Is this a crazy idea or what?

[npcoombs]

Im ditching my latest short film idea - I just realsed that the topic of arranged marriages and relationships just doesn't connect with me on a deep enough level.

So after some soul searching a crazy idea came to me, one which until I started thinking seriously about it was just a form of fantasised wish fuflillment.

Shoot a feature.

I had the idea of a story based in Colombia and the more I thought about it the less crazy it seemed and the more rational it actually appeared.

1) Production costs are insanely low in Colombia - I could afford to hire a producer, DP, AD, 1st AC and everything else.

2) Through my wife we have a house in Bogota where we can live for free. Why not take advantage of it?

3) Plentiful supply of locations and extras- evryone in small towns in Colombia are more than keen to be involved in shoots, since they are so rare out there.

4) Plentiful supply of actors and actresses on a professional level.

5) Easy work as an English teacher to keep myself afloat.

I worked out that I could do everything within a year, with a compressed 5 week shoot.

*****
The story I want to make involves pity.

How a girl from the upper eschelons of a small town on the edge of guerilla territory in Northern colombia, performs small acts of charity in her community. How she pities those she gives charity to and relives her moral conscience through these acts and how those people receive her charity graciously until the atmosphere in the town turns sour.

Her's is the richest family and although they perform token acts of charity the deteorating economic situation is reducing the town to grinding poverty. Her family live in a Westernised cocoon in their house just outside the town.

Her uncle is a poor priest who loves her greatly, but cannot reconcile his love for her with his rejection of the priviledged wealth of his brother's family and his own love for the poor. He spends hours trying to rock her from her superficial goodness to a deeper level of goodness.

***

One day she visits a dying child who she delivers presents to and the mother forces her out of the house, telling her to take her pity elsewhere. Shocked, she leaves the house and never returns.

Her aunt, a business woman and trader in the house, has received letters through the post with warnings of kidnapping and murder in exchange for money. She packs up the house to leave the town, taking her relatives who live in the large house also.

Carrying on with her charitable visits she finds that she is no longer welcome in the houses of the people she used to deliver money and good too.

Visiting her uncle, she wants to know what is happening.

He drops her back at her house and she finds the doors hanging open. Her family's bodies lying on the floor, blood up on the walls and her brothers hideously mutilated and strung up. Everything has been emptied, all their possessions, furniture, drawers, everything.

*****
Heading into town people look at her like a ghost. Some of the people she has helped try to help her, but she shrugs them off.

She turns to her uncle for help, but he is poor and grief struck.

The bank will require months for the money from the estate to ne cleared and be put in her hands.

Her land has been occupied by people from the town and another family has moved into her house, whilst the posessions of the family are sold off in the market.

She tries to find a job, but there is nothing available and none of the smaller shops or tradespeople will give her work, only offering small hand outs which she refuses.

Slowly she is reduced to desperation, grovelling about on the streets and rubbish dumps, to ashamed to show her face to her uncle or anyone any more. Wet, dirty, hungry and reduced to nothing.

****
Until a visitor for the town spots her on the street one evening and takes pity on her. He takes her back to his plush apartment in a nearby town. He clothes her, feeds her and is surprised to find her to be so beautiful and well educated. When he hears her story he is heartbroken and in a moment of passion they make love.

Guiltily he makes sure she leaves early in the morning, but makes some calls and finds her a room in a house which he pays for. He tells her he is married and takes her on as a cleaner so that she begins to live a double life as both cleaner and lover.

His guilt at what he is doing is overwhleming and his guilt turns into an expectation of sex.

****
And then the situation turns around and her uncles complicity in her family's murder is revealed. She goes from a position of weakness to one of strength and her pity is tested. [this last act needs a lot of thinking about]

***
I'm thinking of bringing a screenwriter onboard when i have the basic themes and story worked out.

[Evan Kubota]

This sounds really good - like a cross between a picaresque story and a sweeping social realist piece. Have you seen Zhang Yimou's "To Live"? It follows a Chinese man from the 1930s until the Cultural Revolution. Really fantastic stuff.

The character arc in this sort of reminds me of "Gegen die wand" in reverse.

[npcoombs]

This sounds really good - like a cross between a picaresque story and a sweeping social realist piece. Have you seen Zhang Yimou's "To Live"? It follows a Chinese man from the 1930s until the Cultural Revolution. Really fantastic stuff.

The character arc in this sort of reminds me of "Gegen die wand" in reverse.

Thanks Evan. I have a good feeling about the story because it touches on themes that have bothered me for a long, long time (the meaning of charity and its element of bad faith) and my own experiences in Colombia - the characters are all based on people I have met.

