My thesis is still in a very amorphous stage right now, especially after talking to many professors about it before leaving for summer vacation. It is a good thing though (even though I'm panicking a little.. or quite a bit), because I won't find the best film for me to make unless I give myself the chance to explore.
That being said, I realized that I have never actually written what my thesis is about in this blog. It's always been about inspirational posts, but I should probably describe what these inspirations are for. It'll give me good practice to pitch my idea to to people too.
In short, it is a film about Kolkata (my hometown in India) and reminiscing.
It started off as a very personal film, through which I was going to express my own sentiments about Kolkata- little things that I miss from the town, things I wish I had experienced to the fullest extent, missed opportunities to immerse myself in the culture and inspirations offered by the town. The main idea was to express how one does not appreciate the place they live in until they have lived apart from that place for a while- an idea that almost all people can relate to, not just people who have lived in a different country.
I wanted to express these personal ideas through a middle-aged female character's voice. The character (in 3D) will be shown on-screen speaking, in an interview context (like we see in documentaries, except she may not necessarily be seated idly in front of the camera like in most documentaries. She could be busy doing her own household chores while she is reminiscing). These shots of her will be juxtaposed with 2D, "experimental" animations related to her memories and what she is talking about.
Her words were going to be scripted and I was going to get my mother or a professional actress with a Bengali (Indian) accent to read it out and make it sound conversational and natural. However, after speaking with many people about it, I realized that I run the risk of making the voice sound "scripted" and restricted. I want the character to sound like she is speaking from her heart, with the natural flaws of discourse coming into play. This is when I decided that it might be a good idea to let go of the idea of expressing my own feelings and ideas and interview other people in the same situation instead- other Bengalis who have lived in Kolkata before and are now living here in the US. I don't know exactly what I would get from these interviews, but I can compose and direct my questions to get the interviewees to express the ideas I initially began with. Either way, I'm looking for a natural performance that would be fun to animate to and build a film from.
After watching the StoryCorps series and some of Paul Fierlinger's Drawn from Memory pieces, I'm hoping that I can get a short and sweet anecdote or description of a specific memory related to Kolkata that I can create my film around. So this summer, I'll be out looking for people to interview. It may take more than one sessions with one person, or a thousand people to find one voice and one story that I can use for my film.
I'll be out in the Bay Area this summer interning at Pixar so I'll be looking for people there to talk to and interview. I've already found two communities that could be potentially useful, and possibly the only people I can approach. It's all very "up-in-the-air" at the moment, but it's part of the process.
So task 1: list out interview questions and prepare to pitch my idea to my potential interviewees.
