a thematic dossier

Started by rustinglass, May 19, 2004, 11:05:43 AM

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rustinglass

I have the whole strory done, but there are still some plot holes to patch up, but it's quite a task to translate it all so I'll write a brief sypnosis.

The girl is 21 years old. The film begins with her niece getting her baptism. She notices that the baby plus every girl or woman except for her have their ears pierced, so the next day she goes and does her ears. She feels good about it and it's all god for a while.
One night, she dreams that she's with a girl whose face is all pierced that she had seen on the bus, and that she pulls and sets her piercings as if you were displaying magnets on a refrigerator door. After the arragement, the other girl is so beautiful that she has turned into the most powerful human in the world. dream ends. Fascination begins (a purely aesthetical fascination).
She pierces all aroud the face, eyebrow, nostril, lip, puts two suface vertical bridges on her forehead and three rings on the wrist. All organically organized. She is satisfied for a while.
After they're all completly healed, she gets insecure, agressive, compulsive etc..... locks herself in the flat, in an attempt to study (exams are coming up, like mine) but with no luck. She starts going crazy. (the biggest plot holes are around here).

The end, because I'm such a big Lars von Trier fan, is meant to be particularly shocking:
She gets convinced that an eyeball piercind is the missing cornerstone of the aesthetically-organically harmonious state-of-body-and-mind that she's attempting to create. She can't convince the tattoo studo guy to do it, so she does it herself. This is the monster sequence. In her bathroom, with a surgical needle, plenty of ice and other such materials. after cries and screams, blood and whatnot, she succesfully manages to pierce a thin platinum ring around the white part of her left eye. She lookst at herself in the mirror and faints.

epilogue: ( I'm not sure if I'll include it)
Wakes in a hospital bed She survives and keeps her eyesight (The platonum ring has been removed of course), but  but she has a cronic condition that her eye tears constantely (like Samuel L. Jackson in that film that he gets shot in the face and survives, I forgot the name). She removes every piece of metal from her body, and procedes with her life. Becomes a lawyer.


Thats it.opinions please.
"In Serbia a lot of people hate me because they want to westernise, not understanding that the western world is bipolar, with very good things and very bad things. Since they don't have experience of the west, they even believe that western shit is pie."
-Emir Kusturica

ElPandaRoyal

Quote from: rustinglassThats it.opinions please.

No epilogue!
Si

rustinglass

Yeah, I like it better without myself, that way it would end with a sacramental ceremony and mirror the baptism in the first scene.
but then I'll have to rewrite it in third person. It can't end: "I fainted." but that's not a problem.

but other than that? good?
"In Serbia a lot of people hate me because they want to westernise, not understanding that the western world is bipolar, with very good things and very bad things. Since they don't have experience of the west, they even believe that western shit is pie."
-Emir Kusturica

ElPandaRoyal

Yeah, sounds interesting. I'd have to see the finished project, but there is potential on that idea, so I'd say "good work"  :)
Si

rustinglass

Just finished. mailing it tomorrow. The hardest part was the photographing, everytime I asked a goth guy with cool piercings  to take a picture, they looked at me like I was a beggar and kindely declined, even after I said "please", and "will you help me get in to the university, man?!", they made me feel like a prick. So I ended up with a small collection of teenie girl's nose and navel piercings pictures. I barely made the minimum ten. good ones, that is. plus my brother's digital camera totally destroyed the illusion that these chicks had no facial nor body hair. :?

Now that i think about it, I probably did rip off ghostboy's short "looking for love" for my ending, except that my girl isn't looking for love, she's looking for something else. Hope you don't mind ghostboy, sorry, I swear it was unintencional, if it makes it any better: everyone I showed it to gasped and shaked, and told me it was very graphic and shit, even my sister liked it, and that's something. when I have time, I'll translate it for you.

what a load off. thanks for everything everybody!!
:-D  :-D  :-D
"In Serbia a lot of people hate me because they want to westernise, not understanding that the western world is bipolar, with very good things and very bad things. Since they don't have experience of the west, they even believe that western shit is pie."
-Emir Kusturica

Ghostboy

No problem at all -- it's only vaguely similar to mine, I'd say. I guess I forgot to post my own response to your final outline above, but I did read it and I liked it a lot, and am pleased to see that you're excising the epilogue. How did you end up ending it?

rustinglass

it ended it with her fainting, but I made it so that it works pretty good.
"In Serbia a lot of people hate me because they want to westernise, not understanding that the western world is bipolar, with very good things and very bad things. Since they don't have experience of the west, they even believe that western shit is pie."
-Emir Kusturica

rustinglass

OK, I finished translating it.  of course I want people to give my input on it, even that I already turned it in. here goes. Oh and disregard any grammatical mistakes... english is not my first language.


