Character development 2 (Chris)

Following the last post, this are some of the main qualities of my secondary character (Chris):

- He hates someone who has something that he hasn't.
- Vengative person.
- Life itself owes him satisfaction. When something lacks for him, he feels anger.
- He is able to destroy himself in order to destroy the other.
- Cuts everyone's head to be taller.
- Competitive, also with love.
- Arrogant.
- Very persuasive person.
- Provocative person.

Character development 1 (Frederick)

I contacted a psichotherapist in order to get information about my character's personality and derivated behaviours. Based on the ancient sufi teaching of the enneagram, which is nowadays applied to psichology, this psichotherapist suggested me that my character belongs to the "social subtype" of the "type 3" personality.

This subtype characteristics incluye:

- He is a person that needs the world to recognize his value. When that value lacks in the childhood, it gets overdeveloped when older.
- Usually a brilliant image of himself to compensate for a poor childhood.
- Usually grown up in a situation in which he was under considered, so that it takes him to compensate that lack.
- A profound feeling of emptiness and low-self steem within himself.
- His natural desire for being important develops into a passion and lives for the prestige, the need to be recognized and his personal importance.

These are just some of the characteristics that I'll have to play with when developing the script, which have been by the way quite important in order to develop my ideas.
When you know your character, the things that happen to him just come by themselves.

Pictures of the location (flat)

This flat will hold the scenes for the inside of the mind of my character. The overall white color will make for the feeling of emptyness that I'm looking for. Besides, there is a nice view to Canary Wharf, which also relates to the situation of my character, who was a business man.

Development of ideas for the script 1

I developed the idea of the character being withdrawn from the Poker table and taken to the inside of his mind. The character will be taken to a flat's living room, I want the room to be completely empty. This character is going to be a business man that apparently is going through a bad time of his life (lost his job, because of this his girlfriend broke up with him, he ). In the first scene that he is taken to the living room of that flat, he will not be able to open the doors or escape from that room. He will be visibly desperate. The idea is that he will have to complete tasks that will allow him to open the doors. This tasks will relate to problems of the real life that he has to solve in order to be happy and back to his previous life. Remember that the flat will represent the inside of his mind.
As he completes the tasks that allow him to open the doors, his game at the poker table will change. I want to use the simple action-reaction structure.

I will have a psichotherapist consultant who will help me analise the mind of a person like my character, body lenguage, different kinds of nervous breakdowns and so on.

Interesting quotes regarding story telling within short films

"The freedom of the short film relative to the long film lies in the possibilities of using metaphor and other literary devices to tell the story. This is a luxury not available in the comercially driven, realism-oriented long film. Indeed, one of our major points about the short film is its linkages to other literary forms"(Introduction xv)

"Often the story will unfold around a choice that presents itself to the character who never returns to his or her former state. And closure is attained by virtue of making or avoiding that choice."(Introduction xv)

"The catalytic event that would begin the action of the film, which could be viewed as the beginning of act II, must come much more quickly than a quarter of the way into the film. Indeed in the short film, if we use the long-form act proportion or three act structure, one finds that both act I and act II are very short because to set up the story (Act I) must be fast."(Introduction xvi)

* Cooper, Pat; Dancyger, Ken. Writing the short film. 1st edition (Focal Press, USA, 1994)

Image quality comparison between HG20 and HM-100

Above: HM-100 Indoors

HG20 Indoors

HM-100 Outdoors

HG20 Outdoors

This comparison has been carried out in order to clarify what camera will be used to shoot my film. If I finally get to use the 35mm adapter, the HG20 seems to be good enough for the purpose. It has a very good behaviour in low light conditions. The pros from the HM-100 would be the vivid generated colors and a sharper picture. However, the HG20 was set on Cinemode which could have interferred with the sharpness. Further tests must be made when the adapter is ready, as with the adapter and less attached there it will be a one stop of light loss.

DoF Adaptor problem

I recently purchased a DoF Adaptor which was meant to be used for the shooting of my film, this adaptor creates a shallow deph of field that contributes to achieve a film look while working on video, it also allows to attach 35mm lenses to it, which adds several possibilities in terms of lens' choice to obtain different results. The problem is that my Canon HG20 is not able to focus properly on the Ground Glass of the adaptor. I need to zoom into the GG until it covers the entire frame, and whereas the camera focuses it properly when the zoom is back, it is unable to do it when I zoom in. I will keep on trying different options to focus. If it is not possible, I will need to use the University cameras for the shooting.