Stalag 17

Stalag 17 gave such new insight of what you can do with a well written story, characters and a low budget.  I agree that it was the characters that made this such a rich story even Joey with his facial expressions. From what I have seen in this semester alone, black and white films are notorious for great character driven stories. In this semester's Art of Film class, we've seen "The Spy Who Came In From the Cold" and "Hud" directed by Martin Ritt. So far though I would have to say that Stalag 17 takes the cake. Never an old angle in that barracks and only letting us in on certain secrets when other characters were also getting in on it. Definitely a treasure trove of ideas and definitely worth the study.

Just a quick update before I start off for my first class of the day. I just came across this picture that I think is so true and a constant reminder for me to take my sketchbook with me wherever I go. It says "An Idea is Like a Bird. Catch it. Before it flies away. (the birds wings say gone).

Also I can't wait to see how I did on my advertising test.

Still no clue on what I'm doing for my film. I want to branch out so bad and yet I keep getting stuck on the same ideas over and over again that are what I've been doing. Hopefully this block I seem to be having will go away and stay far far away until at least after the screenplay's written. Often than not though once I get an idea and the first few lines written I'll be good. I just pray I can make it through those first few lines and get an idea to actually start doing something with them.

That and get a clearer head. Work has caught up with me, as well as a few prayers I don't think I was quite ready for while school's in session.

I've been trying to come up with an idea for a short film for this class, DVIII, and have since brainstormed some possiblities. The first idea was maybe a simple, old-fashioned detective story of some sort. However there's only so much you can do with that. And let's face it, it's all been done before. Class is tomorrow and I'm still struggling to come up with a short film idea. I don't think I can pull off the detective one because of my film style either or any kind of horror. Matter of fact, I don't really know what I CAN pull off. I didn't want to pursue film as a career perse, but more along the lines of animation. Animation, you can do anything you set your mind to: if you can think it you can achieve it. With film this is a tad more difficult to do as your bound by reality and the rules of permits and releases. You may have all the access to it but if you don't get permission from the location owner then it's a complete no-go.

Maybe I can help brainstorm and create some story and characters based off of a couple of my friends that I haven't filmed before or that I haven't filmed in awhile and base it around the location of a couple public venues that I know of.

Or even just visit a couple of these public places like the parks around here and I can develop some story around that. Who knows anymore.. I think I've ran out of ideas for films since DVI...