Film Journal Jan 4. 2010

Jan 5th, 2010
Most used joke today...
'Ola, I just got back from Mexico and I think I'm still sweating Dos Equis.'

Beginning pre-production on next short film "Shilas and the Tomb", a BravoFact short film with a 20,000+ budget....a comedic, eerie horror, romantic, emulate(?), Tales from the Crypt meets Evil Dead meets Monkey Island meets Oscar Wilde meets Edgar Allan Poe meets Tim Burton meets Final Destination meets Scanner Darkly meets Vincent meets Ed Wood. Right now having a tough time wrapping my head around what meets what and when they met. I need to read it again and plot all the story points, then try to give it an arc, as right now there are some cool looking shots, but no plot points, dialouge, or sequences of suspense. A lot of tolls and carpentry...maybe I'll investigate that shit some more. A grave digger that mutalates his victims to fit them into Coffins that were made for grave plots. Fit the body to the casket, not the casket to the body. This screams business man to me. This enterpaneur is visted by a spirit when he decides to mutilate the wrong body. It gets revenge!!! Hmmm...maybe this film is about revenge on the cheap? If so what would that be?
Watched the short film 'Vincent', by Tim Burton. A dark eerie calling card short that captures everything Tim Burton is in 6 minutes. It was dark, comedic and complete imaginative genius. I learned from it that, mis-direction can be funny and used in my next short. Maybe use misdirection of emotional shifts (from quick building fear to relief of tension over and over building bigger each time! Also flashing light works nicely. Either way I need to capture my directing style. This means trying to find out what my style is. Also I am going to create a dialogue for a narrator...just to get a feel for what is being said and the humor.

Also...
Need to think about Shallow Glen tomorrow...thinking about the quote from Chuck Klosterman's latest book, 'Eating the Dinosaur'..something about how we love to see talent fail because it makes us feel better about our average-ness...talent without diligence is the opiate of the bitter chatterboxes? Does each type have their opiate? I dunno...