Film Pitch Day

This was so exciting! I couldn't wait to hear the Film students pitches for their potential films that we would be working on, and I had my fingers crossed for some of the paintings that I had connected with in The Courtauld Gallery. It was really interesting to hear the ideas based on the paintings chosen and some ideas were really abstract and others very inspiring.

These are the skeletons of the ideas and are open to be changed and adapted subject to the directors views and progressions.

In short these are the 14 ideas pitched;

1. Mondrian, Composition C (No III)
This would be an abstract studio shoot. Three figures crawl out of white sand in outrageous block coloured (red, blue and yellow) costumes. As they emerge from the sand they start to move around and spew black rose petals and bleed black pearls. The figures then lie down and a perfect block is created and the pearls and rose petals will have created the black lines on the white sand. 

2. Francis Bacon, Untitled (Crouching Figure) - CHOSEN
This could either be a studio or location shoot. Inside a dark room a man is looking inside his own mind and is lost in a nightmare. His ego is represented by a sort of nightmarish ringmaster who will have crisp lines and contrast with the darkness of the room. The crouching figure will be naked but then realises he is also the ringmaster character. There will be lots of close ups. 

3. Cezanne, Man with a Pipe

A manly figure is preparing for a party with his friends, he sets up a table with party foods and cakes but then we actually realise all his friends are taxidermied animals and it is actually the taxidemied fox's birthday which is why he is having the party.  The setting and costume would be traditional to the painting (1892-5) and takes 'Alice in wonderland' as an influence but imagines it to be not as colourful. 

4. Rousseau, The Toll Gate

This would be shot on location and would be set in a medieval era. There are two guards on a path in a forest which is necessary to pass to get to the town. Two sisters approach the gate but the guards see that one of the sisters is diseased so do they risk letting the diseased sister in and infecting the town or do they turn her away separating her from her sister. This would be a moral and sombre piece. 

5. Kees van Dogan, Portrait of Dolly - CHOSEN

A ten year old girl sees her mother getting ready to meet someone, she is applying make up as dolly is watching her. A man comes to the door and Dolly's mother greets the man with a kiss, the couple then move to the guest bedroom which is the best bedroom and they proceed to make love. Dolly opens the door and watches for some time which makes her curious and jealous of her mother so she goes to her mothers dressing table and applies make up in the same way that her mother does. As the man leaves he walks past Dolly and looks at him expectantly depicting the above image. The use of colour would be mostly with flesh tones and neutral colours, and feels it should not be viewed as seedy but in a curious and innocent way. This would be set in 1910. 

6. Manet, Bar at the Folies Bergere

This would be a contemporary piece set in a cafe, with the girl aspiring to be more, they imagined the cafe to look dirty, greasy and boring with the image of her 'better life' reflected in the mirror.

7. Seurat, The Bridge at Courbevoie - CHOSEN

A girl has gone home to spend some time with her father and it had not gone particularly well, her father is giving her a lift to the trainstation and his car breaks down which forces the two to spend time together. She calls for rescue and the father and daughter share an awkward silence as they wait for the help. Near by an artist / photographer notices the pair and asks to paint / photograph them causing them another uncomfortable and forced moment. This would be in a contemporary setting.

8. Manet, Bar at the Folies Bergere

At a bar a waitress is serving and her phone rings, she answers her phone to her boyfriend who is angry and jealous. This would be a contemporary setting.

9. Gauguin, Nevermore

A door opens and wind blows through carrying with it snow, a man backs through the door carrying a wheel chair with an old man with a white beard, this man is a doctor. They go inside the house and up the stairs to find a young boy in bed who is covered up to his head in a blanket. The doctor is set aside him and starts to undress and moves himself onto the bed. The doctor tells the boy he has been summoned to help him and will grant him his last wish. The boy says he wishes to die as he has been cut with an axe whilst chopping wood and it is painful and he is dying slowly, he also wishes to be told a story. The doctor tells the boy a story and as he is doing this he circles his finger around the boys wound and as the story ends the doctor plunges his fingers into the wound causing the boy to die.

10. Gabriele Munter, Portrait of a Young Woman in a Large Hat

Set in the late 19th century. A romantic drama set in the woods or a field. She has been taken their by her suitor for a picnic but being a powerful and confident woman, she wants more.

11. Silvia Sleigh, The Situation Group - CHOSEN

These are the artists from an exhibition and have been asked to sit for a painting, the film shows them in a semi documentary type way coming in and sitting down and having a chat with one another. Influences from a book called 'Snuff' and 'Midnight in Paris'.

12. Mondrian, Composition with Yellow, Red and Blue - CHOSEN

A white background, people in morph suit type costumes, covered head to toe in one colour, they move around to create this image.

13. Picasso, Girl with a Dove - CHOSEN

A young girl and boy who have been playing creep into an aviary, the boy is playing with a ball and starts to throw the ball at one of the cages, after a little while it falls to the ground and the dove inside is now dead, the little girl picks up the dead dove and cradles it as in the painting. A bird keeper notices and place a new, live dove in the cage and restores the cage in place. With a victorian / Gothic feel, potentially to be filmed in the Russel Coates museum.

14. Max Liebermann, Memorial Service for Kaiser Friedrich at Kosen - CHOSEN

Based on old folk tales. A girl goes into the woods and discovers some music and sets off to find it, she returns home to see if any of the village will come with her, which they will not, she returns on her quest to find the music in the forest but never returns. A few days later some villagers go to look for the girl and cannot find her but do find the body of an old lady who looked like and aged version of the girl who had gone to find the music. The funeral of the old woman / young girl would be shown with flash backs of the girl wandering through the forest. To be set in the 19th Century.