King Kong was made in 1933 and it was directed and produced by Merian C. Cooper as well as Ernest B. Schoedsack. The film follows the story of a group of American film makers who travel to a distant island where they discover a giant gorilla who becomes infatuated with the blonde actress in the group. The team capture the gorilla and take him back for public exhibition in America. King Kong includes worldly views from the time period that it was made, meaning that often it is very sexist and racist with the African tribesmen being shown as primitive and savage-like and the white American film crew shown as heroic, daring and brave. Repeatedly the female lead character Ann Darrow is put down and considered below the rest of the sailors and film crew due to her gender. She is said to be frail and to get in the way just like all woman. This really reflects the views towards woman and people of a none white race for the time period. King Kong can also be repeatedly linked into slaver...
OGR 09/02/2017
ReplyDeleteHey Mads,
Okay - first impression is that there is too much talk in your script - I don't it needs any dialogue really and it can certainly be done without it and I think it would be pacier and more dynamic if you left out the dialogue. I'd like you to let the camera and relationship between shots and face and expressions etc. do the work, as right now the plot is being told as opposed to shown.
For example - the fireworks accident; you set this up so the audience is shown that something is going to happen - a shot of a lantern knocked over and some straw catching fire - but back to the father introducing the circus - cut back to the worsening fire - and back again and so on. Personally, I think it would be better if the explosions scares off the horses and elephants that would be used to finish the show - hence everything not going to plan - that is easier to 'show' than the idea of the 'sound system' being ruined - all you need do is on the poster make it clear that the circus concludes with 'World Famous Elephant Parade' and then you show them running off, and we'll know the show is ruined.
Your character saying 'I can fix this!' is also unnecessary, because the action will show us that this true - there would be much more tension if what we're shown, is the other daughter and mother comforting the father, while the audience boos, and then, slowly, nervously, Renee is seen to take the centre-stage and then begins to sing wondrously - all much better without dialogue.
I think you need to ensure that Renee's love of opera is a secret from everyone else, because otherwise it cannot come as such a surprise that she sings at the end. I think her posters etc. should be her secret somehow and we need to be shown that it is her secret visually, which means they're revealed to us.
I don't think it will take long to re-write this without the dialogue and with much greater emphasis on 'showing' - so visual storytelling, and using combinations of shots and different types of camera to inform us of what your characters are thinking and feeling.
There is an obvious sense in your script and character design of a period setting and sense of place - I really want you to capitalise on this in terms of your production design. It should all feel very French! You might therefore, in terms of additional frames of reference, want to look at the following artists who associate with show folk and performance:
http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/video/399940/henri-toulouse-lautrec's-circus-drawings/
http://www.art.co.uk/gallery/id--a44/edgar-degas-prints.htm
You might want to think about colour-picking from some of these by which to establish a suitably 'on message' visual concept for your French show-folk story...