Hi Al, so sorry I missed this - I was waiting for your OGR and checked back a few times, but somehow I stood you up! Apologies. The good news is that your idea is very sweet and I can see it working very well. The important thing for you is to establish the 'voice' of your character, so it's got that nostalgia/high-school/looking-back feeling. Thank you for sharing your storyboards too via email - again they convey your idea just fine - and I love the fact its starts at 'graduation'. Are you going to include some 'set-backs' for your character - so the idea of 'resits' and 'getting there in the end?' In these kind of 'self-realisation' narratives, it's often good to build some tension by having a stumble along the way? So, the thing I'm interested in is your 'monologue' - as the character looks back and remembers. The one thing not shown in your storyboards is a sense of the cell's nervousness or trepidation during the exams - again, tension building stuff, so maybe consider some shots of the cell looking up at the exam hall clock, then back at the exam paper, then back to a shot of him concentrating, and so on - just devices by which you can make the audience 'feel' the importance of these examinations via empathising with your cell character. In short, I think it's going to work, but remember you're telling a 'human' story too, not simply showing a sequence of scenes in which your character takes his exams.
OGR 25/03/17
ReplyDeleteHi Al, so sorry I missed this - I was waiting for your OGR and checked back a few times, but somehow I stood you up! Apologies. The good news is that your idea is very sweet and I can see it working very well. The important thing for you is to establish the 'voice' of your character, so it's got that nostalgia/high-school/looking-back feeling. Thank you for sharing your storyboards too via email - again they convey your idea just fine - and I love the fact its starts at 'graduation'. Are you going to include some 'set-backs' for your character - so the idea of 'resits' and 'getting there in the end?' In these kind of 'self-realisation' narratives, it's often good to build some tension by having a stumble along the way? So, the thing I'm interested in is your 'monologue' - as the character looks back and remembers. The one thing not shown in your storyboards is a sense of the cell's nervousness or trepidation during the exams - again, tension building stuff, so maybe consider some shots of the cell looking up at the exam hall clock, then back at the exam paper, then back to a shot of him concentrating, and so on - just devices by which you can make the audience 'feel' the importance of these examinations via empathising with your cell character. In short, I think it's going to work, but remember you're telling a 'human' story too, not simply showing a sequence of scenes in which your character takes his exams.