I need opinions, critiques of my proposal for my class:

The film is about disillusionment and it critiques our generation. It will be shot in Super 8, B&W. There is no dialogue, only a voice over of our hero. The tone is not as serious as it sounds either, I'm going to incorporate some humor. The hero is an aspiring blue-collar writer (several shots of him at his mundane job, washing dishes, smoking on a break, getting yelled at by his boss), who wants to break cliches and make an original, exciting piece of work, be it poetry, a short story, or a play. He writes in his journal all the time, and is often frustrated. However, he realizes how broke he is, and the only thing him and his girlfriend can do is sell drugs for money. In essence, he becomes a cliche of our generation: a slacker, a stoner, lazy, etc, and abandons his writing in favor of money. He of course makes lots of money, only to be arrested by the police (along with the girlfriend) at the end of the film. The film is suppose to be 5-8 minutes long, nothing too dramatic. It sounds more complex than it really is...if I can write a decent voice over, that and the images will do most of the work for me.

I honestly would welcome intelligent criticism...I've been stressed out all week over this and I think I finally have something sensible. I had to make a statement, whether its decent or not. Mostly, it was images pouring into my head over the last week; I've changed my idea at least 6 times. It does sound like a simple idea, but presentation is an entirely different matter.

okay, here's what I'm thinking. Cut to, the dude behind bars

VO: this sucks ... man, this really sucks
VO: I know how I got here, I just can't figure out we finally slid down the slippery slope.
cut to the start of the story, hard-working dude and then have him explain what he's doing and go from there. I think the idea is solid, it just needs to be written well.

I was thinking about having the final frames be mugshots of our hero and his girlfriend.

As a fellow aspiring filmmaker, it sounds nearly impossible. If it was a two hour, or even a half hour film, then maybe. But being only 5 to 8 minutes, it just sounds damn difficult to convey that much information, emotion, and characterization.

With short films, I like to look at the opening scene to Reservoir Dogs with them all sitting around the table talking about tipping. It develops multiple characters personalities quite well in a short period of time. In order to do a 5 to 8 minute film like you propose and tell as much as you are trying to say, maybe looking at the intro to Amelie would be the best bet. Or maybe the climax montages from Paul Thomas Anderson Films. The begining of Raising Arizona, and segments from Trainspotting, Fight Club, and Goodfellas could give you some ideas. It still sounds nearly impossible to me, but I would love to see what you do with it. It just sounds like a very big concept for that short of a run time. But voiceover is the only way to do it I think. Have the scenes playing out very quickly while a narrator explains it all. I don't see any other possible way.

Right. The narrator will be the hero himself. It does sound ambitious, and pacing is definitely important. Remember, I will have no dialogue (I can't), and I will have to have the images telling the story for me. It does sound more complex than it will be...although pacing and keeping it within the time frame, or keeping it from dragging are going to be the biggest challenge. Thanks for the comments.

Another reason I thought it would be difficult, is because it seems like there would have to be a lot of scene changes and locations, and I am guessing you are probably on a tight budget.

Something I think would be interesting, (and I really like the story, this is just from a narrative perspective), would be to have the male and female protaginists both doing the voiceover. DO it as if they are both in prison, and talking to seperate lawyers about what occured. Then you could have this conflicting dialogue, and different representations of the same sitatuions. Between each few cuts switch from the male character to the female character. But that would be even more difficult with time constraints you are dealing with.

Another idea just for visual originality's sake. I always wanted to make a short film Hannah Barbara style. Meaning you just take one frame every second out of the 24, so it plays out almost like a comic book. I think that would work really well with voiceover. Just some ideas. When you finish this, put it up for us to see. And good luck, and stop stressing about it. Enjoy the process, and just go with the gut.