Three Monolouges

One of my guiding principles is to practice in the public eye. But how do I do this? Is this really necessary? Emphatically, yes it is. Filmmaking is a very serious hobby for me right now. How will I let my audience know what I am doing? How much transparency do I need to have?

More Work, More Content

I need to work more. I need more content. More transparency and a lot more consistency. This implies that I need clients, a ton of them. But I don’t have any, (yet). Who do I turn to for help? I can ask friends and family if they have any projects they want to develop and bring to fruition. These types of projects will help solidify those relationships. However, I do not believe they will strengthen my credentials with potential clients. This is classic chicken versus egg scenario. I need more work. To get the work, I need more clients. To get more clients, I need more work. There must one client, the first one, out there, but, where?

I looked straight into the mirror and found my first client, me.

Choosing myself as a client can be both a blessing and a curse. Its a blessing because I don’t need to be very disciplined. I can set all aspects of the projects to very lax standards, or skip over a few steps. This will not help me because this type of behavior will not be acceptable to a real client. Its curse because I control both the quality and timelines, it can become a never ending project and spiral out of control. This is more problematic because the resources I would use for this project would not be available for a paying client. The key is to be brutally honest with myself, set reasonable expectations and adhere to a plan.

The Plans and Goals

I want to display my versatility as a filmmaker. Any project I choose must highlight my skills as a writer, producer, director, cinematographer, editor, colorist, sound editor, costume designer, and set designer. The project I choose must be short enough to be efficient and long enough for my technical and creative abilities to be reviewed. The limit will be two minutes. I need to shoot more than one scene to show that I can manage more than one type setup, emotion or style. I will shoot three scenes. To cut down on transportation time and setup time, I’ll use the same physical location for all of the scenes. What will I shoot? That’s easy. I’ll pick three of my favorite actors and choose a scene from one of their films. Three of my favorites are: Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman and Forrest Whitaker. Their filmography is vast; picking one film to use as inspiration for each of them will be difficult. I’ll be both the cast and crew to save time looking for someone to be in front of the camera. This may be the hardest part because I’m not an actor. Simply put, if I cannot direct myself, how can I direct others?

Here is the requirement for my Three Monologues project:

• One person, for all cast and crew
• Three scenes
• 2 minute maximum
• Same location for all scenes
• One actor monologue
• Based on existing films
• One scene each, from Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, Forrest Whitaker
• Two weeks, for pre-production, production and post production

This is a tall order for myself. Without a challenge I will never know what I am truly capable of.