Every tenth person that signs up on our e-mail list from May 15th to June 1st, will win two tickets to see Emerald City or Listeners at the Seattle True Independent Film Festival this June. As an added bonus, the tickets also get you admitted into other festival movies screening that day. Once you are done subscribing to the e-mail list, forward this information to a friend; the more people that subscribe increases the number of winners and provides more chances for you to go to the movies! That is, if your friends will take you!
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Lake Mail is a great way to stay up to date on the latest projects from Seattle’s premier film and video production company, Crooked Lake Productions, and is a great source for entertaining videos, blogs, movie making tips and news from Seattle’s independent film community.
How?
All you have to do is go to www.crookedlp.com. In the top left corner is our Lake Mail signup, enter your email and click subscribe.
Listeners: After losing his job, Percy Shilling turns his uneventful life into a fantasy world by following the story from an abnormal audio book. As his obsession with the story grows, the lines between fiction and reality dim and he believes killing is his appropriate path. “The controlled reading creates a tense atmosphere and the jazzy segues between chapters lightens the tone just enough to make “Listeners” feel uncertain about where the book is taking them.”
The STIFF Film Challenge is a collaborative film project where filmmaking teams compete to put together the best film over a 2 week period. The focus this year was to create several, short, distinct movies that resulted in one unified film. The goal is to promote cooperation among film makers and bring together the local film making community.
Click here for: Emerald City Show Times!
(April 23, 2009, Seattle) Crooked Lake Productions received news last week, that their award-winning short film, Emerald City, was accepted into Seattle’s True Independent Film Festival (STIFF). After traveling the globe to numerous film festivals, most notably to the Cannes Film Festival and the 16th Raindance Film Festival, Emerald City will now show in the city it was named after.
Written and directed by filmmaker Henry McComas, the film tells the story of Elijah, an aspiring hip hop artist haunted by his brother’s death and the struggles of becoming a man. The director’s desire was to visually portray to his deaf brother his passion for hip hop in the city he loves. McComas explains, “Words cannot express how excited I am to share this piece with you; this is a dream come true, maybe more like a vision.” Emerald City will be premiering June 5th at Central Cinema, and playing at both the Northwest Film Forum and the Jewel Box Theater. For more information on Emerald City and future projects visit www.crookedlp.com.
This article was published at www.prostamerika.com
The Seattle film where a director combines elements of an audible medium (Hip Hop) and interprets them visually for his deaf brother, will show at Seattle’s True Independent Film Festival (STIFF).
Henry Darrow McComas explains, “I found a character named Elijah. I identified with Elijah because he was a boy who was becoming a man and was starting to realize that he had to face his insecurities about his craft as well as his fears of death, a recurring theme in Elijah’s life. Emerald City has been to eight festivals across the globe, won two awards and received great reviews, but the news I found out today “takes the cake.â€
Seattleites and Washingtonions, Crooked Lake Productions’ short film, Emerald City, has just been officially selected by Seattle True Independent Film Festival! It has been a long time coming and well worth the wait. After covering the globe, our self-titled short film, Emerald City, will be screening in the 206. Words cannot express how excited I am to share this piece with you; this is a dream come true, maybe more like a vision.”
Seattle’s True Independent Film Festival is held at multiple venues throughout Seattle. It is a celebration of off-beat independent films from the Northwest and the rest of the world. Combined with the companion Music and Stand-Up Comedy festival, STIFF Licks, both feature the best independent entertainment in the entire city. STIFF will be screening in remarkable theaters such as Northwest Film Forum, Rendezvous and Central Cinema as their screening rooms. The festival runs from June 5th through the 14th.
STIFF is still finalising the program and will be sending out the screening dates for all films within the next week. Tickets should be available for purchase in approximately two weeks. www.crookedlp.com will send an update with firm dates once all of the details are worked out.
