kids, and it should be figured out whose fault was among them that the virus had broken loose. Which kid will be able to stand by the group and why? Does every adult will turn to zombie or do the kids have help from healthy grown-ups as well? If we leave out the adults we have to consider that there is no electricity, neither internet, nor help from outside.

We should take one more step forward because we do not have enough ideas to create our premise. The next step will be outlining the characters. But during outlining the characters we have to know more or less what we want to tell to the society.

To invent three dimension characters the following datas should be found out according to Egri: physiology, family background, affection. Even if we have more main characters some should be pick out, who should be more elaborated. (E. g. Tim Roth and Harvey Keitel in Reservoir Dogs.) We will elaborate our characters for the next time.

Bloody initiation

This is the documentation of a "letsmakeamovie" workshop as part of the movie programme called Free Cinema on Tilos Radio Hungary.

Participants of the 5th edition: 09/07/2009

Editors: Killa Köllő (Trillian), Yvonne Kerekgyarto

Regular guest: Csaba Toth

Current guest, expert: Zoltan Gergely

DJ: Turiszt

Growing up in a zombie film

In this edition, we have discussed the least elaborated concept: as a result of swine flu experimentation that went haywire, a new mutant virus starts turn its victims into zombies. At the beginning we started to think in terms of a hospital's research institute. Since zombie films are characterized by a certain social reflection according to our experts, the character of the Hungarian prime minister convalescing at the hospital would have had been able to strengthen these reflections.

The idea of a children's hospital also emerged: the disease infects the adults first, who then terrorize children. A situation resembling that of the Lord of the Flies evolves: some children grows up meanwhile, which has fatal consequences, because they also become endangered by the virus. The small team splits up, the alliance is over. On the one hand, the character of the adult would appear as an enemy, since he is responsible for the virus getting out of control. On the other hand, the entirety of the adult world, of which the children stand on the eve, would also appear as the enemy.

Thus, the theme of the film would be growing up, that is indicated by the menstruation or the change of voice (e.g. a girl is having a shower, we see blood dropping into the tub, then on the next screen, the girl is already a zombie). Everyone has a bound to this process, that's why the film can address anyone. Eventually we've decided that the scene should rather be a camp in Csilleberc instead of the original idea of the Matra. Csilleberc is ideal in many ways: the ex pioneer camp, the reactor of the University of Technology, not to mention the campus of the BME (Budapest University of Technology), also offering spate of opportunitites. Breaking with basing our concept on foreign elements, these down-to-earth scenes appears more credible, thus emphasizing the absurdity of the story.

We have brought on some of the ideas discussed in earlier editions:

Bujtor or John Doe?

The stuporous and lethargic bank administrator spends her life with monotonous drudgery and following Tibor, her ex-boyfriend on the iWiW (Hungarian Facebook) fanatically. However, the blowzy girl and her boring little world have proven to be attractive for Laszlo, the security guard of the bank. But the girl is all abroad about appealing to anybody.

But one day, everything is changing when four strangers attempt to rob the bank. Laszlo is hurt by the baddies, but Hajnalka, when they try to take her hostage, unfolds her unbeknown side: instead of giving way to despair, she vanquishes her attacker, and she walks her chalk with the swag, and she starts her dolce vita with Laszlo, in Italy.

We have pondered over which actors and actresses would get the hang of our characters, or who would be the best choices for them. It can help a lot during the process of the creative work to compose the cast in our heads by known actors. It is even easier to instruct a hobbyist actor by mentioning a famous actor instead of everlasting descriptions of the character. An actor of a strong character can even compensate for the flaws of the script. This is the main reasons for featuring stars, of course along with the hope for maximizing the profit.

Female Games

Hanna, daughter of an environmentalist mother and an engine-driver father, a 27 years old schoolmistress is preparing for her wedding. She receives an innocent message on the day of her hen night, which brings her to grief due to a misunderstanding. According to the original idea, she would arrive at the hen night through completing a line of tasks, but due to a misunderstood message, a robber starts to chase her. Everything is O.K. with the first steps (key cutter, mailbox, restaurant), but when she has to identify and take a photo on a strange subject, instead of the garbagemen in a terrible state, she catches some pictures on a robbery through a nearby shop-window, showing the face of the delinquent distinctly.

