The KeskarelAMovie project has evolved. The frozen chicken, sadly, has gone the way of the Dodo. The evolutionary process that began the first time one of the characters changed the storyline in the middle of an improv session, continued when the Storyboard was complete and AD Chris began writing the script, with Mike as dramaturge, and sylvia, as she promised Mike + Chris, hands-off in her new role as only-the-producer. Mike summarizes status:
sylvia is busy with solo projects and likely will only be producer and crew on the Keskarel Project in its new incarnation, but, we hope the rest of our cast - Diana, Nidal, Nima, Sapna & Steve - will like the new scripts for shorts.The two of us, Mike and Chris, have decided to reduce the scope of the project to a short film derived from one piece of the Keskarel screen play. Our plan is to focus on the Therapist and two of his clients/patients as they attempt to work through a marital dispute (Note: This scene has not been published in the blog in order to preserve Chris' copyright. As scriptwriter, Chris opted to replace Hamlet + Ophelia as the noisy neighbors.). The climax of their therapy is interrupted by the intervention of their disgruntled neighbors, Keskarel and the videographer. This preserves much of our original planned ending for the feature length film, and does not exclude the possibility of eventually filming more from the feature length storyboard of Keskarel. However Mike and Chris are not interested in working on that story at this time.This change in plans was agreed upon by Mike and Chris for several reasons. One reason being the amount of work and finances needed to produce a feature length story. On top of these practical hurdles, Mike and Chris are still not happy with the current version of the Keskarel screen play. It is really more of a character study than a story with a plot. And without an interesting plot, we feel there is not a compelling drama.Mike and Chris both believe that the story arc for the Keskarel character could be developed. And we have specific ideas how to do this. However, neither Mike nor Chris are very interested in working on that kind of story. We prefer to work on the part of the story that we find the most interesting, which is the Therapist sub-plot.One strategy we are currently discussing is to build up the "Keskarel" project as a group of short stories which are interwoven or loosely connected. Each short story can be approached as it's own short film project. These shorts can either be edited together into a feature length film or presented separately as stand-alone short films.In addition to the Therapist story, we want to film another short segment involving a character from a short story by Chris. This segment is surrealistic and may or may not connect well to the other story by the time we complete it. However, the point of this is to make short films that are complete and finished rather than to continue making storyboards.
