The Shopping Cart Diaries: Entry 4

Obama said it in 2008; I'm saying it now. It's time for a change. 

As I love to say in every post, we are amateurs, and as the great amateurs we are, we make some creative mistakes. What? People make mistakes? Yeah, they do get over it, well don't get over it do what you want with it.

My feelings exactly.

We were running our idea past our teacher, and all was going smoothly until we started talking about characters. For those of you who are new to this blog, let me fill you in! This is Little Sombrero Studios, our film is called "The Shopping Cart Diaries", it's a coming of age story that involves a journey in a shopping cart, and we wanted one actor to play all of the characters. Unfortunately the last component of our film that I just mentioned is now on the chopping block. 

What? That sounded so cool, why aren't you sticking with the one actor concept? In the process of developing our narrative we understood that the idea of a journey in a shopping is bizarre, but still quirky and intriguing. What we learned from our refreshingly honest, super knowledgable teacher is that people can only handle a certain level of weirdness in the films they watch. As we are the weirdest of the weird, we thought it was just right. But movie production is not just for us, it's for audiences to enjoy and to be able to respond to. Oh well, the adventure continues.

The Shopping Cart Diaries: Entry 3

There is a time and place for everything, but in the world of quirky films, time seems ambiguous.

Here at Little Sombrero we are #blessed to live in suburban America (sarcastic YEAH!). Indie films, the feel good quirky ones, tend to take place in suburban enclaves, so removed from city life, that even time hasn't reached them. Unfortunately in our case, the identical housing and constant back drop of strip malls makes our little slice of paradise look like a dystopian resort.

Without a diverse range of architecture at our disposal, we thought we could dodge the bullet by using older models of cars to  create a vague time period, but none of us own a "Little Miss Sunshine" VW van, and we don't plan on buying one either. That's when we bring in the shopping cart...

The shopping cart component of the "Shopping Cart Diaries" helps take our story out of time and place. It isolates our story from the current time, creating a classic timelessness that will last for generations. We aren't just creating two minutes of an exam; we're creating two minutes of a legacy.

Shopping Cart Diaries: Entry 2

We needed a character. Not just any character, but an outcast, a dork. Someone so loveable it hurts, but still relatable, because, you know, relatability is key.

Male leads seem to fit that description, more than women, so we opted for a male lead. Using one of our friends as our go to actor, we started to formulate the look of our character. Like most quirky film protagonists, his life sucks for someone who lives in the first world. He works a mundane job in retail, possibly lives at home with his parents, and follows the same hum drum routine day after freaking day. Sounds typical so far? Right?

That was our fear. We created the same character that Michael Cera's career is built upon. A younger version of Steve Carell's "Vin" from "The Forty Year Old Virgin." Then with a small tweak of his condition and little trip back to sophomore AP Psychology a brilliant yet risky idea popped in our noggins. Have our male lead play every character in the movie.

The idea is fresh, but not terribly new. Taking nods from Australian ABC's "Summer Heights High" and the BBC's "Orphan Black" we're studying and working on how a group of amateurs can pull this off. Wish us luck and stay on for the ride! 

The Shopping Cart Diaries: Entry 1

"Step 1: Have (barely) a kernel of an idea for a movie and send it to friends with whom you’d like to work.

Step 2: “Chew on it” and then hire actors to chew on it with you.

Step 3: Meet your producer on Thanksgiving so you can start preproduction five weeks later.

Step 4: Shoot your sci-fi-fantasy-romantic-dramedy in 15 days and premiere at Sundance.

Step 5: Secure theatrical and VOD distribution.

This is not a sure-fire way to get your film made and distributed, but it’s a good blueprint for the modern-day indie filmmaker: Gather people you trust and then make something."

The goal of any Indie director is to make it to the festival level. With a two minute time limit, that is obviously not in our future, but as the dreamer I am, I can't help but want to strive for that goal. So as the saying goes, "Monkey see, monkey do" I too can learn a thing or two from some hotshot Sundance filmmakers.

Like director Charlie McDowell, we began with a fraction of an idea, and we're still building upon, so I guess we are doing something right. But after this point we have no idea where to go.

We could follow steps two through five, but step four requires only fifteen days of shooting and then a large fancy screening in Utah, and we just don't have the budget for that. Considering the actual size of our project, we don't actually need any sort of budget at all. I guess no skiing for this creative team.

Realistic or not (Or nah?) McDowell does offer some great advice, and according to him making an Indie film doesn't seem so hard. But we are as amateur as amateur gets and maybe that will add some charm to our overall production, but it all work out...hopefully.

The Shopping Cart Diaries and the genres we define ourselves as

I thought I knew everything about the action thriller genre, until I realized that "Girls with Guns" was considered a subgenre of action thriller in its own right. Don't get too excited here at Little Sombrero Studios we aren't going for "Girls with Guns", we're not even doing action thriller. As three quirky friends sat around a computer movie database we toyed with film noir, turned down comedy, but secretly thought about doing a British comedy. We were lost.

We considered emulating the style of Sofia Coppola, with the story of an excessively powerful and criminal suburban high school cheating ring, but we couldn't follow through the story. Taking inspiration in coming of age stories like "Little Miss Sunshine" and the narration style of "Trainspotting" and an oddball idea that was lurking in my back pocket, we created "The Shopping Cart Diaries." 

As three strange teens ourselves, we decided that an Indie coming of age story only seems natural as we are all seniors and adulthood is upon us. Staying true to who we are, we hope you join us on the journey.