Formulating an idea ...

Every good film needs substance and a good story behind it. Without a point - or a "so what?" - why bother making a film? My idea, then, and my "so what?", is to point out and criticize the vices and flaws of the American education system through the genre of satire. I came to the decision to move forward with this idea for a few main reasons:

1. First and foremost, I decided that I wanted my film opening to be dialogue-heavy. While I'm fully aware of the difficulty of this task and it's intricacy, I'm going to attempt to feat it anyways because that's my personal passion as a filmmaker. My strong suit in all subjects is writing, and when it comes to film I love writing screenplay. Over the summer, I pitched my short film idea with a read through of its script, and it was chosen by the film program class to be developed into our film. Because of this, I have confidence in my ability to create engaging dialogue exchange between characters in a minimal setting.
2. Second, I decided on the setting. This is because one of the ultimate downfalls of young/inexperienced filmmakers is attempting to bite off more than they can chew. That being said, I know that my area of strength is screenplay, and that should be the focus of what I develop. This lends itself to a minimal setting that doesn't require anything not feasible to create throughout production. In addition, minimal distracting elements narrows and focuses viewers' attention on the dialogue and material being presented. With all of this in mind, I decided on an elevator as the setting for the dialogue exchange.
3. Next came deciding on a genre, and, in the end, I chose satire. I'm a bit nervous about pursuing this genre because I know it's not only difficult to create as a writer, but there's also no guarantee people who watch will understand the underlying message. Unfortunately for me, I'm not one to shy away from a challenge, and despite the obstacles and confusion I'm bound to face upon developing this project, I'm going to go for it anyways. I came across my spurt of inspiration to write a satire while reading the novel Catch-22 in my AP Language class - I'm beyond fond of the novel and find the writing/dialogue/rhetoric/themes of it to be absolutely genius. My goal is to replicate its essence in my screenplay and convey a powerful message through the use of comedy.
4. When writing satire, you have to have something to satirize. Excuse my side tangent here, I promise it's relevant - I'm not good at the Twitter thing. I created it about a month ago to feel more included in the culture of my fellow hip peers, but the subculture still confounds me to an extent. However, there are two tweets of mine that seemed to garner a good amount of attention and appreciation, and both were about the same subject: the education system (tweet 1, tweet 2). With this observation in mind, I casually mentioned the subject around my peers, and found a common thread of opinion: there are very, very few students who genuinely have an appreciation for our education system. With target audience in mind and a personal passion for education reform, I decided to satirize the eduction system.