Practically, this last idea can be considered as the female version of The Game.

Noted down by: Ili Puskas

Zombie terrorist

Participants of the 4th edition: 15/06/2009

Editors: Killa Köllő (Trillian)

Regular guest: Csaba Tóth

Current guest, expert: Norbert Köbli, scriptwriter

DJ: Turiszt    

About Ourselves, Absolutely Not 

The third scriptwriter suggests that we should make film about ourselves (where are You in the story?, how important the personal experience is when you are elaborating the characters, etc., etc.), which we absolutely refuse. However, we take the advice of bringing something personal into the film, if this is our task. 

Characters, Characters, Characters 

Norbert Köbli says that we should be acquainted with our characters, which is quite difficult without personal conviction. According to great directors like Woody Allen, Billy Wilder, Mike Nichols: “Complex characters, simple plots”. They made successful films by having set the story to the main characters. Thereby their characters are complex but vivid. There are no extreme events in their films, so when a pistol appears, it is a sudden change. Polanski’s Chinatown is obligatory even in the scriptwriter school. The characters are interesting, as well as the situation (a mysterious case has to be investigated, while in the background LA is a desert, which should be sprinkled from below and deeper layers come to light by corrupt conspiracy and philosophical foundations). It is hard to decide whether Chinatown is a noir or a genre film. As Good as It Gets is an excellent example for the film which contains nothing interesting, but the protagonist is fascinating. 

Mutant of Csaba’s swine flu idea (there is no title just the subject of an email: “flu”) 

The swine flu virus arrives from Mexico at a hospital, which is in possession of research laboratory, in Mátrahegy. The experiment begins to find the antidote but at the end a more dangerous mutant version is made out. One of the doctors, who is Arabian, wants to sell it to a terrorist organization. Although the head physician discovers his intentions, the disease breaks loose because of an accident and the hospital has to be locked up, which is not supported by everyone.

The idea may come to anyone’s mind but our expert asks more questions. Where are You in the story? Which character will be enough remarkable to make us remember to the film? How the elaboration is going to be? He wants to know how determined we are since there are left two years writing, shooting and last but not least learning the basis of filmmaking, which was our original aim.

The Hungarian zombie attempts cannot be compared with a production of Hollywood. A Hungarian filmmaker does not take him/herself as seriously as e. g. the makers of Terminator may have done. There is the danger that our film will resemble to a satire. Moreover, hardly would this plot with the zombie-virus be sold with serious face in Hungary, despite of the world-widely known fact that our country plays important role in the medical researches. There is also fierce competition, since a film is in preparation with similar content under the title of Block 66. Balázs Lovas and Gábor Kriegler intend to come out with a film about zombies. Even our expert, Norbi, has similar intention: in his film the zombies attack an OTP bank (this is supposed to be the social criticism) in order to get their bank deposit. 

Back to Csaba’s hypothesis, the positive protagonist is the head physician. There would be two kids on vacation (like in Jurassic Park), who accidentally see the Arabian doctor smuggling the virus, or they would be saved from some dangerous situation. The head physician saves the world due to his sense of duty (or to his personal motivation because his children get ill also). There may be something in his past, which mixes the story up or even he might be the traitor.

The negative character would be an Arabian terrorist, what, according to our expert, might be offensive and clichéd. Nowdays Americans try to avoid this stereotype in their movies (except for Transformers). Therefore, we should vary the plot: the Arabian doctor is suspected but at the end it turns out that he is innocent.

Csaba wanted the film to be a bit zombie-like as 28 Days later…, where the skinny characters eat each other. The root of the exterior danger would be in a closed area, in addition someone undermine the mood of the participants and they would intend to accuse each other, what can keep the audience in excitement. Like in The Thing or Body Snatchers: you do not know on whom you can rely, since there is no visible sign of the disease; the human changes only inside. Or if we prefer the metamorphosis, just for fun, at the end everyone would change back like in a Disney-film.