A while ago I had this idea of making a fifteen minute short film that embodied the feelings I get from listening to music. I wanted to take the elements of an audible medium (Hip Hop) and interpret them visually for my deaf brother. I found a character named Elijah. I identified with Elijah because he was a boy who was becoming a man and was starting to realize that he had to face his insecurities about his craft as well as his fears of death, a recurring theme in Elijah’s life. Emerald City has been to eight festivals across the globe, won two awards and received great reviews, but the news I found out today “takes the cake.†Seattleites and Washingtonions, Crooked Lake Productions’ short film, Emerald City, has just been officially selected by Seattle True Independent Film Festival! It has been a long time coming and well worth the wait. After covering the globe, our self-titled short film, Emerald City, will be screening in the 206. Words cannot express how excited I am to share this piece with you; this is a dream come true, maybe more like a vision. Seattle’s True Independent Film Festival is held at multiple venues throughout Seattle. It is a celebration of off-beat independent films from the Northwest and the rest of the world. Combined with the companion Music and Stand-Up Comedy festival, STIFF Licks, both feature the best independent entertainment in the entire city. STIFF will be screening in remarkable theaters such as Northwest Film Forum, Rendezvous and Central Cinema as their screening rooms. The festival runs from June 5th through the 14th.
STIFF is still finalizing the program and will be sending out the screening dates for all films within the next week. Tickets should be available for purchase in approximately two weeks. www.crookedlp.com will send an update with firm dates once all of the details are worked out.
Still image from Emerald City: Produced by Crooked Lake Productions.
Emerald City tells the story of Elijah, an aspiring hip hop artist that feels connected to his past. The elements of his childhood start to play key roles in a recurring vision that affects the up and coming musician on another plane; a place that separates the norm from extraordinary. Elijah remembers fishing trips with his father deep in ‘the boot’ of Louisiana but is haunted by what waits for him at the end of the line. He talks about his microphone that was given to him by his older brother John. The relationship he shares with his microphone is much like Arthur with his sword Excalibur. Losing his mic would be like tragically reliving the losses of his departed brother and his remembered father just as they happened the first time. But most of all, losing his microphone would be like Elijah losing himself. Elijah explains his vision to a stoop full of confused yet interested friends, figures in his life that he has grown to trust even if they cannot relate. A passing blunt burns away to a story about a frayed fishing line, a disconnected microphone chord, and a fatherless child becoming a man from Emerald City.
Watch Emerald City at STIFF June 2009!
The Deftek recording crew began as a bedroom studio in 1999 at a loft above a Flower Shop in Seattle, Washington. Over the years, the Deftek crew has produced hundreds of releases, ranging from Ambient to Drum and Bass, completely covering the entire electronic soundscape across a multitude of beat structures and tempos. As they progressed from Computer Software to Hardware components in a new studio, the sound morphed from dance-oriented releases to atmospheric content with emotional impact. The crisp style and unique approach to home recording offered the Deftek crew many opportunities to produce a style all their own. Currently working with local hip-hop artists to craft a new Seattle label, the Deftek imprint hopes to infuse the scene with a new flavor with each release. “Doing work with Crooked Lake Productions helped push the boundaries of our obsessive recording techniques to the hilt.” Says Tendo, the owner and producer of Deftek Ink. Deftek has created smash sequences for commercial and artistic film productions. Deftek is currently available to do mastering, scoring, film sequencing, and sound effects for any creative project.
To listen to a smorgasbord of work by Deftek and affiliates check out their webpage at: www.deftek.net
Here is some great writing advice that was brought to my attention by a good friend. The original post can be found at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing site. Give it a gander and don’t say I never gave you anything!
Copy and pass “Writerisms and other Sins” around to your heart’s content, but always post my Copyright notice at the top, correctly, thank you, as both a courtesy and a legal necessity to protect any writer.
Writerisms: overused and misused language. In more direct words: find ‘em, root ‘em out, and look at your prose without the underbrush.
1.   am, is, are, was, were, being, be, been … combined with “by” or with “by … someone” implied but not stated. Such structures are passives. In general, limit passive verb use to one or two per book. The word “by” followed by a person is an easy flag for passives.
2.   am, is, are, was, were, being, be, been … combined with an adjective. “He was sad as he walked about the apartment.” “He moped about the apartment.” A single colorful verb is stronger than any was + adjective; but don’t slide to the polar opposite and overuse colorful verbs. There are writers that vastly overuse the “be” verb; if you are one, fix it. If you aren’t one—don’t, because overfixing it will commit the next error.
