7:03 p.m. - 2006-10-13
My Resume Film
My resume film �
The film opens with a guy typing his resume on the computer.
He hesitates and considers for a moment seriously, should he include his primary school grades and ECA performance?
Work experience � none.
The story of an aspiring film/television director/writer who wishes to work on creative (and lucrative) projects, advertising or drama, since they involve making up fictional stuff, but he realizes that it is going to be difficult to get a foot in this side of the industry since he doesn't have the experience, nor the contacts which would enable him to get some experience. It is a vicious cycle kind of situation.
The only way would be to make a good dramatic short film, which he can enter into competitions and then win some award which he can list down in his resume later for prospective employers.
But he thought, instead of making a good dramatic short film that would be of use later to pad a portfolio, why, he can make a portfolio film, literally a film showcasing himself and his work,
since he wants to be a film director or writer, he should make a small documentary where the subject would be himself and of course this documentary would show him as a great ideas and creative person.
So he sets off to make this portfolio film...
And string together a whole bunch of simple white lies � rather badly.
Well, how would I sell myself?
- present my collection of diaries - creative suffering, where almost daily records are made and doodled and presented as a sign of an artistic mind. - my journals - my life = my work
- the brands of software that he knows how to use, a little.
- his collection of school certs and grades. Mostly Cs� �Hey I got an A in scriptwriting!� and PPC.
- fun lies - countries i've been to, photoshopped badly, to show that he�s a man of the world, worldy-wise, street smart yet also cultured enough to know
- friend testimonials � he�s smart. He did this IQ test and got, like, a score of 138.
- went on to read some Marketing Guru book � USP � unique selling proposition � you don�t need a USP, there�s enough graduates with some kind of writing ability, what you need is to associate a positive emotion with your product (me) and then you can sell.
In the course of making the film, he learns a few precious lessons.
About his inadequate areas � his design skills suck, I can�t think in pictures! I need words to generate ideas and then into images.
About emotional baggage, historical baggage - the things from the past that we carry within ourselves, our failures, indiscretions, foolishness, culminating into a fear for the future, we prefer to keep ourselves in our present unhappy states because it is what we are most familiar and we are creatures of habit, sticking to our routines, even when we know it is hurting, and does not lead to the kind of enduring happiness that we are after.
We think we are not brave/talented enough to realize our dreams, but it is not a matter of being brave or talented or worried about our results, it is really a matter of stepping forth (like running, if you keep holding back, thinking �I�ll sprint in the last 100 metres, I�d better store energy for that sprint�, you�ll not be a good runner. The runs where I�ve stored energy for the last sprint were often the runs I questioned myself whether I�ve given my all. Because I felt I haven�t given my best, I still had some energy to run further. Zen Running)
He learns that his directing skills are kind of shitty, unless he manages to pull this off.
The difficult and tedious process of making a film � this will wake him up a bit, and inform himself whether he should persevere in this dream.
He goes on to show the film to a prospective employer, but is laughed at, what kind of stupid absurd crap is this? It is crap because it is made insincerely to sell. He doesn�t even really enjoy the process of making the film because he keeps thinking of the end result, which is getting hired in this big ad company. He doesn�t get hired. The savings his father passed on to him as inheritance is wasted/gone into making this shitty film.
He questions the failure and purpose of his life and realizes that the purpose of life is to find out what the purpose of life is and pursue it. Kind of hairy philosophizing and argh, it makes sense! � go read some self-help books about positive thinking.
And then as the old and wise saying goes,
�It doesn�t matter if the opening sucks,
all you need is a great ending.
WOW them in the end,
And you�re MADE.�
So what do we have in the end?
Something great. A revelation. Like Adaptation.
An Ending that is also a new Beginning.
A life-threatening event, like ____.
We love stories where some life-threatening event happens and the lead character survives by some stroke of luck and he realizes the preciousness of life and the scarcity of time and the importance of life and go on to pursue his dreams.
It doesn�t matter whether he really succeeds in the end, because that is not what we need to bother ourselves with right now, what matters is this character, this person we project ourselves into, he wakes up and starts on his own journey.
We are all waiting for our similar life threatening, life changing experiences to happen.
I really don�t know what this life threatening event should be, I�ve decided that I will not write it down now, since I haven�t really started writing the film.
Something about the thoughts that came to me about running� that sometimes it�s isn�t good to plan too concretely, like a sprint in the last ten metres, because that will always hold you back while you�re running�what you need while running isn�t the thought of conserving energy, because giving your all, putting your whole heart into it, is what you need at that moment.
I don�t want to write with an exact destination because it will end up as a string of events happening quite logically and predictably, just so I�ll reach the magic number of 90 pages and the screenplay has reached its placid end. What�s the use of going somewhere you already know?
Unless you�re fetching something back, but that�s another metaphor for another story.
He realizes that he doesn�t need to join some production house to become a writer.
He can become a writer now and produce his own shows and start selling them.
Heck, he can make up romance stories for Wedding Couples for their wedding dinners, if need be.
That�s also quite exciting, and friends his age are getting married too anyway.
Heck, I wished to hell this will never be the ending. Because this is such a lame ending. Well, I wrote it just now, so it goes to show how bad overly-planned endings are, because they tell you the whole middle.
It�s not really the ending that counts, because all endings are actually beginnings too; what matters is the journey, the present, the Now.
This is presented in the form of a very close to heart kind of parody in an alternate reality.
produced ad verbatim via www.shonendumm.memebot.com
*new look
