#2-Regarding Current Productions...

There are several things in the air at this moment.
Small stuff and big stuff.

SMALL STUFF

First there is a spot for a company called "PR Gruppen" that is launching a new program for making websites.

I´ve come up with some pretty funny ideas for a series of spots and we are soon starting up the pre-production machine for one of those ideas.

It only involves one location and one character, so pretty simple stuff. (The sound track is another story).

The great thing about this dummy is that, for me as a director, it will be an exercise in the simple stuff: Showing a room, how a man enters a room and how a private moment suddenly turns into an extremely public situation.

And hopefully we will be able to do it in a new way. That is always the tricky part and something I like to put a lot of energy in to.

Because I don´t "just" want to show a man entering a room, etc. We all know what that looks like. The challenge is showing it in a way that is more interesting and new and personal. (How do you show a man enter a room in a personal way?)

We should be able to do this over the course of one day. The room is a public facility so it is already pre-lit, so that will take off some additional hours also. We will probably only need something to bounce and soften the light with to make it more balanced.

Lighting is something I struggle a lot with. I can see if the lighting is good or bad through the viewfinder, but exactly what makes it good or bad is something I´m still trying to learn.

The current status on this production is that I have a location in mind, a perfect one, and is just waiting for the reply that contains the best word in the world: Yes.

THE OTHER SMALL THING IS this commercial for a telephone company, that make those "Turn off your mobile"-movie theater ads we have running in danish theaters.

The ones that are playing at the moment, with the choir singing, are becoming a bit dull and I got this idea of how to make a funny, sharp and surprising ad that will actually demand something from the audience.

This one is pretty simple too. One main character, 6 extras, some props and only one camera setup.

What will be difficult in this one is the whole thing has to keep building up and contains a lot of beats and demand a sense of timing.

But the whole thing is one take. So during the 30 seconds it depends almost entirely on the actress, to make the beats believable.

It also requires that we build the area where the actress is sitting, since she has to disappear from where she is sitting, underneath the floor.

How and where we build it, I don´t know yet.

As I´m writing these sentences I have just called the telephone company and they want to see some storyboards for the idea, so I have to start drawing.

I really hope they will green light this, because I can see it pretty clearly in my head and it really does look funny and I think it will be something the audience will look forward to watching in the movie theater, instead of that choir-crap.

BIG STUFF

In 8-9 month time I should be standing on the side of a hill in beautiful mountain surroundings in Poland, directing actress Charlotte Uldall in how her character should read in her dads diary without making it look phony, while my two DPs, David and Jonathan, are setting up the cameras.

The movie will be called The Tourist and follows a girls search for her lost father by following his 25 years old diary.

This journey will take her more and more into nowhere land and we talk about shooting a lot of it in Poland. This depends on how much funding we will get, though.

Actually it ALL depends on that, because there is no way we will be able to do this on our own. It´s simply too big a thing to pull off. The movie itself will be around 40-50 minutes and thus make it the biggest project I´ve ever attempted to make. And I want a crew for this, I want lights, I want camera equipment and I want to make it as professionally as possible, even though it will be a "Day-Late, Dollar-Short" production.

The general story arrived in my head around a year ago and will be written by writer Michael Buus. (More on this later)

Back then it contained some fairly good stuff but overall: pretty boring. Then the idea of a diary (in the best Paul Auster fashion) came to mind and that actually sparked the whole mood of the film and also solved a lot of the initial problems with "How" and "Why".

(Speaking of Austers univers, I recently found this old homemade notebook I made in 8th grade and it has the color of red. That might turn out to be the notebook we use in the movie)

Very untraditionally we already have the lead actor and the two DPs.

The reason for two DPs is this: They are two very close friends and they just so happens to be extremely skilled plus they both own the Canon D5 Mark II.

Plus, with two cameras for every scene, we can get moving a lot quicker than had we only had one camera. And I think it will help Charlotte out a lot, because we wouldn´t have to shoot everything over and over for each new set-up. It will free up the acting process and it will show on the screen.

short film that one of my DPs had worked on and Charlotte was in it as the lead.

And she made her acting seemed so natural, so in-the-moment and she has one of those very beautiful faces that can be much, much more than just beautiful.

Later I learned that she´d wanted to become a director, but found out acting was more fun. And she got in at this university I can´t remember the name of, but dropped out because she wanted to focus on becoming an actress.

And that choice weights tons of gold in my world.


I´m really nervous and scared about directing this one. It just seems like such a huge project and it contains so much that I want to put up on the screen, but I´m afraid of failing while trying. Luckily, I haven´t fucked up yet. Gotta focus on the positive things, yes?
The good thing about my feelings towards this, is that it keeps me extremely focused on the whole making of it. The fear of failing can make one more aware, than feeling comfortable.
The trick is to feel comfortable with the fear.

Anyway, more about The Tourist in the next post.

THE OTHER BIG THING is actually not that big yet but it might be with time.

I´ve had this idea for a short film in my head for many years now but for some reason I just recently put things into action.

It centers around a kid and his fear of the monster underneath his bed.

Although here, the kid is now an adult and has moved out of his parents home, but is still one hundred percent sure the monster is still there. And the movie starts of when he returns home for Christmas.

I told the idea to a very talented screenwriter and good friend I know in Los Angeles, Zach Hammill and he immediately wanted to help out develop the story. Little does he know that I might have him write it.

And since I´m one of those that like to do things without knowing if the parachute might work, I really would like to shoot this "over there" too.

It might not turn out that way, but what is the logic in having an american screenwriter write it, if the short film itself will be in danish?

So it´s a way to make sure that it will actually be made in america, from the very beginning.

So the thing that needs to be done is me and Zach setting up a Skype meeting soon, to talk about the story and where it should go, etc.

For some reason I always get an idea for the ending of a movie first and the beginning last. I struggle like a mad man with the middle, in trying to connect it all. And my fear is always that the middle will seem like a cheap excuse for the climax and won´t feel as if the story grows organically from beginning, middle to end.

But you learn as you go and I´m confident that Zach will do this story good.

I will also talk a lot more about this short film in the posts to come.

All The Best,

Jonas Thorbjoern

#1-For Starters

Let me be honest about something:

I only know half the things I think I should know and don´t know of all the things I don´t know yet.

And even though I think I´ve learned alot about the nuts and bolts on filmmaking by now and is starting to get an idea of who I am as a director, I know nowhere near enough to have a blog where I can show off and give advices.

But that is not necessarily my intention.

This will be kind of a directors diary, if you will, that will document all the ups and downs, the mistakes, the battles and the fortune of luck that one go through while trying to tell a story in 24 frames per second.

And to be as honest about it as possible.

I wish filmmakers and other creative heads would do the same, letting people in on a process that is extremely exciting and interesting. So often it´s all about how great it was to work with so-and-so and how fun it was to something-something.

But never about when everything seemed so chaotic and so unfair, that you´d wish you had followed your parents advice: Get A Plan B.

That is what I "hope" I will be able to tell just a fraction of in the pages to come, even though the whole thing might become a blog about mistakes.

That is a part of the process.

All the best,

Jonas Thorbjoern

P.S. Oh! I don´t have the ability to tell things in a short and simple fashion, so there will be pages that constains a lot of words. But that is a part of the process too.

Plus: I´m from Denmark. Expect grammar errors!