I recently released my first short film, entitled the Birth of an Omelette, it has been one of my more satisfying accomplishments mostly because of the people I have shared it with. The generous compliments and recognition that I'm not used to receiving have been interesting as well but honestly the biggest compliment is just that you sat there and watched the whole thing. I came into it with such a concise plot and plan I was honestly upset I could not finish it as it was written. Thank you Bolex. But now, given its warm reception from everyone from the french krew to churchgoers back home I can offer an unprecedented insight into the film's birth for a loyal fan and as a personal retrospection.
The first movie I was planning on making for CMP222 was a love story, in which basically a tree playing matchmaker to two lonesome souls hurt by the same whore, one was a roomate and the other a crush. Initially I just wanted someone to fall in love with a tree but I couldn't write 5 pages without dialogue to justify even considering making that film. There aren't enough beautiful shots in the world to fill a story that strange and immobile. Nevertheless, love remained a theme in my mind. So time went by, I managed to do some pre-production on the matchmaking tree to keep my grade and engagement up, and as I always knew I would, I reached a point when I could not work on that movie anymore.
As I fuddled through the semester, the animated feature How To Train Your Dragon was released and I read an incredibly comprehensive review of the fantasy world one morning in USA today. It is good for fiction okay. In discussion of this movie with my friend Eric (not myself) I thought about how I needed to write a new 222, within a week. We spoke over breakfast and I imagined a boy who could be in love. First with a dragon, he could teach it tricks, he could play baseball with it, the possibilities were endless. As logistics bore down on my creativity I cracked open a shell that morning before Easter Sunday and I asked myself, where do dragon's come from? An egg deep in our imagination.
All of the meanings an egg already has in our minds, all of the creatures it could become, and all the fates the many millions before this one made it incredibly easy to write a movie around. If I am the first to have done it, well... I'll be damned.
As for the sound design, I didn't think about it until I was essentially completely done editing the visuals in silence. I took my time selecting music that best fit the peculiar moods of the film and made a few adjustments with the video to synch up to the various soundtracks, like I duplicated the trash can peep dance so that it would run the length of the chant. The church music, and a bad choir at that, really made me smile in remembrance of the belief system that was engrained in me as a kid, and how church has been both incredibly boring and incredibly beautiful. So it was chosen for its personal connection. One of the last things I did was put Pascal (Dylan) to sleep in the fade out of the choir because that song is a snore. I also tried to make a really strange chord out of the end of the harp arpeggio combined with the beginning of Railroad Earth.
I probably had the most fun shooting the scene that didn't even make it in the movie in which Pascal gets bombarded from that window and you'll never know the rest. Finding the right horse trotting noise was pretty entertaining as well. Thank you to everyone who helped me realize this peice I couldn't have done it without Dylan and Etienne especially, and Julia who made the endearing peeplets, the nest and the crown. I am grateful to have connected with so many people as you are.
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