The expert is enthusiastic about the hen night story because its characters are closer to the makers than the research doctor’s world. He suggests inserting an incident like in Romancing the Stone, e. g. a dispatch-rider arrives or a runaway motorcyclist messes up, since the girl does not know for whom she is waiting. 

In the next edition the characters will be outlined and then the vote will decide, which synopsis will be carried out. 

To dress a mask

This is the documentation of a "letsmakeamovie" workshop as part of the movie programme called Free Cinema on Tilos Radio Hungary.   

Participants of the 3rd edition: 11/06/2009 

Editors: Killa Köllő (Trillian), Luca Pályi (http://freikino.blogspot.com/)

Current guest, expert: Balázs Lovas, scriptwriter, Fade In Script Consulting

DJ: Turiszt   

We have discussed 2 synopsis-like materials during the programme. The first one (Hajnlanka and the Bank Robber) can be read here. The second (Survivor Trip Hen Night) can be read here.   

In this edition, we picked to pieces two writings, both somewhere between a synopsis and a logline, whose key issue were still: „ where would we like the story to lead up?”, that is what should be the essence of the dénouement? It is worth to approach the problem taking the main character into consideration: what is her problem of life, what opportunities will be offered by the forthcoming change, how will our character size it?   

A feature film is usually constituted of 3 main parts, just as we have learnt in school: introduction – rising action – dénouement. When we strike out the end of the story, it is crucial to at least roughly presume the questions raised by the film (introduction) and the answers to these questions (dénouement) to be able to see the potentials of the movie. This can be followed by the elaboration of the characters, and than it’s possible that the whole story will change. Thus the synopsis will earn its final shape after the most important part of the process, the elaboration of the characters, since the presentment of the characters and the „treatment” (action plot in a prosaic format) add up to constitute the final shell of the movie: out of it will the script born.  

It is worth thinking about the back-story of our main characters (backstory, life story before the time of the film): it is good to know where they came from and what they make for. We should write a 1 or 2 page long presentment of the characters, which will be able to point a direction to the scriptwriter and the director. We should find functions for the sidemen as well, mostly in the case of a comic movie: their back-stories don`t have to be as detailed as those of the main characters, but it can be useful to find the main characteristics. It doesn`t pay to implement too many (side)characters, it would just overcomplicate our story. 

1. The story of the bank robber, written by Yvonne.

Hajnalka is a bank administrator, a lonely, single woman, who was left by his last boyfriend (that turd Tibor). The security guard of the bank, Laci would like to squire her, but she refuses to pay attention to this, instead she spends her spare time checking Tibor’s iwiw data or daydreaming: she sees herself as a masked bank robber, covering her customers with a gun. Just until her imaginations become real: bank robbers try to take Hajnalka hostage, who simply and laconically says no. Or yes - it is to be decided upon further considerations, but the main point of the idea is that she will become the employee of the year by the end of the movie.  

According to Balázs, this frame story would be enough for approximately 15 or 20 minutes in film-time, although it contains a lot of interesting turns. It is worthwhile unfolding the bank robbery, the hostage from the aspect of the more and more gripping character of the heroine: e.g. someone else could say no and she could take on the exciting role of the hostage.

Since she is terribly bored by her job, she could say yes to get some thrill into her life, and than she could ’join in’ or disarm the bank robber and step down with the money. She could even take a train to save the train chase scene.  

In case if she is opened the door to the plucky change, the key question arises: to what extend the bank robbery affects her personality?: Will the dormant power shoot out of her, while she will still seem milquetoastish, so that she will be able to sleekly elude and disarm the bank robber? Or will she volunteer for hostage, so that the upcoming episodes will entail a series of funny situations?  

The amorous leading man Laci could follow the bank robber, but then Tibor could show up or Hajnalka could call for him.   

After the starting sequences of the story (bank robbery, getaway, disarmament at an unguarded moment) can the unfolding of the message take place – that is to say we have to search for Hajnalka’s goals. What does she want to do with money: bring it back to the bank or keep it? Since the situation is the frustrated and suppressed girl’s first and only opportunity to get away and rebel. How does she handle the situation? Will she try to get Tibor back (by compelling him with the money or by literally buying his love back?), or when things have fallen out well, will she become Laci’s lover or the bank robber’s lover?   

