The Look as of 20/09/10

Hi blog,
Yesterday at about half 6, the group met over at Jackson's Estate and we came up with a few things as to what we want the film to look like:

• Nate and Clara will be shot in two-shot-shots (so many shots) to visually pair them as a couple whilst Pete will be shot alone, mostly framed with a space to the side of him, sort of symbolic of the girlfriend he is not with.


• These tropes will be used before they all get into the hottub where we will use a revolving shot where the camera will travel around the tub as the three mates chat. Think the cafe-scene in Deathproof


• Pete will be shot with the camera looking down at him whilst Robby will be shown in low angle shots to give him more power and prescence on screen. Pete will get a fake-out moment where we will film him in a low angle shot to kid the viewer that Kourt's going to go back with him (this will happen when Kourt accuses Robby of lying about his allergy) but as soon as she ditched Pete, he'll plummet visually and within the narrative. There goes that false glimmer of hope.


• Nate and Clara will be wearing clothes with similar colours/hues/tones and, just to mess with the viewer more and give 'em hope, Pete and Kourt will be wearing a similar colour palette. (We also noted that we need to make a change to the script and have Kourt bring Robby a swimsuit as part of her masterplan, and, on a different note altogether, we discussed alternative places that the characters could go to get latex gloves so that we could steer clear of the shopping centre/supermarket thing: some suggestions were sneaking into Kourt's neighbour's house or going to Pete's/Nate's/Clara's house and having one of their mums or dads be a doctor--we're still pondering that though, but back to the look!)


• We are also going to play with character quirks to contrast Robby's and Pete's sexual energy/prowess (or lack thereof): Pete will be a nail-biter to show a sort of nervous tick; this will serve to make him appear smaller on screen, also, and more closed off or inferior. The next idea (which we are working on the logistics of so it's not just flat out creepy) is to have Robby lick his lips-- not in a 'ooh baby' kinda way entirely, but kind of confidently and subconciously but still cognizant of the fact that he's going to be getting some underneath the fireworks. The idea is that he is sexually more present and aggressive and less nerdy than Pete. Robby will also blow smoke in Kourt's face which we will show in close-up.


• We discussed playing with the brightness of colours on screen--either making it unnaturally bright or maybe having the orange of Pete and Robby's hair pop against every other colour.


• We also want to play with some extreme close-ups with shots of Clara and Nate exchanging looks whenever Pete says something particularly lonely (there will also be cuter-couple-ier looks between the pair) and also a close-up of Clara moving her hand away from Nate when he makes the remark about gawking at Kourt's chest in the 10th grade.


• As for acoustics, the three of us each know several talented composers and musicians who have said that they will work with us and we're still discussing the feel of the music we want-- we have a range of rock-ier artists, folk singer-songwriter types and beatboxxers.


• We also discussed not ever showing the fireworks (cos we're students and couldn't pull it off so we don't want to go tacky) but visually implying them with wide-angle shots of the tub with the empty sky above it---foreshadowing the display that never comes)


• I still don't have a phone (grr...Virgin mobile) so, as a group, we've set up at least two weekly meet-up times outside of class so that we don't need to track each other down to work it out.


• We have spoken to a few acting-major friends of ours and have a tentative-pretty-likely actor for Pete and we're on a quest to solidify the other roles or at least write up a more appealing synopsis to go along with our casting sheet.

I think that's about it, I'm sure the lads will write up anything I've missed--bye for now!

Hannah