Doubles - Written & Directed By Matt Kieley

Billy Pilgrim

Billy Pilgrim

Stye in my eye
I have a simple twilight-y idea I like. I'm usually a procrastinator, but since I've had to push back my feature film project to September, I figure I should just make a TwilightFest entry in the interim. It'll be very simplistic and minimal. Although I don't know if I can cram the whole story into five minutes, so maybe I'll double the length and do exhibition only. Plus, one thing I love about the twilight zone is the slow, steady pace every episode tends to have. We'll see what happens. Everyone seems to be kind of vague in their threads. I don't know if that's a result of the stories still being in development, or if everyone is deliberately withholding story details so as not to spoil any twists.

The initial conceit of the story of Doubles certainly is built on a twist, however, there's a different kind of twist in the end. Just about every Twilight Zone episode is built on a "what if" scenario. So I won't give away the details of the story, but I will give you this: What if you ran into another version of yourself (a double, if you will) from an alternate universe? And a much "better" version of yourself at that?
 
Thanks, Tom and Blaine.

I'm heading to San Diego today for comic-con, so hopefully I'll get a little writing done while on the train.
 
I'm taking a technique to writing a script for a time limit. I usually don't have a technique, I just write it, and pare it down in revisions. Instead, this time, I'm taking certain bits of information necessary to the characters and story, and attempting to convey that in one page or less. Each scene should communicate a major story or character point. For example: One character has to find out he has a double. So at the top of one page, he doesn't know about his double, but by the bottom of that page, he will, and so the next part of the story can start on a fresh page. So basically I'm trying to tell the story with five or six scenes, on five or six pages. I tend to be long-winded in my writing, so I'm trying to tell a story efficiently and effectively. And it's surprisingly liberating. I feel I'm succeeding so far.
 
Billy Pilgrim said:
Although I don't know if I can cram the whole story into five minutes, so maybe I'll double the length and do exhibition only.
Click to expand...

We're running into that problem, too. We've cut out many of our ideas simply because we can't show them all in the allotted time! It's probably one of the most aggravating elements of these fests... but also one of the most rewarding (assuming you can pull it off).

Don't we have 6 minutes??
 
Yeah its six minutes still. Good luck on your entry! I look forward to watching it! And yeah also the reason most people don't go into detail about there films is they want it to be a surprise most of the time. :lipsrseal

But a lot of details normally come out around the closing of the fest.
 
I think this is shaping up to be one of the most challenging short films I'll ever make. I don't really have the technology or skills to do composite shots, so I'm going to shoot the movie the old fashion way--to have actors, and body doubles, and shoot it the normal way. I'd actually prefer to do that anyway, as I'll have more control over the pacing and performances than I would if I had to match timing and performances in composite shots. However, I think it'll be just as challenging to go the body double/coverage route, but in a different way. Not only do I have to two good actors, I need four. And they have to be same height, and have the same body type. And Bakersfield is already pretty limited on reliable actors. I don't want to just get models or people who look similar, I want to get actors, so the main actors actually have a performance to respond to, rather than someone reading out of a script. I'm going to attempt to do a couple of composite shots, but they'll just be establishing shots without dialogue.

I had an idea on how to pull this off with my means: I'll make a small green screen (maybe 3' x 3') that will be placed in front of the camera, on one side of the frame, and shoot one half of it, then shoot the other half, key out the green, and hopefully have a cheap composite shots. Since I'm shooting SD, I figure it might work better to just key out a green box with nothing in front of it, and look better than having an actor in front of a screen. I don't know if it'll really work well, but I'm going to start experimenting with that.
 
You can also lock down the tripod and try and do the old crop shot. Where you take two shots but crop them each in half (with a character in each half) Then just put the pieces together and you have duplicates. Just be careful you don't move the camera at all or you will ruin the whole shot.

Good luck on finding similar actors as well! This will be very tough but if done right it could make the film!
 
I just shot some tests. I tried the cropping thing, and sort of mixed it with my original idea. I put a blue mask over one half of the frame, rendered it, put the clips together, keyed it, and voila. I'll post a video sometime.
 
Wow I really thought that worked out well. Just be careful, at the end of the video when the character on the right walked out of the door you could sort of see where you cropped it and it cut his shoulder off a little bit. But all around I think the effect really worked well! Good luck!!
 
Finished the script, at 13 pages. So I couldn't quite keep to my own challenge of one scene, one page. I was able to write the first two scenes of set-up that way. After that, I did write about four more scenes, but they ran over one page. I think I'll shoot it as-is and cut it down later. I'm really pleased with what I've written though.
 
Billy Pilgrim said:
Finished the script, at 13 pages. So I couldn't quite keep to my own challenge of one scene, one page. I was able to write the first two scenes of set-up that way. After that, I did write about four more scenes, but they ran over one page. I think I'll shoot it as-is and cut it down later. I'm really pleased with what I've written though.
Click to expand...

When we did the previous 48 hour film fest recently, that's exactly what we did. The writer / director had written about 12 or 13 pages of script and he cut it down to whatever the requirement was (either 6 or 8 minutes). Also, by filming more footage, you'll be able to do a longer cut in the future if you wanted to.
 
Hows this one going, Matt? I think I'm actually going to start hammering out a poster for it tonight. I apologize for taking so long... my film has sort of dominated all my spare time!

I'll let you know how my progress goes.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top