Here manifested the importance of the 4 main characters – Hajnalka, the Bank Robber, Tibor and Laci.

It can touch up the movie to implement some comic potential into the characteristics of the characters (e.g. Hajnalka’s and the Bank Robber’s personalities could be poles apart, just like in a classic action comedy), and then to shake them together or put them in touch with each other by the rising action. Moreover, in case they are given a flaw, it can be entertaining for the spectator to realise how they cannot see their own limits or how they learn to handle them only by the end of the film.   

Hajnalka’s back-story lies in the elaboration of the character: how did she behave in school? (was she popular?), does she have friends, how did her private life work out, what are her most important frustrations (what does she hate or admire in others – this is almost psychology: she is looking for her own dark side in others), what are her strenghts, her fears? It is crucial to set up the mask of the main character: what image would she like to show to the outside world or to herself? Of these elements will her true self emerge by handling the crisis – these psychical factors can serve as the source of the story. The mask is the tool for self-defense, only after its formulation can turn out what hides behind it. Or does she show her face nice and happy for her customers, but when she turns aways her sad life reveals? The sad life of which she would like to break out, or to prove herself, her parents or Tibor with whom she would like to travel to a faraway island? So that she has plans with the money?    

 

2. The hen night story, written by Trillian

The main character is Hanna the bride (26), and her friends organize a hen night for her: she receives messages, the first one right after waking up that contains a path marked with playful task. The different stations are supposed to prepare her for the life of a married woman, so that by the end of the day, having her fears gotten rid of, she arrives at the site of the wedding tired, but prepared and hardened.  

The movie, according to the original conceptions, would start as a light comedy, then it would turn out to be a terrific survivor trip, thus becoming an action movie.   

Ideas for turns in the movie: she would enter a bank by accident, where she would be taken hostage in the course of a bank robbery or at a railway station of a hick town in course of receiving the next message. In this case she and the spectators are not supposed to know whether the robbery is part of the game or not. Her friends should then find out that something is going wrong, and some of them should start on her rescue.   

According to Balázs’s remarks showing up of the kidnapper can change the orientation of the story, so that we should secede from this situation and create some other situation of violence.

The 'insighting incident' seems to be cool: the story starts zippy, by a sudden turn to upset the balance of the main character’s everyday, and the appearance of the kidnapper can spice up the story in case this turn of the story happens near the 20th minute of the time of the movie, but it is a must to look strictly to keep ourselves to the main line.  

The film doesn’t like accidental events or constrained situations, and the meeting at the station seems to be just of this kind. In classic stories the causality and the successiveness of action and reaction are essential. It is important to keep the logic of the story, the main line, that is to say when an obviously constrained event gets into it, that doesn’t follow from a decision of the character, there is a chance that the spectator will lose the thread. Thus, accidental events should rather be used to start the story, but we must not solve the story this way, because it feels as a remote deus ex machina. To keep our spectators it is worth staying consistent during the build-up of the genre: to rough out a light and romantic or an action-thriller-like genre movie or an intentionally mixed one, and keep ourselves to this one all along. 

So our main character is soon to be married, what could she have on her mind? Her fears? Maybe she doesn’t know how to be a good wife, and that is what she will have to get over through the plot, just as it would be a crash-course? The mask of the good wife offers itself, but the terrific truth is: she is unaware of the finality of the decision. The main line of the movie should hence be the presentation of the flaws, or she should fight her kidnapper (rescuer?) instead.

Where is the wannabe husband all this time? Is it necessary to show him or would it be better, as a stylistic knack, NOT to reveal him? According to Trillian he is not part of the message, which is about the personal fears of the girl, so that he shouldn’t show up at least until the end of the film (happy ending).

According to Balázs these fears could more tightly connect to the fiance’s character, his appearance provides too many opportunities to be missed out. He should find out that her bride has been kidnapped, and he should follow her, or he could organize the kidnapping himself (of which a romance arises later on) to read the chick a lesson. There is the possibility to include junctures like psychological games, beautiful (spiritual) struggles, and our main character could become a better man, prepared for the marriage.   

