NAME: Jase Van
Meeteren
DATE: September 1,
2016
DP: Taylor Davis
EVOKING CHILDHOOD
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT OF INTENT
This
statement of intent is designed to train your mind, eye and heart to shoot purposefully.
Prepare it well before shooting. Briefly—but thoughtfully and specifically—answer
the following questions. Be sure to read the assignment description carefully
and make your answers specific.
This document will also be
accompanied by a shot list. Submit a hard copy of this assignment twelve days
before your film screens in class. Upload to Learning Suite twelve days before
your film screens in class. Post to your blog twelve days before your film
screens in class.
1. Use these questions as inspiration
and write about your childhood:
What was your childhood
like? Carefree? Painful? Glorious? Mysterious? What specific memories do you
have? Sounds? Smells? Tastes? Faces? What did the world look like to you then?
How did others see you? What scared you? What did creativity feel like to you?
How have things changed for you?
I always felt like my childhood was
very free and open. My parents were amazing people who let my brother and I
explore and make our own choices. With that, they also let us make our own
mistakes. A memory that always comes to mind is our family Halloween party. I
lived in a rural area so walking through the meadows with my family was always
fun. We would walk to my grandfather’s grave and sing to it every Halloween. I
was always horrified of death when I was young. It was so hard for me to
comprehend life after death. Oddly enough, as I grew up I became fascinated with
zombies. Zombies almost made fun of death, and it seemed less scary to me.
2. List 10 or more people, places, or
things that remind you of your childhood. Can any of these be used as symbols
or motifs to communicate meaning and emotion?
The
graveyard where my grandfather is buried.
The pasture
right behind my parent’s house.
A mustache
(My dad has always had one my entire life)
My dog Rufus.
My
grandfather.
Horses.
A chicken
coup.
My
Grandmother’s basement.
My aunt
Jeanie’s cookies.
A huge elk
head my dad has on our wall.
3. Before continuing, consider how can
you subvert our expectations and surprise us? What individual images capture
the essence of your experience? How can you avoid cliché? Can you provide a
hint of story--even if it is not elaborated on? How can you imply rather than
explicitly state? How can you use ellipsis to let the audience fill in gaps?
How can color, or lack thereof, help evoke emotion? What about sound?
I really want to capture
the beauty of the place I lived as a child. I want people to understand how
amazing it was to grow up on a little farm. I think I can do that by going to a
field when it is getting to golden hour and the light looks beautiful. I also
want to capture my biggest fear. Death was really hard for me so I want to get
some images of that. Then I want to get some images with zombies in them. This
was the moment in my life when death became less scary and more intriguing to
me. So I want to portray the zombies in a beautiful majestic way. Not a scary
one. Hopefully this keeps it from being cliché. I also want to use warm, beautiful
colors.
4. Describe the progression--the
beginning, middle, and end--of this film in three or four sentences? In other
words, what happens in this scene as it starts, as it progresses, and as it
ends?
The film starts in a
pretty meadow with beautiful dusk light. As it progresses we realize we find
ourselves in a graveyard. It ends with zombies as they walk into the sunset.
5. What, specifically, would you like
the audience to understand? How do you intend to communicate that information?
I want the audience to understand how I felt about death and
how later something strange helped me to get over it. Color will be a huge
factor in portraying this. First the colors will be warm as we first see the
meadow. Then the colors will become cool and harsh as we see the gravestones.
At the end, the colors will be nice again as we see zombies wandering in the
meadow.
6. What emotion(s) do you want the
audience to experience about your childhood through this film? How do you intend
to make this happen?
First calm and
stillness, then fear or dread, then back to a strange serenity. At the end I
want them to feel an uneasy calmness. I intend to do that with the imagery. The
bright meadow will seem as though nothing is wrong. As gravestones invade it, I
believe it will invoke a sense of dread because of the inevitability of death.
Then it will go back to the beautiful shots of the meadow but this time
something that is considered to be a monster is wandering through it. Giving us
that calm, but also a sense of uneasiness. I really like the idea of showing
nature, and how humans invade it, and then become it when they are zombiefied.
7. What is the first image of the film?
What is the final image of the film? Why are you choosing these specific
images?
The first image will be a close up
of some kind of vegetation blowing in the wind. This helps establish that we
are outside, on a pretty summer evening. It also puts the audience immediately
in a place of comfort which will hopefully establish the tone of the film. The
final image will be another piece of vegetation, but this time there will be
zombies out of focus in the background. The colors will still be warm and the
image beautiful. This will leave the audience with a strange feeling. I think
that feeling will at least sort of resemble how I feel now about death. I want
to leave them with that feeling because it is the feeling I am left with.
8. Why is this scene personal to you? Ask
yourself, “Why do I need to make this
scene?”
I think it is important
to me because I don’t believe I have every really addressed my fear, and then
triumph over the idea of death. I think it’s something I need to get out of my
system because I have never yet had the chance to really express my feelings on
the matter. I always just quietly feared my inevitable demise because, as a
Mormon, I wasn’t supposed to fear death. Fearing death almost meant that I was
unworthy of godliness. If I was a good person, I wouldn’t have to fear death.
At least, that’s what I always thought as a child.
9. Before
making your shot list, consider: How can you subvert the audience’s
expectations and surprise us? What individual images capture the essence of
your experience? How can you avoid cliché? Can you provide a hint of
story--even if it is not elaborated on? How can you imply rather than
explicitly state? How can you use ellipsis to let the audience fill in gaps?
How can color, or lack thereof, help evoke emotion?
I think I can surprise
the audience by using juxtaposition in imagery. Going from something beautiful,
to something ugly, to something strange will keep the audience guessing about
where it is going. I think this avoids cliché because, instead of it just being
a dark film, it is a film that seems like it might be about something dark, but
shown in a light way.
Most importantly: How can you intensify your purpose or intent for each shot? Can you will emotion into your images?
To make sure each shot has purpose,
I need to think about what each location means to my childhood. I need to
detail the location really well so it can tell the story. I’m not using a lot
of people in my film so I need to let my locations tell the story. Each shot
must be used to explore the location, which will give meaning to my story as
long as I can pick a good location.
10. List two or three potential
obstacles to creating a successful film. How can you be prepared to overcome
these? Be specific!
Finding a location could
be very difficult.
- I’ll start looking into locations
now. If it becomes a problem to film in a graveyard, we can go to my hometown
to grab shots of the graves. There doesn’t have to be zombies in these shots,
which might make it easier.
Weather could prevent us from getting pretty sunset light.
- Taylor and I agreed to block out two
days for our shooting days. That way, if one day the weather is bad, we still
have another shooting day we can get the shots we need.
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