3.   florid verbs. “The car grumbled its way to the curb” is on the verge of being so colorful it’s distracting. {Florid fr. Lat. floreo, to flower.}
If a manuscript looks as if it’s sprouted leaves and branches, if every verb is “unusual,” if the vocabulary is more interesting than the story … fix it by going to more ordinary verbs. There are vocabulary-addicts who will praise your prose for this but not many who can simultaneously admire your verbs as verbs and follow your story, especially if it has content. The car is not a main actor and not one you necessarily need to make into a character. If its action should be more ordinary and transparent, don’t use an odd expression. This is prose.
This statement also goes for unusual descriptions and odd adjectives, nouns, and adverbs.
4.   odd connectives. Some writers overuse “as” and “then” in an attempt to avoid “and” or “but,” which themselves can become a tic. But “as” is only for truly simultaneous action. The common deck of conjunctions available is:
* when (temporal)
* if (conditional)
* since (ambiguous between temporal and causal)
* although (concessive)
* because (causal)
* and (connective)
* but (contrasting)
* as (contemporaneous action or sub for “because”) while (roughly equal to “as”)
These are the ones I can think of. If you use some too much and others practically never, be more even-handed. Then, BTW, is originally more of an adverb than a proper conjunction, although it seems to be drifting toward use as a conjunction. However is really a peculiar conjunction, demanding in most finicky usage to be placed *after* the subject of the clause.
Don’t forget the correlatives, either … or, neither … nor, and “not only … but also.”
And “so that,” “in order that,” and the far shorter and occasionally merciful infinitive: “to … {verb}something.”
5.   Descriptive writerisms.
Things that have become “conventions of prose” that personally stop me cold in text.
“framed by” followed by hair, tresses, curls, or most anything cute.
“swelling bosomâ€
“heart-shaped face”
“set off by”: see “framed byâ€
“revealed” or “revealed by”: see “framed by.” Too precious for words when followed by a fashion statement.
Mirrors … avoid mirrors, as a basic rule of your life. You get to use them once during your writing career. Save them for more experience. But it doesn’t count if they don’t reflect … by which I mean see the list above. If you haven’t read enough unpublished fiction to have met the infamous mirror scenes in which Our Hero admires his steely blue eyes and manly chin, you can scarcely imagine how bad they can get.
limpid pools and farm ponds: I don’t care what it is, if it reflects your hero and occasions a description of his manly dimple, it’s a mirror.
As a general rule … your viewpoint characters should have less, rather than more, description than anyone else: a reader of different skin or hair color ought to be able to sink into this persona without being continually jolted by contrary information.
Stick to what your observer can observe. One’s own blushes can be felt, but not seen, unless one is facing … .a mirror. See above.
“as he turned, then stepped aside from the descending blow … ” First of all, it takes longer to read than to happen: pacing fault. Second, the “then” places action #2 sequentially after #1, which makes the whole evasion sequence a 1-2 which won’t work. This guy is dead or the opponent was telegraphing his moves in a panel-by-panel comic book style which won’t do for regular prose. Clunky. Slow. Fatally slow.
“Again” or worse “once again.” Established writers don’t tend to overuse this one: it seems like a neo fault, possibly a mental writerly stammer—lacking a next thing to do, our hero does it “again” or “once again” or “even yet.” Toss “still” and “yet” onto the pile and use them sparingly.
6. Dead verbs. Colorless verbs.
* walked
* turned
* crossed
* run, ran
* go, went, gone
* leave, left
* have, had
* get, got
You can add your own often used colorless verbs: these are verbs that convey an action but don’t add any other information. A verb you’ve had to modify (change) with an adverb is likely inadequate to the job you assigned it to do.
7.   Colorless verb with inadequate adverb: “He walked slowly across the room.”
More informative verb with no adverb: “He trudged across the room,” “He paced across the room,” “He stalked across the room,” each one a different meaning, different situation. But please see problem 3, above, and don’t go overboard.
8.   Themely English
With apologies to hard-working English teachers, school English is not fiction English.
Understand that the meticulous English style you labored over in school, including the use of complete sentences and the structure of classic theme-sentence paragraphs, was directed toward the production of non-fiction reports, resumes, and other non-fiction applications.
The first thing you have to do to write fiction? Suspect all the English style you learned in school and violate rules at need. Many of those rules will turn out to apply; many won’t.
