I had another talk about our upcoming film project Tunnels of the Shadow People. It was fun.
In case you missed my earlier posts on this project, here's Part 1, 2 and 3, where I share the creative process with you.
This morning, I received the following message from Ted:
You spoke about lighting and contrast, yesterday. My lighting in the tunnels will always be an artificial flashlight - grainy images. I think if your new place has windows, then set up your stuff near them and film some natural light crisp images. It'll be a nice contrast with my footage.
Contrast
When I brought up the topic of 'contrast', I wasn't referring to contrast in a visual way. In fact, I talked about audio and the importance of contrast between sound and lack of sound, something that many big budget movies - those that try to overpower you with their musical score - can learn from. It's not necessary to have music throughout a movie to captivate the audience's attention. In fact, if you want to build suspense, it's extremely important to have silent moments too.
Nevertheless, sound - and the absence of it - is going to play an important role in our project. And it won't just be used to trigger emotions in the viewer / audience, we will also use it as a storytelling device.
Parallels
At the start of yesterday's filmmaking conversation, I realized that there were some parallels between this film project's story and the sci-fi book that I'm reading these days. The book is called Non-Stop and is written by Brian Aldiss.
This novel from 1958, which feels a lot more modern ( as is often the case with sci-fi ) than the year when it was written - talks about a bunch of people making their way through a gigantic, maze-like spaceship, where they have to confront all kinds of dangers. It's also very much about the question of what's waiting for them outside the ship? None of them has ever set a foot outside.
Now I wouldn't call our project sci-fi but it also talks about tunnels and it's going to be suspenseful.
I always enjoy finding parallels between real life and whatever I'm reading/ watching. These days I know that it isn't just a coincidence. No matter what, I have no doubt that this book is gonna inspire me on the creative front.
The benefits of working in a two-men-team
Although I mentioned before that it would be cool to collaborate with fellow creatives - musicians, actors and perhaps artists - Ted and I once again decided that it would be better to start out as a two-men-team, keep things as small as possible.
This will ensure that we can produce at a quick enough pace - won't have to wait for other people's footage or audio - to keep our audience entertained / interested. As mentioned before, Shadows of the Tunnel People will take the form of a linear series. We plan to produce 3 or 4 episodes, a month or so from today, before we put the first one online.
From that moment onwards, we will keep working on new episodes / material, in order to make it possible to upload at least one episode per week from the get go. We don't have any set length in mind for the final product. As long as it's fun and there's room for more storytelling, we will march on.
TO BE CONTINUED
The image above this post was taken by me, yesterday. It's the view from my sister's living room. Pretty (and) inspiring, right?