New Idea! Thank you Mr. Anderson.
My research into romantic films has gotten me nowhere since those aren't my type of movies, but recently I have discovered the wonderful work of a man named Wes Anderson. This man has become an inspiration for me in such a short time because of the uniqueness of his stories and the unconventionality of his cinematography.
I discovered Mr. Anderson's work way back in November when I found "Moonrise Kingdom" on Netflix. Me and my brother loved the movie, we loved how weird it was, yet how engaged we were about the characters and their motivations. More recently I found his film "Rushmore" starring Jason Schwartzman as a young Max Fischer who falls in love with this older woman who won't love him back under any circumstances. The eccentric Max did all he could to win her love but it wasn't enough seeing as a first grade teacher would not want to date a 15 year old kid. The randomness and oddity that is the plot to the movie dragged me in and kept me engaged throughout the whole film and I was amazed at Anderson's shots. The way he moved the camera, often using pans and tilts to make you feel as if you are apart of the scene and you're just looking around to see what's going on and where the next event will happen.
Then, I found "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" a story of a documentary filmmaker who goes out to sea and films aquatic life. Starring Bill Murray (a recurring actor in many of Anderson's films) as Steve Zissou. Captain Zissou found himself in a tough situation when his partner of many years was killed during the making of one of their films "The Life Aquatic". His partner was killed by the infamous Jaguar shark, a completely made up creature (as are all of the aquatic life in this film) and Zissou vowed revenge on the shark. Anderson's films often find the characters on set pathway that they create for themselves but there is a catalyst, something that changes everything and the characters change too along with the plot.
This is what I'm hoping to take into our new idea "The Laroux's" a story of a murder mystery, where suddenly Claus Leroux, a prominent french businessman living in New Orleans, was killed. The film opens with Claus' wife, Mrs. Laroux, being questioned by police about where she saw her husband last. The reason this film is named after the family is because the entire family is being investigated for the crime.
What inspired me was the way Anderson depicted conversations between two people or two groups of people. He would place the camera directly in front of both of the characters and it would face them, like we were sitting directly in the middle of these two people talking. The characters would look slightly past the camera so they wouldn't look at you. The two characters or groups of characters would never be in the same shot during the conversation, all you see is the people by themselves and their backgrounds, which in some cases would be drastically different depending on the character's emotions and what not. It almost felt personal and I wanted to incorporate this type of framing into our film.
I first thought conversation. Who would be having a conversation at the start of a movie that could indicate the plot, theme and characters? Then a crime thriller popped in my head, but I didn't want to make a dark and gritty serious movie, rather what Anderson does, take a serious subject and throw some comedic zest into the mix. In my opinion its the perfect balance of serious and comedic that a film needs. So that's where we are. Conceptualization!
I discovered Mr. Anderson's work way back in November when I found "Moonrise Kingdom" on Netflix. Me and my brother loved the movie, we loved how weird it was, yet how engaged we were about the characters and their motivations. More recently I found his film "Rushmore" starring Jason Schwartzman as a young Max Fischer who falls in love with this older woman who won't love him back under any circumstances. The eccentric Max did all he could to win her love but it wasn't enough seeing as a first grade teacher would not want to date a 15 year old kid. The randomness and oddity that is the plot to the movie dragged me in and kept me engaged throughout the whole film and I was amazed at Anderson's shots. The way he moved the camera, often using pans and tilts to make you feel as if you are apart of the scene and you're just looking around to see what's going on and where the next event will happen.
Then, I found "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" a story of a documentary filmmaker who goes out to sea and films aquatic life. Starring Bill Murray (a recurring actor in many of Anderson's films) as Steve Zissou. Captain Zissou found himself in a tough situation when his partner of many years was killed during the making of one of their films "The Life Aquatic". His partner was killed by the infamous Jaguar shark, a completely made up creature (as are all of the aquatic life in this film) and Zissou vowed revenge on the shark. Anderson's films often find the characters on set pathway that they create for themselves but there is a catalyst, something that changes everything and the characters change too along with the plot.
This is what I'm hoping to take into our new idea "The Laroux's" a story of a murder mystery, where suddenly Claus Leroux, a prominent french businessman living in New Orleans, was killed. The film opens with Claus' wife, Mrs. Laroux, being questioned by police about where she saw her husband last. The reason this film is named after the family is because the entire family is being investigated for the crime.
What inspired me was the way Anderson depicted conversations between two people or two groups of people. He would place the camera directly in front of both of the characters and it would face them, like we were sitting directly in the middle of these two people talking. The characters would look slightly past the camera so they wouldn't look at you. The two characters or groups of characters would never be in the same shot during the conversation, all you see is the people by themselves and their backgrounds, which in some cases would be drastically different depending on the character's emotions and what not. It almost felt personal and I wanted to incorporate this type of framing into our film.
I first thought conversation. Who would be having a conversation at the start of a movie that could indicate the plot, theme and characters? Then a crime thriller popped in my head, but I didn't want to make a dark and gritty serious movie, rather what Anderson does, take a serious subject and throw some comedic zest into the mix. In my opinion its the perfect balance of serious and comedic that a film needs. So that's where we are. Conceptualization!
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