{Be ready to defend your choices. If you are lucky, you will be copyedited. Occasionally the copyeditor will be technically right but fictionally wrong and you will have to tell your editor why you want that particular expression left alone.}
9.   Scaffolding and spaghetti. Words the sole function of which is to hold up other words. For application only if you are floundering in too many “which” clauses. Do not carry this or any other advice to extremes.
“What it was upon close examination was a mass the center of which was suffused with a glow which appeared rubescent to the observers who were amazed and confounded by this untoward manifestation.” Flowery and overstructured. “What they found was a mass, the center of which glowed faintly red. They’d never seen anything like it.” The second isn’t great lit, but it gets the job done: the first drowns in “which” and “who” clauses.
In other words—be suspicious any time you have to support one needed word (rubescent) with a creaking framework of “which” and “what” and “who.” Dump the “which-what-who” and take the single descriptive word. Plant it as an adjective in the main sentence.
10.   A short cut to “who” and “whom.”
* Nominative: who
* Possessive: whose
* Objective: whom
The rule:
1.   Treat the “who-clause” as a mini-sentence.
If you could substitute “he” for the who-whom, it’s a “who.” If you could substitute “him” for the who-whom it’s a “whom.”
The trick is where ellipsis has occurred … or where parentheticals have been inserted … and the number of people in important and memorable places who get it wrong. “Who … do I see?” Wrong: I see he? No. I see “him.” Whom do I see?
2.   ”Who” never changes case to match an antecedent. (word to which it refers)
* I blame them who made the unjust law. CORRECT.
* It is she whom they blame. CORRECT: The who-clause is WHOM THEY BLAME.
* They blame HER=him, =whom.
* I am the one WHO is at fault. CORRECT.
* I am the one WHOM they blame. CORRECT.
* They took him WHOM they blamed. CORRECT—but not because WHOM matches HIM: that doesn’t matter: correct because “they” is the subject of “blamed” and “whom” is the object.
* I am he WHOM THEY BLAME. CORRECT. Whom is the “object” of “they blame.”
Back to rule one: “who” clauses are completely independent in case from the rest of the sentence. The case of “who” in its clause changes by the internal logic of the clause and by NO influence outside the clause. Repeat to yourself: there is no connection, there is no connection 3 x and you will never mistake for whom the bell tolls.
The examples above probably grate over your nerves. That’s why “that” is gaining in popularity in the vernacular and why a lot of copyeditors will correct you incorrectly on this point. I’m beginning to believe that nine tenths of the English-speaking universe can’t handle these little clauses.
11.   -ing.
“Shouldering his pack and setting forth, he crossed the river … ”
No, he didn’t. Not unless his pack was in the river. Implies simultaneity. The participles are just like any other verbal form. They aren’t a substitute legal everywhere, or a quick fix for a complex sequence of motions. Write them on the fly if you like, but once imbedded in text they’re hard to search out when you want to get rid of their repetitive cadence, because -ing is part of so many fully constructed verbs {am going, etc.}
12.   -ness
A substitute for thinking of the right word. “Darkness,” “unhappiness,” and such come of tacking -ness (or occasionally – ion) onto words. There’s often a better answer. Use it as needed.
As a general rule, use a major or stand-out vocabulary word only once a paragraph, maybe twice a page, and if truly outre, only once per book. Parallels are clear and proper exceptions to this, and don’t vary your word choice to the point of silliness: see error 3.
CHERRYH’S LAW: NO RULE SHOULD BE FOLLOWED OFF A CLIFF.
This article is Copyright. Reproduction and distribution specifically prohibited. All rights reserved. Reprinted here with the author’s permission.
It is time to jump this week off right by announcing the winner of the very first and very unofficial “A-Shot Film Challenge!â€
We gave all Crooked Lake followers the challenge of developing a title and synopsis- not exceeding a page but as small as a sentence- describing the best idea they could think of for a film to be captured in one shot. – NO CUTS! – The film’s total running time could vary between one and eight minutes but could not pass eight.
In return we got sixteen very different, dark synopses; something must be in the air. We published the stories on yours truly (shameless self-promotion- www.crookedlp.com) and you voted… 401 times. Wow! Great job Crooked Lake fans; thank you for the support!
The winner was a romantic little fable called “Ah Long†composed by a nomad named Rossella Dark.
