8th day report: war (and love...) writing
War brainstormig, today!
We were Achmad, Mohammeed Gaze, Abdallah, Khaled, Basel and Sultan. For a moment, also Mohammed Mansour appeared. We were thinking to shoot the fiction, but was impossible,because the weather is really bad (drizzle, showers, two-meters visibility... not the ideal to go to the sea)So we picked a writing session.
At first, following Alberto's suggestion, we decided that we will develop together just one of the two subject about time, keeping the second for after. We will choose the time-show or the time-tell according to the tunisian choice. So, we talked about the war subject, and we came out with these ideas:
.1st: develop an interview we shot in the last workshop and we didn't use because last film was focused on 1948 and 1967 events, and the character, Mariam, spoke widely about the present situation of the war nowdays in Biddu and around the area. Everyone there loved this woman and that footage, and it is beautiful to see how archive come actual to use.
. 2nd: children playing war games (documentary), with the use of sad images related to the war
. 3rd: a meeting with a group that 10 years ago shoot a war movie here in Biddu(the idea is to meet with the author, see the movie and try to re.make it nowdays or enter somehow in relationship with them (kiss subject)
. 4th: interview ' what do you think about war?'
. 5th : go to interview all the people called Harb (that means war in arabic)or Salam (peace)
. 6th: different funny uses of the wall (go and use it to plat squash...,probably with the help of a mirror, but is still to difficult and dangerous!)
. 7th :the destruction of the wall (the idea is to shoot a crane or someone
that is building it and to edit it backwards)
. 8th: weather news (fiction) about war
During the brainstorming we came out with a really cool idea about love: a videoclip in which old men (or the guys or...) sing a love song and in
the background many kitch images going on...we will work on it!
Anyway, about the war subject we started to work on Mariam (we watch all the footage, and batchlisted it, and translated it, and tomorrow we will start the montage). While Achmad, Mohammeed Gaze, Abdallah, with Basel and Sultan's help,watched the footage, Khaled finalized the sea-tell editing...
posted by Stefano Collizzolli at 1:14 AM
2 Comments:
Just quick observations around your big list of new ideas:
1. archive interview: it's always good having a good archive interview...
2. children playing war games: it's sweet, but I think it's a bit stereotype...
3. interview "what do you think on war?": first, it's hard saying something meaningful in one minute. Secondly, I think that war is so often accompained by rivers of words, why don't look for something where words are banned?
4. Harb/Salam: this is funny, but the risk is that it is too local and that it is difficult to enjoy the joke from outside.
5. different funny uses of the wall: I love this, but take care!! if you choose it use all fiction possible and editing tricks: it's not just a way to avoid risks, but also a way to make the dream visible...eg: you see the wall, from far away, then the squash game in a similar light, but just very close details, so that one can believe that you are playing squash on the wall. Then you open up and you discover that the player is alone in a room and not in front of the wall as you thought. So you will have been dreaming with the player...bit difficult to edit, but safe!
7th: the destruction of the wall: This is also very good and visionary enough to be a good dream...
8th: this is funny, and it is a good way to use the short format, but you should stage it carefully, overall if you want to simulate a well known tv format as weather forecasts is. So think that shooting fiction takes always much longer, you need good lights etc...
Something else:
- go ahead in 4:3 for shooting as the Tunisian, it's the best way not to have format troubles afterward.
- in Tunisia they are addressing Time, why don't you freeze a moment War, so to keep working on the same theme at the same time?
always in touch...
zabu
Hey guys, I could watch your Sea! Actually I watched it on one pc but without sound, and I listened to the sound afterward from a mac... but thanks to your great subtitles I got it and I liked it very much. I think that the film pace is very good for a say/dream, and also the quality of pictures looks high despite the compression. Though, I think that it has got a similar "problem" at the beginning as the Tunisian dream: indeed one can clearly understand that we are in Palestine just at the end - and this of course is on pourpose and it works well. Nevertheless, in a very short format the space reference maybe should be set out somehow also at the beginning, in order not just to "discover the surprise" at the end, but to confirm/disturb the expectations along all the 3 minutes run. For instance, I suggested to the Tunisians to use just wide angle or a pan on Kerchaou as an empty space for a voice or a further title at the beginning. I don't know if they are going to adopt this solution, but it's just an example for how to make these mini-films a bit more self-standing (though a common claim at the beginning -that is something we should also work on- will also help in that).
zabu
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