Work is beginning on the planning of our sixth feature film ‘SPECTRUM’, as we start shooting our new Web Series ‘THIS IS GOOD’. The final outline is complete and I’ve begun writing a few scenes. So far it’s veering towards surrealism. Comedy-heavy, but with serious undertones. I’ve recently re-written the final quarter as I had a change of heart as to what the character and focus of the film should be. It’s now more akin to ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ and ‘Brazil’ than ‘Nymphomaniac’ and ‘Ali: Fear Eats the Soul’. You may recall a few months back I wrote a post titled ‘Dangerous Filmmaking: A New Phase’. As grand and pompous as such a statement no doubt sounds, it is our intention for future projects to challenge traditions and take more risks in order to make original work and get people thinking.
As ideas evolve the focus of the project obviously shifts also. Originally my intention with our next feature film was to have a character actively rebelling against the traditional environment surrounding her, however I’ve now shifted it slightly so the lead is less forcefully active, and the film is more a question of oppression, as she wakes to a world bound by restriction and forced apathy. This approach, for me, has come from a fear over what the future could hold if a right-wing group were to take power (I’m speaking of course of UKIP, seemingly growing in popularity, unfortunately). The film will also address media bias, unbalanced economic structures in which the poor get poorer and the rich get richer, and the average person is kept docile with distraction instead of taking action, and more importantly, what happens to those who challenge this order of things.
The lead character was more politically motivated in the original draft, but now I want to take more of a humanist approach. She simply disagrees with how everyone else is living, ignoring, acting, at that time, and she sees an alternative. She’s content to live in the now and hungry to experience a full life, but the inhabitants of the world in which she lives seek escape, are never present, living to work, and hiding their true feelings (for those unfamiliar with the synopsis of the film – it focuses on an organisation called ‘Spectrum’ who offer personality implants and quick-fix emotion vials in which the consumer can buy happiness, or at least a feeling of happiness (as well as other emotions) and experience it instantly, obviously suppressing true feelings). I appreciate this all sounds rather heavy and somewhat bleak, but let me put your mind at ease by giving you an example of where the humour will come from – ‘A young girl gets a sense of humour implant. As a result, she cannot stop telling jokes, and making light of every situation. She goes to a funeral’ – you get the idea…
In all art forms we are only offered reflections of suffering as a result of the human condition, never solutions or an idea of progression/change. Our films have also fallen in to this trap, simply showing problems facing people (morality, ego, etc), but never any idea of how to elevate ourselves from the daily struggles to something more profound. I’ve recently been reading the work of Eckhart Tolle, and wish to offer some form of solution in the next phase of our work, through his wise words (and those of other important writers) regarding living a full happy life, in the present.
I’m currently writing the first draft and intend to have it completed by the end of the year, at which point we’ll have the web series shot, then we’ll be crowdfunding for ‘SPECTRUM’ early 2015, and shooting Summer (ideally). More information soon…
