Making a movie on the PDX10 at DVinfo.net

Adam Grunseth · May 16th, 2005, 07:56 AM

Hi Everyone!

Wow, what a great forum! You guys are great! As I mentioned in my previous post I just got myself a PDX10. I've been playing around with it for the last several days and so far it seems to be a great little camera. The low light performance is also alot better than what I expected. After reading reviews of it and hearing so much about its supposed terrible low light performance I was pleasently surprised when I found the low light performance was not nearly as bad as I had been fearing.

Now that I have the camera though, I want a project to use it on- So I have decided to reshoot a film I made while I was in college. The film is an emotional drama about love, jealousy, and suicide. In my original film the characters were all in high school. Chris, a depressed loner high school student ends up spending his summer with one of the most popular girls in school working at her parents ranch. He views their relationship as being something serious where she views it as a simple friendship. When the summer is over and they get back into school he realizes that he didn't mean as much to her as what she meant to him. She becomes involved with another guy which causes chris to become extremily jealous eventually resulting in his suicide. Its a very dark film.

I made alot of mistakes in the production of that movie. It was way too ambitious for my first independent film project, and I did not have enough time to shoot it. I didn't spend enough time in pre-production either. Now seems to be as good of time as any to go back, redo it, and correct my mistakes.

There are some fairly significant changes I am going to make with the movie though. First the characters will no longer be in high school. I don't want to have to get permission to shoot in a school again and deal with all the extras like I did last time. Rather I want the characters to be young adults who are all done with school. The leading female character I also want to change. Before she came from a wealthy family and was popular. I would prefer in this remake to have her be more of the bad girl/goth type. And, instead of having the relationship between the characters grow while working together at the ranch, I want for them to go on a road trip together.

However, there are still some things with the story I need to work out. I figure I will have the two main characters first meet at a laundramat, but I am unsure of how exactly they are going to end up going on a road trip together. Also I don't know what all is going to happen on the road trip to evolve their relationship. I would very much appreciate anyone's ideas or suggestions as to what I should do for these parts of the story. I have some ideas, but I would like to hear what other people think too. Alot of the time I like others ideas better than my own.

So... how should the two characters end up on the road together?

And what events should take place on that road trip to cause a relationship between them to evolve?

Please share your ideas, and unless you request me not to, I'll give you credit in the finished film.

Boyd Ostroff · May 16th, 2005, 11:42 AM

Glad you're putting the camera through its paces and that you've found a good project for it. Unfortunately movie plot discussions don't belong in this forum which is dedicated to technical issues with the PDX-10 and its cousins.

I suggest you start a new thread in our Independent Production forum here:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/forumdisplay.php?f=78

Good luck with the project, sounds like fun!

May 16th, 2005, 07:56 AM	#1
Adam Grunseth Major Player Join Date: May 2005 Location: Eugene Oregon Posts: 393	Making a movie on the PDX10 Hi Everyone! Wow, what a great forum! You guys are great! As I mentioned in my previous post I just got myself a PDX10. I've been playing around with it for the last several days and so far it seems to be a great little camera. The low light performance is also alot better than what I expected. After reading reviews of it and hearing so much about its supposed terrible low light performance I was pleasently surprised when I found the low light performance was not nearly as bad as I had been fearing. Now that I have the camera though, I want a project to use it on- So I have decided to reshoot a film I made while I was in college. The film is an emotional drama about love, jealousy, and suicide. In my original film the characters were all in high school. Chris, a depressed loner high school student ends up spending his summer with one of the most popular girls in school working at her parents ranch. He views their relationship as being something serious where she views it as a simple friendship. When the summer is over and they get back into school he realizes that he didn't mean as much to her as what she meant to him. She becomes involved with another guy which causes chris to become extremily jealous eventually resulting in his suicide. Its a very dark film. I made alot of mistakes in the production of that movie. It was way too ambitious for my first independent film project, and I did not have enough time to shoot it. I didn't spend enough time in pre-production either. Now seems to be as good of time as any to go back, redo it, and correct my mistakes. There are some fairly significant changes I am going to make with the movie though. First the characters will no longer be in high school. I don't want to have to get permission to shoot in a school again and deal with all the extras like I did last time. Rather I want the characters to be young adults who are all done with school. The leading female character I also want to change. Before she came from a wealthy family and was popular. I would prefer in this remake to have her be more of the bad girl/goth type. And, instead of having the relationship between the characters grow while working together at the ranch, I want for them to go on a road trip together. However, there are still some things with the story I need to work out. I figure I will have the two main characters first meet at a laundramat, but I am unsure of how exactly they are going to end up going on a road trip together. Also I don't know what all is going to happen on the road trip to evolve their relationship. I would very much appreciate anyone's ideas or suggestions as to what I should do for these parts of the story. I have some ideas, but I would like to hear what other people think too. Alot of the time I like others ideas better than my own. So... how should the two characters end up on the road together? And what events should take place on that road trip to cause a relationship between them to evolve? Please share your ideas, and unless you request me not to, I'll give you credit in the finished film.

May 16th, 2005, 11:42 AM	#2
Boyd Ostroff Wrangler Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Mays Landing, NJ Posts: 11,802	Glad you're putting the camera through its paces and that you've found a good project for it. Unfortunately movie plot discussions don't belong in this forum which is dedicated to technical issues with the PDX-10 and its cousins. I suggest you start a new thread in our Independent Production forum here: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/forumdisplay.php?f=78 Good luck with the project, sounds like fun!