There is also the moral dillema between injustice and inequality but the truth of the 'earned' privilege, something that is always a moral roadblock in revolutionary philosophy.

I will have to check out the film you mention. It sounds interesting.

[steve hyde]

Going to Colombia for a year or two could be amazing.

You might be surprised to find out that production costs are not as insanely low as one might assume. Production equipment rentals will likely be the same (if not more) than the United States. Film stock and processing will cost more than the United States since chemistry and film have to be imported. You should contact Joshua Marston and ask him about his production experiences in Colombia. You should also contact:

COLOMBIA
Kodak América, Ltda.
Calle 12C No. 76-49 Entrada 2
Parque Industrial Alsacia
Santa Fé de Bogota, Columbia
Phone: 57-1-412.5550 ext. 377
Fax: 57-1-412.1200

They will be able to tell you about production costs, professional networks and rental houses.

Your production will save money on hotel accommodations, food and transportation and labor costs for assistants will be affordable, but a professional DP with credentials will cost $$ where ever you go. Hopefully you will find a DP that is enthusiastic about your project and wants to come on as a co-producer.

As an alternative plan, you might consider taking your GL2 and a 16mm camera to Colombia for a year, work as an English teacher and make a project out of developing short-form documentaries that would serve as research for your feature and also as a series of production experiences that will help you develop film industry contacts in Bogata. This suggestion obviously reveals my own interest in producing short-form documentaries that can be joined together as a feature show. (Like our Super 8 Cities project)

I really believe the best strategy for "unproven directors" is to prove themselves in the domain of short films. Your ideas for "Descent" are good ones. They just need to be developed.

Steve

[steve hyde]

This sounds really good - like a cross between a picaresque story and a sweeping social realist piece. Have you seen Zhang Yimou's "To Live"? It follows a Chinese man from the 1930s until the Cultural Revolution. Really fantastic stuff.

The character arc in this sort of reminds me of "Gegen die wand" in reverse.

Thanks Evan. I have a good feeling about the story because it touches on themes that have bothered me for a long, long time (the meaning of charity and its element of bad faith) and my own experiences in Colombia - the characters are all based on people I have met.

There is also the moral dillema between injustice and inequality but the truth of the 'earned' privilege, something that is always a moral roadblock in revolutionary philosophy.

I will have to check out the film you mention. It sounds interesting.

...interesting. What is it about charity and bad faith that bothers you? What do these things mean for you?

"To Live" is a very good film..

Steve

[npcoombs]

Going to Colombia for a year or two could be amazing.

You might be surprised to find out that production costs are not as insanely low as one might assume. Production equipment rentals will likely be the same (if not more) than the United States. Film stock and processing will cost more than the United States since chemistry and film have to be imported. You should contact Joshua Marston and ask him about his production experiences in Colombia. You should also contact:

COLOMBIA
Kodak América, Ltda.
Calle 12C No. 76-49 Entrada 2
Parque Industrial Alsacia
Santa Fé de Bogota, Columbia
Phone: 57-1-412.5550 ext. 377
Fax: 57-1-412.1200

They will be able to tell you about production costs, professional networks and rental houses.

Your production will save money on hotel accommodations, food and transportation and labor costs for assistants will be affordable, but a professional DP with credentials will cost $$ where ever you go. Hopefully you will find a DP that is enthusiastic about your project and wants to come on as a co-producer.

I would probably sell my XL1 and 16mm and buy a Z1 or Canon HD with a matt box and focus pull setup. I could then sell it after the shoot. There is no way I could afford to shoot film on this.

This would then cut out the main pricey equipment hire issue (unless I want to get involved in expensive gripping equipment). Maybe throw in a very nice tripod and some form of fig-rig.

The production costs Im talking about are based around no/low budget features. You can find plenty of pretty competent people even in the UK who will DP a feature for next to nothing to add credits to their name.

All other positions can be filled pretty cheaply/easily.

I'm giving it serious thought, because I realize part of my deficit of inspiration this past year (thinking about narrative films) has been the fact that I just don't like shorts in general.

[mattias]

maybe i'm just prejudiced, but for how long do you expect to be able to hold on to a z1 in the country with like the highest crime rate on earth? i have a friend who lives in brazil and every time she buys something expensive and tries to use it she gets robbed. sad, true, but also hilarious in a way.

/matt -- will work for food. :-)

[npcoombs]

maybe i'm just prejudiced, but for how long do you expect to be able to hold on to a z1 in the country with like the highest crime rate on earth? i have a friend who lives in brazil and every time she buys something expensive and tries to use it she gets robbed. sad, true, but also hilarious in a way.

/matt -- will work for food.

Hire security, shoot in a very safe town...