This is the documentation of a workshop as part of the movie programme called Free Cinema on Tilos Radio.
Participants of the first edition: 14/05/2009
Editors:
Yvonne Kerékgyártó, Killa Köllő (Trillian), Ferenc Wostry
Regular guest: Csaba Tóth
Current guest, expert: Gergely Zoltán, scriptwriter
When it comes to making films, the first thing to be made clear is the attitude: depending on the all changing parameters (money, time, human factor) it is possible to try the impossible: making a feature film on the occasions of every second Thursday.
The most important question of the creative process is: what will the result be?
The members of the workshop are not completely but almost amateurs, and our specialists invited join in to pave the way for us.
Target group
Who and Where is going to watch and What?
- Are we preparing a film for someone who goes to cinema on Saturday evening with his girlfriend and wants excitement? Is it about an action horror comedy with stunts and stars or light entertainment for friends or maybe for the radio audience? Either way, it is possible to slip in some excitement.
- Under a different light: should we aim for a character-centered drama or a psycho-crime story?
Main Stream
What should we define first: the genre or the idea?
It is worth laying down some basic elements in advance, what we wish to see absolutely and what we do not. According to Zoli Gergely it is generally necessary to have a personal link to the mainstream, since one knows (theoretically) himself the best.
This is what goes for the genre movies as well: personal touch can be added. Genre films normally react on a given period: this is how we can see for example the pursuit of the American dream of the 80s appearing in many forms, which is well balanced by the European filmmakers. Today’s popular topics are the refugee subject, or the virus-aspiration for world hegemony-vision.
In any case, according to our experts it is the idea that bears the genre: let’s visualise Béla, the lone hero, who is home all by himself, doing nothing, can we see now how many possibilities there are in it? You can start out anywhere, the purpose is: to make a good film.
1st phase: the basic idea
A classic and good example for the basic idea is Hitchcock’s North by Northwest: as an idea, it is a slender one but Hitchcock, as the main feature brings the genre with himself, and so this will be the basis for all James Bond movies.
It is worthwhile getting down to the brainstorming from a technical point of view: it should be well concentrated, that is, a leader is supposed to put down (on a board) the key terms resulting from the brain storms, then sum up the outcome and direct erring ideas towards the finished film.
Basic idea/1: (We abandoned it in the next edition - the editor) The personal experience of one of us: a movie-like working place, a Japanese karaoke bar in Budapest. This is an unmarked club only by invitation visited by Japanese business men. The leads could be made up by the staff: the hostess girls themselves who live the night workers’ collective lives in the cloakroom (moral questions emerging: where they come from, where they go – are they students and/or working here by necessity). Leaving the cloakroom, they pick up the American smile straightaway: let’s turn on the music, as well as the guys - but what is behind, after, and in the end?
Basic idea/2: During the programme, as part of the current issues, the „bird flu / mad cows disease/ swine flu that spreads by biting, sweeps over the world and makes everyone a zombie” -idea, and as a counter-idea, by the time the film is ready, how much will any of the above be up-to-date, maybe a new animal decease should be invented immediately, just to avoid oppositions.
Basic idea/3: The main character, a girl is preparing for her wedding, and has to face a series of tasks upon her chickens’ party, but of course, to be able to cope with the tests (her fears) there is no real need for a farewell party. Let’s say that the girl gets up in the morning and is prepared for her evening party, knowing nothing about that it has in fact already started: she gets a message saying that she has to take the train, and because of a misunderstanding, the game becomes one of life and death, everything goes astray, like with Bill Murray “The Men Who Knew Too Little”, or “The Game” or Rejtő’s: “A szőke ciklon" (The Blond Cyclone). Or even "Grand Hotel" (by the same author), which has a funny start but turns out to be a film noir.
Spot
The scenes for the ideas already existing:
A/1: a restricted space or, as it is now closed at Kolosy square; a lot of questions emerge. The film could be set in the cloakroom or even the bar.
A/2: It’s almost like a masterpiece to create a Mexico stroke by the disease on a Hungarian pig farm with one single sombrero. Or: the virus arrives therefore the whole building is quarantined - it could be an epidemic centre.
A/2: Several metropolitan and country scenes, but mostly trains.
An interesting aspect is the point of view: remaining with our examples, it is possible to use an outsider’s position but also that of the characters, so it be the hostess girl (or throughout the episodes every character’s point of view), or the investigator, the recently involved employee, or the child who doesn’t understand why mum coughs, or the laboratory researcher who gives orders to set up the quarantines and fights for other people’s lives, or the pigs doing kung fu on each other.
The genre could be horror, reality show, catastrophe film, or drama: the members of the family follow each other to death in the quarantine. An Andromeda Strain-like film, or here comes McGywer, and then there will be action-sci-fi-adventure, and comedy – all in one. However, the objectivity of the news programmes is not a bad idea either, media power in focus. Or a satire-comedy entitled Babe3, where the little pig gets infected and the whole Hungarian army is trying to trace and hunt him down – well this idea has its disadvantages as well, at least the experts say it would be difficult to rent a piglet every two weeks, and then there’s the training the animal needs and all that time and who knows what else to make it into a feature film and not just a game. Or it could be a genre parody, we have the target, (Babe3, the chasers) and the Bábolna factory is going to sponsor it, which will make Hungarian pigs survive everything and aspire for world hegemony.
The brainstorming is to be continued in our next edition.
Written by: Turbina
