Deadlines and a newfound muse

I made it to the third and last step in the admission for the scriptwriting course for next year. It's an interview on the third of June.

Meanwhile, we're getting closer to the deadline for our short film "Vargens timma" and we've got a lot to do yet before it's even closed to finished, so I'm guessing we'll be working around the clock for the rest of the week. Although I have a couple of other things that I need to do as well, for one I still need to find a job. Also, I want to apply for a summer course in norm-criticizing theater performance at the theater school, and that deadline is the first of June. I have the interview that I mentioned. I need to work out a solution to my short/novella script and to do that I need to visit a funeral company and do some research.

Plus, I just had an idea for a really short short film that I need to write down as soon as possible so that I can get some feedback from my teachers before this course is over - I think this will be a perfect project to start with, because it's simple and short, it's got two characters and it's just one scene - I need to make a few shorter film projects that are cheap to get done, that I can show when I apply for funding for my larger projects down the line. And I usually have a really hard time thinking of shorter story ideas, all my ideas tend to involve complicated relationships and long character developments and stretch out to feature length, so I was really surprised when this idea came to me, practically finished, just like that, from a clear sky. It was like I'd been struck by a bolt of inspiration from a muse, and that never happens to me, ever! 

Right now, I'm waiting for Anja to get to school so that we can start working. She's already found one job and has been working three hours in the morning every day this week and I've been doing other stuff, and then we've worked on the short film in the afternoon and into the evening. And today she had a meeting as well, so it's going to be a late night tonight. But that's the business we're getting into and I'm not complaining! At least I'm not starving anymore!

Tedious everyday stuff.

Uploading my CV to different groups of retail companies' websites. I rather work in a café, especially over summer and autumn, but I'm in no position to be picky. Besides, one type of store that would be almost ideal for me and would be my dream job if making films weren't already... book stores! So, keep your fingers crossed for a position in one of those lining up for me. Looking for work is tiresome and discouraging. But now I'm going to replace my "new" pajamas (I got another bag of clothes from my sister-in-law, including a lovely pair of pajamas!) with something more respectable and head for school. Anja and I are working afternoons and evenings for three days now, because she already got a job and started this morning.

The scriptwriting course admission's third step will be announced this wednesday too. It's just an interview, and it's in Stockholm, so I'm actually hoping that I passed step two. So there's another reason to keep your fingers crossed.

Twenty-four.

So my 24th birthday came and went fairly quietly. I'd almost forgotten it myself in the morning. And then I was in school working wkith Anja. I'd got a bunch of Happys on Facebook that I only just saw and responded to now. And I got a text message from both my brothers respectively. And a phone call from each of my parents. And a proper birthday card in the mail, also from my parents. And Anja bought me a cup of coffee when we were taking a break from editing.

I can't believe I'm twenty-four. I'll be twenty-five next year. That's irreversibly and unquestionably grown-up. I don't feel very grown-up. I certainly don't act it most of the time. I guess those cliché quotes about age being a number and a state of mind and all that is true.

I've run into a pickle with my script. I don't know what to do with it. I have a strong mind to just discard the whole thing. But that would be giving up, and I'm trying not to do that as much any more. But even the post-it note thing isn't working out and I'm out of ideas and patience. 

Well, I should get some sleep. Got my nephew Theo's birthday party tomorrow, and my parents and little brother are taking me out to lunch before we're going over to my big brother's place for it, too.

Back

So by now we've finished shooting the short "Vargens timma", I'd meant to blog during the shoot and keep you updated on the process, but there wasn't time to, nor energy. One night we kept going well into the morning, and Anja and I stayed the night in the flat where we were filming, and that was the good day because it meant we got a few hours of extra sleep. But the shoot went well. The team was amazing. We got some great material. A couple of images in particular are awesome, so stay tuned for teaser trailer or film clip! So far we've only started syncing the images to the sounds, which is simple enough but takes FOREVER, and therefor we haven't been able to start editing yet...


We also had the pitch for 360 grader on friday. I'd given up on composing some sort of script for it and just had faith that I knew what my film was about and how I wanted it to look and I just went up and improvised. It went swimmingly. I felt really confident, even though I was extremely nervous before-hand. Same thing for Anja. In fact I think everyone were blown away by the fact that we both "took the stage" with such ease and confidence, no longer playing the insecure little shy girls that people have seen us as, and it felt really liberating. And even if I faked the confidence when I first went up, I found it for real as I stood there. And afterwards when Anja and I were congratulating each other on a job well done, a classmate of ours did this subconsciously patronizing thing that happens so often, he laughed and commented in the sort of voice you use to talk to kids or puppies and said we were cute, and both Anja and I instinctively put him right and told him not to say stuff like that, and he obviously felt bad because it wasn't his conscious intention, but that's so typical. When a girl has a victory she's "cute" but when a guy has the same victory he gets a heartfelt slap on the shoulder and a "Good work" that isn't high-pitched at all.


I've also applied to a scriptwriter's course for next year, as you know. And I moved on to stage two in the admission. We had to analyze a script of our choice and write down our thoughts on it in relation to our own writing, I chose "The indian runner" and started out praising the strong lead characters and their complex relationship and the plot as a whole, but ended up criticizing  it for its stereotypically two-dimensional female characters put into the story only to accentuate the male characters further (made a parallel to Lars Norén's female characters, for those of you familiar with his plays, as well as the female characters in the Bible) and ended the whole feminist manifesto saying scripts like this made me not want to, but feel the need to write my own scripts, just as powerful but with the paper dolls a.k.a. female characters taken out and replaced by actual three-dimensional human beings with minds of their own, because I can't relate to the two female leads in The Indian Runner at all, I can relate to Frank (played by Viggo Mortensen) and even Joe (played by David Morse) because they're stereotypically human, as opposed to stereotypically male. Maybe I came on a bit too strong, but as I told Cesar in an email a few hours ago, if they end up accepting me into the course, they might as well be prepared for what they're taking on, right... We also had to write a scene between 2-3 characters with the theme jealousy. So I struggled with that yesterday and managed to convert it to pdf as well and got it sent off just in time for the deadline!

Going home for the day now. Should be doing yoga, but don't think I'll make it in time. Should also eat something, but don't think I have much food left in my cupboards. I have rice, I think. And soured milk, some at least. And salsa. All very yummy! Especially combined!