The honorable mention goes to Christopher Bohannon for his beautiful portrayal of judicial system tension in “Zoom†the runner up.
Crooked Lake Productions is proud to officially open the “A-Shot Film Challenge!” voting polls!
Two weeks ago we announced that Crooked Lake Productions would be hosting a film challenge and called for entries. The rules were simple – write a title and a synopsis not exceeding a page but no less than one sentence describing the best idea you can think of for a film to be captured in one shot. – NO CUTS! The film’s total running time can vary between one and eight minutes but should not pass eight.
One plot, one shot.
Now it is up to you to choose the best shot and you have one vote.
We have sixteen people that qualified for this year’s challenge! That is sixteen different and creative stories that utilize the vehicle of sixteen masterful shots! Please take the time to read through every idea before you make your final decision; after all, you only have one vote.
The voting polls will be open for one week! Next Friday they will close and the winner will be announced.
* Shot from Maggie’s P.O.V. or easily stated first person.
* Tagline: Pay what you owe!
2. CONTROL 2984
In a post-apocalyptic Dark Age, where individualism is frowned upon, an angry young man struggles to contain his darkest urges. The shot/short will follow CONTROL-2984, a young man in his 20’s, as he undertakes an act of revenge that will change him forever. The shot could itself be called “prelude to revenge”.
Voice-Over will be employed to deepen the protagonist’s background story, as the visuals (the one shot) will follow the journey from his “room” to the site of the irreparable.
The shot begins on the protagonist as he sharpens a wooden object. Clearly, it used to be a pencil. Now, it’s a wooden stake. The hero finishes writing a note with the pencil-stake. He then makes his way down a hallway, and outside of the building. After overcoming a couple of obstacles, he finally makes it into a barn. Another man is held captive inside. After they exchange words, CONTROL 2984 is faced with more than one life-changing decision. The voice-over accompanies much of the shot’s action. It is often unclear whether the voice-over is telling a story or vocalizing thought.
3. Death Be Not Kind
A man is writing furiously on a legal pad. Pan to reveal the pad has “Last Will and Testament†written on it. Pan to reveal Death is standing behind him. The man finishes writing, puts the pen down, looks at Death and says, “OK, I’m ready now. Thank you.â€
4. Despondent (Inspired by true events.)
A fevered farmer in his mid-50’s from Texas’ notorious dustbowl era struggles with hysteria as he loses balance with reality. After failing to produce fertile crops and provide for his wife and five children, a crazed homesteader has no choice but to listen to the nettlesome knocks of a monster from the cellar. The tortured farmer is advised to save his self and family from famine and purgatory by terminating their bodies to save their souls. Amidst the chaos the uncultivated cropper forces a final testament with a messy note. “All died. I had ruther be ded. Look in zellar.”
- Notice the set window frame that hosts a desiccated landscape.
Caption: Shortly after the Virginia Tech shootings an article was printed comparing mass murders from America’s past to recent events. A criminologist from Minnesota State found that mass murder was just as common during the 1920’s and 30’s as it is today.
Then, the murderers were typically failed farmers who killed their families because they could no longer provide for them. This ultimately led to suicide.
Then.
Look right from the dry portrait and see a room similar to Atticus’s nursery from “to Kill a Mockingbird.” There are storybooks stacked on the dresser next to a lonely ceramic pooh-bear figure.
We continue to explore the room and listen as faint noises start to take form; hear the burgeoning knocking bellowing in the belly of the house. It starts low and soft but grows gradually and stays consistent. Listen to the voices of ghosts talking. One of the voices belongs to a flustered father; the other two are panicking children. We hear the kids crying, the father insists they lay down. Notice the nicely made bed occupied with two small resting persons underneath the sheets. We hear the father apologize followed by two gunshots detailed like the sound painted the two bloodspots coating the sheets that cover the bodies’ heads. A wife’s scream enters the room and quickly is pushed out the door as we enter the hallway. Our eyes trace the sounds of an active body struggling on the wood floor ahead of us. The ghostly sound of a wife pleading for her newborn’s life is heard like she is right in front of us but she is never seen. We hear picture frames falling and furniture tipping but only observe the aftermath of a cluttered hallway. Listen to the knocking. We progress through the rest of the house as we learn about the wife’s murder, one infant in an additional room, the suicide of the farmer, and the brutal killing of a teenager in the cellar.
