Week 9 was about ironing out our script and idea, and in the case of me, was kind of a personal experience I don’t imagine many other people dealt with this week, at least in the way I did.

Our script’s main concept is pretty anecdotal to my student life and last five or so years; so it has been odd having other people write and edit something that is formulated on my experiences. This week I had to navigate that a fair bit and try and find a line between what was important to me, versus what was important to the film. I think I mostly found a good balance, but several drafts were necessary to iron that out. It’s something I have to get used to, but there is something deeply personal about revealing yourself in a way to others, then letting them edit and manipulate it to a wider-ranging audience. In my head, those experiences are mine, and if someone doesn’t understand exactly what or how I felt in those situations, that can be something that feels… wrong.

I highlight all of that for a variety of reasons. First being that it’s just a part of the creative experience I’m grappling with, but also because of what we’ve come out with: I am actually pretty happy with it.

I think branching a bit into comedy has enabled us to have enough content to engage in the piece irrelevant of my own experiences. What I mean by that, is the piece – if you removed all the jokes – would just be in some way my experiences done fictionally. But through comedy and those jokes, not only does it add enough that it feels like it is its own thing, but it also means no one has to make an evaluation of sorts on my experiences (are they boring, uninteresting, fun, not fun, etc.) to decide whether the piece is going to be engaging. It can just be funny or nice to watch. When relinquishing control of those experiences, there is something relieving in that assurance.

We probably ended up going deeper into comedy than expected, after originally planning for it to be a genre-hybridisation of coming of age films and comedy, but I don’t think it was necessarily a bad decision. I’d still argue it’s both, but it does lean a little into comedy still. I see what we’ve got as something somewhere between Me Earl and the Dying Girl (2015), Lost in Translation (2003) and Bojack Horseman (2014-2020). Probably a collection of media that has never been compared before, but they all share the experiences of feeling like a fish out of water, with things that go on around them that feel other-worldly at times (where the comedy is often sourced), but their experiences are intrinsic to their main character’s world view and emotions. They are also pieces of media I really relate to, but we did get inspiration from other films/artefacts we have looked at throughout the semester as common inspirations.

I am glad we collated everyone else’s splurge of ideas in their vomit drafts into one, I think everyone brought some fantastic bits that really bring the feelings we are trying to achieve (fish out of water, lack of a place to call home, feeling unfamiliar with the world around you, the student experience, etc.) I hope I wasn’t too protective of my ideas/concepts, and definitely made an effort to remain open to feedback on our drafts while also trying to really highlight the strengths of the piece and when we deviated from it. I am super eager for the feedback we get on it on Monday!

Other than that, Matylda did some fantastic storyboards of the opening scene, Amy and I have been slaving over the script edit, and Sam, Daniel and Trang are working on the presentation, as well as Daniel doing a lot of the producer logistics with locations, casting and cameras. It’s been pretty good so far, a bit slow to start but now we are running along well with a really clear idea of what we want, with Bradley now possessing our script, storyboard and soundtrack ideas, and if all goes to plan highly likely to be filming end of next week!

References:

Bob-Waksberg R (creator) (2014) Bojack Horseman [television program], Netflix, United States.
Coppola S (director) (2003) Lost in Translation [motion picture], Focus Features, United States.
Gomez-Rejon A (director) (2015) Me Earl and the Dying Girl [motion picture], Fox Searchlight Pictures, United States.