Short Film Ideas

Locations:

The location will be in Poland. In a small town Szydlowiec. The main locations in Szydlowiec will be around the blocks of communist flats, the inside of one of the flats, the view from the flat windows, the park, the lake, the streets, the cemetery and the church.

Characters:

The characters will be real local people in the town, the main character being my grandmother (Marta Zytnicka) who lives in the flat. No one will know that I am filming them because I want everything to be authentic.

Narrative:

Narrative will be a based around the environment and following my grandmother around her everyday life with pieces of locations that fit into the scene for example an outside piece of footage cutting into another. The type of narrative will be driven by the aesthetic of Coppola by a documentary-style and way of showing the narrative rather than tell it/narrate it. Tarkovsky has a very similar way however with uses of long takes in still images or panning movements.

Themes:

The themes will be inspired by directors Andrei Tarkovsky and Sofia Coppola. Themes of childhood, innocence, memories, dreams, nostalgia and remoteness. This will be translated through the cinematography.

The Virgin Suicides by Sofia Coppola:

Inspiration on opening and closing the short film

For my opening I have similar ideas, however a different stage in life, the identity of a lonely woman, from an older generation, in Poland. The way Coppola opens the film is the way I would like to introduce the environment and its neighbourhood. A first impression focusing on its main theme within the shots.

The film also opens with a narrator talking of his memories about the family, which is another idea in consideration for my film to open with. Talking in past tense however presented in the present would be the only difference. Footage would have a link to what the narrator would be saying as a reflection rather than acting as the real memory. Because my grandmother does not speak English and only Polish, I also have to take in consideration ideas for subtitles.
I was thinking about having shots of a routine including pieces of the environment cutting into it to establish the films location. The routine will be of either starting the day or dealing with the graveyard or whatever is a repeating process within the environment. Local people going to church, grandparents sitting outside, children playing, teenagers in hang out places and most importantly memories. The memories (inspired by Tarkovsky) are important because they are the main theme to the narrative.

This overall short film will be documentary-style, due to its dependence on the main character to make a narrative.