THE SANDWICH
So here's a link to Stoopid Studio's latest film. Our second scripted film (written by yours truly) and below is some waffle on the processes behind it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4UkSYs2on0&feature=youtube_gdata_player
One evening on my long walk home, I was thinking about my as yet unborn child and had an idea. I imagined that it was quite possible for my future son/daughter, to travel back in time and kill me, now that I had already done my bit in creating them.
My mind had an argument with itself on the nature of the paradox and before I knew it, I had walked the 3 miles home with no recollection of how I got there.
Well I wrote this down and changed some elements of it, but the idea of children from the future coming back to visit their father is the driving factor behind it. Instead of trying to kill the father they're trying to stop or encourage him to eat a sandwich.
It didn't take me too long to write but I had to keep going over it to make sure it made some sort of internal sense to the characters, even if the audience was baffled by the entire premise. I tried to explain all of this to my long suffering lady wife Louise, but honestly it took ages to read through it with her as quantum mechanics isn't her chosen subject in mastermind.
I gave the scripts out to the actors before the shoot and most of them had learnt their lines or at least enough of their lines for them to wing it (like I did) also at one point we realised that I'd written one of the characters to be pro when he should have been against, so a quick re-write and we were good. I also told the "children" to wear clothing that they think their character would wear in the future, which I felt would add a nice/subtle visual touch to it. Matt, who plays the last child of the father, hadn't got that text message, so instead I dug out some clothes and a wig which look suitably daft enough.
The Sandwich, I hope, is supposed to be a character in itself, as the whole future(s) fate(s) is(are) decided on if it is or isn't eaten. I'd written "Cheese Sandwich" in the script, but added a little extra something in the form of Jam. If you haven't tried a cheese and jam sandwich, I suggest you do so.
The piece took on a life of it's own really and I'm generally happy with how it turned out. The editing isn't as tight as it could have been, but I am going to say that this is part of the aesthetic of the piece because so much time travel is happening it's distorted reality. Music was nabbed as per usual from the same composer that I use for all our stuff (he has a great range and they're free as long as you mention him) the only bit that wasn't quite kosher was the music for the speed-up bit which was taken from Rayman Origins.
I've re-written the script after we filmed it as there are certain bits I thought could be improved, including the second time the first son appears, I thought it'd be funnier if he only had one arm this time and made out that he never had an arm. Also, Matt's character wouldn't refer to his universe's other dad being dead as he wouldn't know that in this universe his other dad had died.
Anyhoo, I hope you enjoy. If you'd like a copy of the screenplay or think you could make a better version, send me a line to
addyace@aol.com
