Here I discuss my new short film idea.
Rather symbolically, I came up with my new idea, Eyes, on the same day as our first Creative Enterprise Project seminar. It is not a full-fledged plot yet, but rather just a starting idea that presents multiple possibilities of stories to be told around it. It’s an idea that very much builds on the themes of looking, watching and invasion of privacy that I explored in Busybody.
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| The Characters spy on another character as we spy on them. From the first adaptation of Busybody. |
The idea is of a
character who likes to collect eyes and, when I say collect eyes, I
don’t mean he physically pries them out of people’s heads. Rather, this
character likes to go up to people and ask them if he can take a photo
of their more interesting eye – he collects photos of people’s eyes.
The character is called Boris; he's a
male photographer this time, because I had a female photographer in
‘Busybody’. He’s also named after Boris Karloff not Boris
Johnson (although, he’s equally as legendary).
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| Boris Karloff, The Mummy (1932). |
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| Boris Johnson, no explanation required. |
I’m very keen to stick to this starting point idea! Like the hidden camera idea that I started from with Busybody, this idea is presenting just as many story possibilities that interest me. It deals with something I know: taking photographs on a persistent basis, as I’ve been doing with my 366 Project; it’s about looking, and I’ve always been more of a watcher than a talker. Also I think in general people don’t look enough; they rely too much on listening to all the crap that pours from the mouths of others. Rarely do people say what they’re actually thinking or feeling, but the eyes can always discern the truth – you just have to look! Obviously, it’s a very visual idea I can see it working very well in a story that is told with a visual medium – my mouth is watering with all the possibilities.
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| A high definition image of a Human eye. |
A key conflict that is stopping me from nailing down a plot is the fact
that I don’t know whether the film should be a solid fiction film or a
mocukumentary. Both avenues are presenting equal amounts of tantalising
possibilities! It might be worth developing an idea for both avenues and
then pick the one that is better?
I may not have a plot but
I’m getting a feel for the tone of the story. The idea of someone who
likes to collect eyes can come across as a very sinister idea but my
instinct is telling me that Boris (like Geoff) is not a sinister person.
I think Boris is a very admirable person who somehow encounters a
complication due to his eye obsession. My subconscious is mercilessly
recycling Busybody here! Maybe I should just make Boris an overtly
evil character?
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| David Lynch on how narrow adult imagination is. |
Matt has even suggested that it could be a love story where Boris meets someone who has an obsession with lips. Certainly, it makes sense that Boris would be attracted to someone who had their own obsession. It also presents potential for conflict through resentment. However, I have to be careful with the love story angle. It’s not that I’m adverse to it being a love story but there are countless examples where the ‘strange’ love story has already been done to death.
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| Human lips. |
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