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.
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