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.
