Of course, Cumha wasn't the only idea we had. As we were planning our first idea, another idea came and we had to compare the two and eliminate one.
Our other idea wasn't based off one story in particular, but off a common trope in old Irish folk stories. Very typically in old folk stories, the hero will come across a mysterious woman on the road, they will speak briefly, she will give him advice, and then he will move on. Once he looks back, she's suddenly gone.
This second idea was a comedy piece; the plot was that a young man fascinated by Irish folk stories meets a girl by a bus stop who suddenly vanishes. Convinced he's met some kind of fairy queen, he sets off on an 'adventure' to find her again. At the end of the movie it's revealed she didn't vanish, she simply stooped down and he missed her when she straightened up again.
This piece is a lot more similar to last year's piece we did - a romantic comedy with fairly simple camera angles. I, personally, wasn't very interested in this piece, even though I prefer comedies to the kind of desolate romantic movie Cumha would be.
What I learnt from last year is that it's hard to get comedies right, because if it relies on one big joke, as our idea would be, it's very easy for the whole thing to fall flat. I also felt that although the plot was more interesting than Cumha's, it would be boring to shot and wouldn't show off how much we learnt in terms of camera angles and shot types.
While Cumha is more straight forward and not as exciting, from the first time it was mentioned we had interesting ideas and shot types to try; close ups and using the focus on the camera to draw attention to photos instead of people, as well as using flashbacks to tell the story instead of a script.
Having a script heavy piece last year was very difficult, we didn't have professional actors and we didn't have microphones, and admittedly I was very reluctant to go through that again. The idea of making Cumha a silent movie was interesting from both a practical and an artist point of view, whereas doing the comedy piece would mean having to rely on a script as much as we could.
In the end, we just had more ideas for Cumha. We took a vote and Cumha won, and the folklore comedy was left on the cutting room floor.
While Cumha is more straight forward and not as exciting, from the first time it was mentioned we had interesting ideas and shot types to try; close ups and using the focus on the camera to draw attention to photos instead of people, as well as using flashbacks to tell the story instead of a script.
Having a script heavy piece last year was very difficult, we didn't have professional actors and we didn't have microphones, and admittedly I was very reluctant to go through that again. The idea of making Cumha a silent movie was interesting from both a practical and an artist point of view, whereas doing the comedy piece would mean having to rely on a script as much as we could.
In the end, we just had more ideas for Cumha. We took a vote and Cumha won, and the folklore comedy was left on the cutting room floor.
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