In the next edition we will continue dissecting further synopses.  

Al Pacino or Jean-Claude Van Damme should be our hero?

This is the documentation of a "letsmakeamovie" workshop as part of the movie programme called Free Cinema on Tilos Radio Hungary. 

Participants of the 2nd edition: 28/05/2009 

Editors: Yvonne Kerékgyártó, Killa Köllő (Trillian),

Regular guest: Csaba Tóth 

Current guest, expert: Gergely Zoltán, scriptwriter

DJ: Turiszt 

2 weeks ago we stopped at the question to what extent our film should be personal. Following a semantic debate, Trillian’s karaoke bar-experience has been rejected as it has turned out to be too subjective and therefore fails to fit into a radio workshop where the principal point of view is teamwork. We agreed to settle down to a genre film by all means because that allows to acquire professional skills of filmmaking. 4 ideas were raised during the programme: in connection with swine flu a virus topic, inspired by the news, a bank robbery topic, and the train-chasing action film is still holding its position, while the notion of a new Russian chamber play emerged as well.  

1. The bank robbery

It occurred a short while ago that a bank robber ran away by escaping into a block building from the police that was chasing after him. Nobody has ever found him since. It is so Hungarian (as a genre) and so Up-to-date (it happened maybe a month ago at Flórián square) that the analysis of this path got under focus during this session. The idea came upon the occasion when our programme hosted Zoltán Gergely two weeks ago to expertise so he went to the bank earlier than usual to settle things. He attached his less than a year-old son on his back - to the greatest pleasure of the female bank employees. Following the radio broadcast, on his arrival home did he hear about the hostage-bank robbery on the news. Later on he inquired one of the women at the cashier what had happened who told him that the robber had wanted to get her to become his hostage. „I’m not going” – she said, ignoring the gun pointing at her. Somebody else went finally. 

The bank robbery idea excited everyone, since it is an issue lying „in the street”. At the same time, the story raises problems such as an action-super hero with a child on him: what would he do? Surely he wouldn’t start playing the hero. Or? We found out during our debate that bank robbery stories can only star bank robbers, as the story is simply theirs. Could it be exciting to focus on a hostage? Or the guy who says to the gun pointing at him that they should leave him alone, he’s not going anywhere. What motivations could he have?

As references we talked about Dog Day Afternoon and JVCD. In Dog Day Afternoon we can see the story of a bank robbery that ends up in a failure: two desperate but good guys don’t manage to rob a bank. (Al Pacino as one of them). In JVCD the main hero is not the robber: Jean-Claude Van Damme (the title of the film is the actor’s monogram) happens to be a simple client passing by the bank when it is getting robbed, and Van Damme, playing himself this time, cannot show off anything heroic: he’s exactly like a common man. 

2. Trillian’s train chase action film is still among the selected ones which cannot however be advanced during this brainstorming. The maximum we can add to it is that the story would probably fall prey to a train chase scene. 

3. Csaba carried on with the swine flu idea which would tell the story of an abortive experiment to find an antidote in Hungary: in a hospital under quarantine in the woods, a virus endangering the entire world is made out of the antidote by accident. It has to be prevented from getting out, and here you can play with the community locked up, it can get personal with the doctor’s 10 year old children whom you can worry about, and then there are the „simple patients”, but the main character would be the hospital director; there would emerge a love plot as well, and the scene has a lot to add to the story. Dramatic details, breaking out of the human/restrained space. Genre: thriller spiced with the evil. 

4. Yvonne’s absurd horror rockandrolla chamber play with three characters: in Russia in 2 musicians’ refrigerator a fan’s corpse is discovered. According to the journal article, the two guys had even tasted the body. Could they be a boy group or maybe contemporary jazz players?    

For the next occasion log-lines (1-3 effective sentences as a sum-up) will be made out of these ideas. The log-line has to draft the basic situation, the conflict, the intrigue, that is: the beginning, the middle and the end of the film. This is the basis of the future synopsis, but is also possible to present it directly next time. It happens many times that the synopsis is rewritten based on the scenario, because the plot changes so much during the writing process that the original version often becomes unrecognisable.