- The Camera is actively used to explore this classic yet spectral crime scene. The viewer witnesses the impact of an entire family murder while they experience it through audible effects. Trailing the end of the examination of the farmhouse we see the farmer writing a suicide letter in what seems to be a vintage reenactment. It is at that point the words “All died. I had ruther be ded. Look in zellar,” are written. The farmer turns the shotgun on himself while the camera follows through to the hellish knocking from the cellar. There we observe the missing part to the crime scene told to us by a reporter and an investigator after they walk into their P.O.V/First person shot.
Look in zellar.
5. Flat Tire
Run with it! The location is open and easy, the number of cast depends on what vehicle you are dealing with. If you want to use only two actors make the vehicle of the film a motorcycle. If you want to use a huge cast try a bus. Holy crap this sounds to good to be true!
6. Fly
A person is tied up in a brightly lit room filled with torture weapons and a video camera to film it all A person wearing a mask sporadically comes in and tortures the tied up person. Eventually after the torturer leaves briefly the light bulb goes out (either blows out or the victim kicks it over) and the room goes black for a second until the torturer runs back in to see what happened and the victim kills the torturer. The camera doesn’t even have to move.
7. Furry of Love (Mating Season of Plushophiles)
The camera follows a specific overweight furry as he prowls around at a convention for others of his kind while a narrator describes his behavior. The camera is modeled after “Nature Show’s.†The cameraman attempts to hide himself behind various objects so he won’t startle the furries or scare the creatures away.
An example – when the furry takes his gloves off so he could awkwardly scratch his ass inside of his costume in such an obviously obnoxious way the narrator would say, “look! Notice how he scratches himself? He is just exhibiting his superiority as a dominant male!” When the male furry notices a gorgeous furry, he decides to home in for a score by sniffing her butt. Now our furry subject offers the woman mountain dew and pork rinds, she is outraged. The woman’s boyfriend is another furry, he hops into exhibit the dominant males behavior. The battle of males ensues and the boyfriend emerges as a victor while the fat furry crawls away to lick his wounds.
8. Mullberry Road
A pizza delivery guy makes a delivery he’ll never forget.
9. Noitcelfer
What if the mirror people went on strike? The mirror people being the person you see in the mirror. What if this wasn’t just a reflection but an entire society called reflectropolis. Everyone who is born has an exact twin born, their mirror image and this mirror image’s only job is to be a reflection. Now what if one of the mirror images decides, he’s done with this. This is pointless and a complete waste of time. He goes on strike and actually gets several other mirror images to join him. Now in the real world, some people aren’t seeing their reflections anymore. Would they go mad? What if you stood in front of a mirror and there was no reflection? Interesting huh? It could be funny as well as people are returning their mirrors to the store as defective. That could be a funny bit by itself, a customer is returning her defective mirror to the store. She doesn’t like the image that it is reflecting. That could make a very funny short. It might also be a funny hidden camera gag for youtube. A large woman brings her mirror back saying it’s defective. When she’s questioned she tells the store clerk that it makes her look fat. She doesn’t like way it’s reflecting.
10. Not Enough
This is a story about a guy at a party having fun, interacting with his friends, while still feeling alone.
The shot starts behind the main character outside walking to the party then when he walks in the camera rotates and leads him to friends as he interacts with them. During these conversations with friends we learn about the character but never the reason behind everything being not enough.
11. Rancid Cheese (otherwise known as Brie)
The age-old idea of what is good to some is bad to others. This will just explore that concept in depth until we see what is hated and persecuted by some is utterly loved and cherished by others. (Conflict in middle east, north American free trade.) etc. *insert underlying cause within a cheese argument.
Apply a quick fade in to a slow camera pan introducing one guys almost emotionless face. Maybe he’s looking down at food… He shoots a smirk and starts justifying his belief on the hatred of rancid cheese. As he is explaining his point the camera is slowly rotating until we reach the second guy. At the exact moment the first guy completes his rant the camera is now at the opposite angle we started at and the second guy begins to retort, explaining his love for brie while he relays his argument.