              I was twenty-one when I pierced my ears. I had gone to my niece's baptism the week before and noticed that the baby already had her ears pierced. All through the ceremony I stared at the ears of all the ladies and girls, but, to my amazement, I saw that I was the only woman without earrings. it wasn't the first time that I saw myself in that situation at a party, so I decided to pierce my ears soon.
   I went to a little studio, the "Tattoo Cathedral". The body artist, Virgílio, was a scary creature, he had a hole wider that a centimeter in his right ear and his body covered in tattos. We talked a bit about the procedure, then he took out a small plastic pistol and pieced my ears, it didn't hurt a thing. The next day, I bought seven pairs of earrings. I started using them every day, proudly. All my friends from college said that I had good taste and asked where I had bought them, what made me very satisfied.
   One day, on the bus, I sat next to a girl with many piercings ion her face, but without any sense of aesthetics, It was a horrid thing to look at!I wanted to talk to her, tell her that she should use her jewels to be more pretty, rather thanusing them as means rebelliosness, of intergration, or for passive agressiveness to her parents. I wanted to give her some suggestions butthe bus was so loud that the conversation would only be a bunch of unpleasant screams. That night, I dreamed that I had that gorç in front of me and I was pulling and putting her piercings as if I was arranging magnets on my refrigerator door. At the end of the reorganization, she was the most powerful person in the world. I woke up and got suddenly fascinated with the concept of piercing as a form of art. The fascination soon became a primal urge. I got in a wave os self-mutilation.
   I went to Virgílio's the next morning, and pierced my left eyebrow and booked sessions to pierce my left nostril and upper lip. I became a regular costumer. I had long conversations with him and , ocasionnaly, helped the happy teenagers who got in there: "Dont do that, pierce this instead!"; "but your nose is alredy so nice!"; "use this piercing, it prettier". And Virgílio always agreed on everything.
   I started doing surface piercings, I got a vertical bridge on the forehead and three rings on each wrist. It was all organically harmonious. All the metal, created an aura of well-being around me.
   Some time after that, when the wounds were practically healed, I woke up sweating in the middle of the night; I ran to the mirrorto see if I had pulled any piercing during my sleep, but that wasn't the problem: They were all into place, but I felt a void, a need. It was the first time in many days that I didn't smile at myself in the mirror, I seemed to have lost my pride. I went back to bed but couldn't sleep, I couldn't find the origin of that imbalance. I got up and started moving the furniture, but the neighbour from beneath came upstairs, knocked and yelled for me to stop. I went back to bed.
   The following days were very hard: I saw my reflection in the mirror and cried, I'd spend my time changing my piercings, added holes to my ears with a sewing needle, then regretted it and let them close. I had nothing else to pierce. What ever energy it was that made me happy in the begining, it was lost. I stopped going to calss, couldn't risk passing by Virgílio's studio; pulled the phone cord and turned the cellphone off in an attempt to study (the exams would come soon), but I couldn't. I shivered all over, turn on the TV, turn it off, open the fridge, nothing to eat, went back to the books, then came back to see if there was something in the fridge.
   One night, very late, I was staring unconsciently at the television, and the film Un Chien Andalou was on, and the momentthat the woman's eye is slit by the shaving razor, there was an electric discharge on my body and sparks flew out of all of my jewels. I ran to the mirror and, using my fingers, opened my lrft eye wide, I had an epiphany. How couldn't I see it before?! It's my favourite organ, the one that allows me to see the world, the only sense that I hadn't pierced yet, it even was the last touch on the dream girl! That was the cause of my urge, my left eye, virgin.
   Virgílio panicked when I told him about my revelationand promtly refused to do it. I was surprised with his reaction at the time and, in my state, yelled at him a bunch of insultsand his twon clients waiting left the studio. He calmly closed the door, turned the sign to "closed", headed slowly toward me, grabbed my arms and screamed: "You're bloody crazy, do you hear me?! I can't pierce your eyeball, it's impossible! Just look at you, go home and sleep, I'll pay for the taxi.". He let me go, grabbed the phone and started dialling a number, I pulled off his hands and and smashed it into a glass piercing displaying case, that shattered. In the confusion, I managed to take a tinyplatinum ring without him seeing and ran out of there. He didn't follow.
   When I got home, I went to the bathroom, filled the sink with ice, desinfected a needle (the same one I usewd to further pierce my ears) and the piercing, prepared gaze and physiological serum, took my glasses out and clamped my hair way back.
   Looking at the mirror, I turned my head slightly to the left to expose the white bit of my left eye and approached the needle. Stuck the needle. The pain came instantly, poured blood tear and god knows what other fluids, I started crying but had to keep my hand firmly; I couldn't pull the needle out becaue my eyelid insisted on closing. I tried to hold it with my right hand, but it would always slip; I scratched in with my nails and it started bleeding too, but to the eye itself, I did my best to minimize harm. I proceded with the perfuration, the tip of the needle advanec through the fibres of tissue untill I felt it exiting the eye again, four milimeters ahead, a little white-ish fluied splattered ou. The pain got worse, I screamed again and fell on my knees, laid my face on the sink. I left the needle for a few seconds and poured some of the serum to wash the blood off, carefully widened the wound  trying not to make the tissue collapse and pull the needle transversally. Picked the ring up, and started to drive one of the ends through the hole with shaky hands. When the end came out in the other side, I took out the needle and rested a bit, then continued to drive the ring round, and gently screwed in the tiny sphere.The pain was unbearable, the tiny ring felt like it weighed two kilos. I washed the eyeball again with physiological serum, got up, screaming my heart out, and made the biggest effort ever to open my eyes. I saw the bus girl in the mirror. Lost my senses and fell.
"In Serbia a lot of people hate me because they want to westernise, not understanding that the western world is bipolar, with very good things and very bad things. Since they don't have experience of the west, they even believe that western shit is pie."
-Emir Kusturica

