BSA325, Idea development, 28 February, 2017

We split into groups and brainstormed ideas for the short film or doc we're going to make for the group project.  Kevin, Arpita, Doug, Ben Frew and I came up with 2 A3 pages of ideas.

These were the ones we liked the best:
Doc/mock of Nightlife of Invercargill: the Bar Luca spiked fence incident
How Shit is Our Main St.: The Disintegration of Country Towns
March of the Ducks in Queens' Park
Animators v. Filmies







and this is the idea that made it to the last group to be considered:
Doug and Ben's Road Trip: Two loveable guys in ludicrously out-of-season shorts decide that Invercargill needs some public art and decide to steal Gore's celebrated trout statue.  A dead prostitute, hordes of angry 5 year olds that have to be fought off and Mayor Shadbolt are only a few of the hazards the two most surmount before they achieve their goal.

The ideas that the other groups came up with that we're also considering are:
A town full of layabout robots annoy the local population to distraction.
Local legends like the extinct Haast eagle or taniwha terrorize a group of backpackers.
A serial killer lures a documentary crew to their deaths by offering them rare and sought after local knowledge.

I'm going to write up a treatment for the Road Trip.  I'd like to work on it with Kevin Reid because he's got a sense of the ridiculous and comic timing.  I don't know how to find Kevin after class hours, though- he kind of disappears.

There was great concern that this story would have too many locations.  It's all in how it's made, though.  What I propose is Thelma and Louise (1992) meet Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) with the technical sophistication of the Hope and Crosby road movies from the 1940s.

 They just sit in front of projected location shots.  I say Thelma and Louise because Doug and Ben were just taking the piss when they said we should buy a van and shoot them on a boozy trip to Nelson.  So, they're out!   They can write up their own treatment if they want to star.  I think Rainbow and Suvarna, who would have been 2nd year art students, would make a good tripping balls Artsy Odd  Couple for this heist.  Rainbow has gone to Nelson but as she strikes me as a method actor, it's just as well.