Preparations

rain on windshield

colors through old-style window

I'm using my little pocketable camera (the wonderful Canon S90 IS) as a scratch-pad in preparation for making a micro-budget feature film. Look at the larger version of each to get a better idea of the real feel.

The idea is to capture the mood, in pictures, that I hope to create with the movie. When I have the mood right, in a series of a dozen or so images, I'm expecting that I'll know. And I will print those images large and hang them around my work room as I write.

My goal, as I begin, is to make a suspenseful movie with a tense sort of desperation hanging over it. To capture a star character suffering, but hopefully with a point.

I plan to make strong use of disappointments and struggles I've been through in the last couple years, to apply hard emotions to a story that really works (see What is Fiction For? and Writing Through Pain for details). This is where the challenge of harnessing difficult emotions and making powerful use of them as a storyteller comes in.

I'm hoping that I have the proper distance to make it work. I'm not, after all, doing this for therapy. I'm doing it to tell a story that will move as many people as possible.

As I go through these earliest of steps (taking stills to help divine the look and feel and mood of the movie), I will post my efforts and explain my moods. With any luck, it won't bore the hell out of anyone reading.