12. The Applicant
A slightly nerdy man and an attractive woman sit in an office. The camera starts wide and slowly moves in, until by the end it does rapid whip pans between the characters between lines. She is interviewing him for a job. She asks the usual softball questions about teamwork and attitude, and he nails them. She tosses him some hypothetical situations and asks what he would do in them. They start off mundane, but then they turn more “If you were in a hot tub full of strippers, and one of them threw up, what would you do?” and “Do you have any experience trashing hotel rooms?” He isn’t shocked by the questions, and answers them in a very matter of fact way, “I would probably splash water in her face and do a body shot.” And “Oh yes, I’m still banned from Best Western.” They go back and forth with this for a while, talking calmly about the most bizarre stuff we can think of, and when the interview ends, she says “Very good, you got the job. I’ll get your record contract, movie deal and reality show ready by next week, and you can start being famous on Monday morning.” He smiles, shakes her hand, thanks her and leaves.
13. The Silent Killers
A large barren field opens up to the sound of battle-cries. Two large groups appear from either side of the field and crash into an explosion of battle. The scene pulls back into an alley where more people are fighting. The shot continues to pull back and turn corners into more series of corridors, rooms, and miscellaneous areas all of which have some sort of conflict occurring in them. Finally the camera pulls back along a long tunnel that leads into a doctor’s office, and it is apparent that the tunnel was the patient’s throat/mouth. At this point the doctor informs the patient that he/she has nothing wrong with them.
14. The Vehement Gardener
Set in the late 1950’s The “Vehement Gardener†tells the story of a married man in his late 50’s, whose wife dies of natural causes. The only thing left behind from his now deceased wife is the garden that she grew and so passionately groomed herself. Left with nothing but prominent grief and sorrow over his wife’s death, he devotes himself to the grooming and caring of his wife’s garden and what first started off as homage to deceased wife soon drives the lamenting widower mad.
15. Vindicated Vengeance
After watching his wife’s brutal rape and murder, a man does everything he can to enact revenge. He does not act out in overt violence, but in a fashion that will truly make those who are responsible pay. Using both flashback and present, the ending is a must see to believe. With high speed elements that at first confuse, later show the perceptions of what it is like to truly lose someone that you love.
The film is based around victims and victimizers and looks at whether there really is a line between the two. While it will be incredibly violent, the violence will only accentuate what is going on in the characters’ minds.
16. Zoom
A man (the protagonist) sits alone at the end of a hallway, with a close-up of his expressionless face. As the camera zooms out slowly, it begins to capture more of the scene around him. Hushed voices of multiple conversations become more audible as the camera continues to zoom out, focused on him, but revealing small groups of people speaking more and more clearly about a trial that just took place.
With these overheard conversations, the viewer is allowed to create their own impression of an assault and rape that the protagonist may or may not be guilty of. In the course of this dialogue, it also becomes clear that the scene is a courtroom hallway, and that the lawyers, witnesses, and trial onlookers are discussing the case while waiting for the jury to return the verdict.
As the camera zooms further from the protagonist, down the staid courtroom hallway, conversations get increasingly layered and emotional, and less factual. The camera then zooms back into the hallway crowd, continuing to fill out the details and various viewpoints of the crimes the protagonist is accused of.
The protagonist’s expressionless face comes back into view, his closing proximity to the camera correlating with more facts, and less emotional speculation by the bystanders. Finally, voices hush, and the camera zooms all the way into a close-up of the protagonist, still expressionless. The scene ends with an announcement that that the jury has decided its verdict. This concludes the film.
The script must be tightly written to keep the viewer guessing as to whether the protagonist is guilty or not – his guilt or innocence must never be completely clear, keeping suspense while creating a challenge to the viewer to form their own opinion.
(Author’s Note: The idea for this is inspired by a true story from just this last week. A friend of mine was acquitted of two crimes this last Tuesday, that took over 2 years to resolve, and virtually bankrupted him in legal fees and after losing his librarian job because of the accusations. The charges were brought by his Dominican wife, who, within a month of their wedding, accused him of crimes to get a guaranteed green card for life under federal law, along with public assistance (shelter, food stamps, and other welfare). I know my friend very well – he was set up and scammed, and the court found him innocent as well. Regardless, I wanted to explore how serious accusations might prejudice us at first, and suggest that we should always question stories we hear at first glance, because the effects on that person can be devastating.)