Ghostboy

I loved it! The psychological aspects of it are simple -- rather than overly complex, like your original rape scenario --  but you got just deep enough into it that it all makes sense (turning it into a script that's as introspective will be the next challenge). That last paragraph is pretty intense -- that's gonna make some people cringe.

You've got the English down quite well -- there are a few points where the writing seemed awkward, but I imagine that's a result of the translation, not the writing.

ElPandaRoyal

Quote from: GhostboyI imagine that's a result of the translation, not the writing.

It is. He showed me the portuguese draft and the writing was perfect. As I told him, and I repeat, there is some great material here to make a short film that's worth it. I hope you get into that film school and make it as rough and as tough as you can because, as someone said...

Quote from: GhostboyThat last paragraph is pretty intense -- that's gonna make some people cringe.
Si

rustinglass

"In Serbia a lot of people hate me because they want to westernise, not understanding that the western world is bipolar, with very good things and very bad things. Since they don't have experience of the west, they even believe that western shit is pie."
-Emir Kusturica

rustinglass

Now I'll go to the school on thursday to make another element of the pre-selection phase. a specific test.

from the access contest editorial.
Quotethe specific test, to be made in the school, is a written test, and means to evaluate the candidate's capacities to understand a narrative test in terms of space and time, in view of a visual transposition of the same.

Can someone tell me how I can prepare myself for this? I don't understand the "visual transposition" if it's a written test.
"In Serbia a lot of people hate me because they want to westernise, not understanding that the western world is bipolar, with very good things and very bad things. Since they don't have experience of the west, they even believe that western shit is pie."
-Emir Kusturica

ElPandaRoyal

Do not prepare for this kind of stuff at all. You get there, read the questions, answer and remember:

a) stay calm, it's not the end of the world;

b) you're there to learn about movies. All you should know when you take the test is that you're there because you love movies and that's what you want to do. If you're relaxed, you'll know how to answer those questions, because those will be about stuff that you love. (I know this, because a couple of months I took a test for audiovisual technology and even there it was all about writing what you know...)

You'll be fine. Don't over-study or get overly nervous. That only hurts, it never helps  :wink:
Si

rustinglass

"In Serbia a lot of people hate me because they want to westernise, not understanding that the western world is bipolar, with very good things and very bad things. Since they don't have experience of the west, they even believe that western shit is pie."
-Emir Kusturica

rustinglass

I thought I'd let you all know that I have passed the pre-selection fase, so I'm one step closer to being accepted.
The interview was what saved me, because I didn't do too good on some of the other elements. Anyway, I was the 28th in 42 people that passed in 100 or so aplicants, so not bad :) .


The selection fase is in september, it consists of a two-week seminar on different aspects of filmmaking: image, sound, editing and production; followed by four tests, one of each.

So, Ghostboy and Panda: your help was crucial getting me this far, thanks again.

If you think there is some helpful website that I should look intowhile preparing for the next fase, please tell me.
"In Serbia a lot of people hate me because they want to westernise, not understanding that the western world is bipolar, with very good things and very bad things. Since they don't have experience of the west, they even believe that western shit is pie."
-Emir Kusturica