Feature. Early Thoughts.

Probably way too soon to be thinking about it. But I have been. I’ve been thinking about the types of things I could do for it. It's a big undertaking and will need a lot; story and character-wise to carry the weight of ninety-minutes.

Initially, like I thought with the one hour drama, I’d do something different. Sinking (Narratives) and Marlow Road (Audiences) are in the family-drama arena (from the parents point of view) and I thought I’d challenge myself for sixty-minutes and do something in a different genre. But that didn’t happen - although the main focus in Requiem (One Hour Drama) is a teenager and only child. So something did change.

So now I’m thinking that for my feature I’ll do something different. But now I know I won’t.

Initially I thought: A feature. Cool, I’ll do one of my sci-fi films. I had one in mind, which is essentially a futuristic cop conspiracy/thriller but with a twist and is pretty straightforward. But then I thought: Sci-fi?

I know I want to write sci-fi someday but my main passion and one of the big things I want to write is the offbeat family drama or Indie drama as it may be better known as. The dysfunctional family is my calling. There's something quite remarkable about these films, which are essentially dramas but offer so much more about life and what it is to be human. Its often presented in black comedic form and that's the beauty of it.

It's the comic relief from life that keeps us alive (mentally & physically) and no other film highlight that importance. Similar examples to my own aspirations are cult films like; The United States Of Leland, The Squid And The Whale, Imaginary Heroes, Igby Goes Down, Thumbsucker, Storytelling, American Beauty, etc. Although they're not exactly what I want to do they are the closest examples. (It's this type of storytelling that's missing from the small screen. Hello Mr. T.V Executive!)

Anyway, getting back to the point- I thought it would be more useful writing something in the vein of what I wanted to write feature-wise (after I left uni) than something that‘s limited to something that I want to try someday. So that got me thinking and a few existing coming of age-like features came to mind. There’s a main bunch that I’ve been developing over the years and I‘ll probably choose one of those. But by having to pick one (if it works out) I feel that I’m choosing ‘to lose it’ - because I know if I write it for the university then there’s no chance of it existing outside - not to say that it's amazing and will be sold. But it's nice to know that every idea you have has a chance.

But the way I’m looking at it is that a) it can be used as a spec-script and b) it will give me experience of not only writing a feature but one in the vein of some of the serious projects that I want to write in the future. So I hope it will give me enough experience and knowledge and push me to write the others. On the other hand I may not even choose an existing idea I might even create something afresh, which would be pretty cool. But I think it is worth considering testing and fully exploring one of them.