Recent posts explore the motivations behind finishing / not finishing Daughter of God. Dedicating an hour to daily introspection makes sense, meanwhile the urge to edit builds. If finishing is really so important, why don’t I just finish? Rather than trying to hack the running time in half, we could go with the working episodal version, running time 26:40. At 1:15 the ending credits are way too long and stripping away unsightly scene fat could even yield another minute or more. That means there’s room enough to wedge in a just enough background / exposition to sew the story tight. So let’s have another look.
There are long takes of Christina from only one camera. We’re stuck with the pacing (plodding in parts) unless we can devise cutaways to tighten her delivery. I’m actually looking for opportunities to lay in backstory so maybe (maybe) there’s an opportunity here.
Revising the script might be more efficient than actually trying to edit the pilot on the fly with placeholders.
Another cool thing about staying with the episodal length is that it’s closer to a feature than a short, which is more of where I want to be anyway, far as directorial experience is concerned. Course, this creams my festival strategy but maybe it’s better to just finish than try to make my first movie into some sort of multi-tool. I started out with a 10 minute script but when the ship came into the picture, I welded on a wad of backstory and business that took it way over 10 minutes. Ask for pensive and slightly hesitant performance and the whole thing sort of stretches out. Now we gotta make those choices fly. I accept that it’s gotta be long, if the blueprint specifies a motorcycle, I can’t very easily build a bicycle instead. I’ve gotta accept that DOG is a motorcycle and just move forward. Originally I thought that making it shorter would mean less VFX hours, but it’s a much bigger hassle to slash away chunks of dialogue and still have something coherent.
Here are elements.
PKD
At the end with G and C there’s the Philip K business, why G decides to go ahead. It’s all out of the blue unless we get some reference early on. I just thought it could stand alone, but it wants to be part of a round trip. Therefor, Christina as a child being read PKD by Uncle Joe in early scene. This could be over shots of still life apocalypse, Christina’s reverie. Nice passage from Radio Free Albemuth, prologue.
Shortwave
It’s in the phones, it’s how the world communicates. We have plenty enough recorded. I like the changing sequence and it wouldn’t hurt to have an introduction to shortwave up front, at the start. How does that square with PKD bedtime story? Two audio tracks that fade in and out of each other? Keep it simple. Could we start with radio broadcasts that take us around the world, the different voices (ethnicities) suggesting shifting geographies? Then how do we get into bedtime story, is it a flashback? Antennas in varying locations, we hop around to different refugee locations until eventually landing on our boat. This is all in Christina’s head?
Creaks
The creaking cabin when Christina open for Joe is great, the squeaking bed, every moving thing could have an over the top squeak, there’s nothing slippery any more, end of oil. Maybe folks like the creaks and squeaks because… Add squeak to PKD drawer. It’s random business, but maybe it will find a home.
Crashing glass
This really isn’t doing much for me and I wonder if perhaps it’s better off cut. What’s the point, what’s it saying about Gerry? Shouldn’t we see more glass around him in the cabin? What does breaking glass have to do with Gerry, anything? Sure he’s a maker / chemist / engineer/ electro geek but we can build up more? Can we hint at his imminent translation? Perhaps even the grandma china in the tea ceremony fits, but what does all this glass tell us? Is he fragile? Why does he keep breaking things? How does crashing glass relate to squeaks?
Other
Bra schtick has got to go
C’s fade on in turn away to abrupt (?)
Gerry silhouette on top of ship when she approaches – we can see but she can’t
Apocalypse – What do the shots tell us? What do we want to say?
The earth makes everything right. Healing power of wilderness. Leave it alone.
Water and bricks = buildings submerged
Cruise ship on canyon = tsunami, time passage
highway = civilization grinds to a halt
old school post industrial shots can be fast forwarded with relevant graffitti