The seminar session partially aimed for us to understand that story is character, shown in some of the shorts viewed. We were then asked to create a characteoil implement different to ourselves in session by answering something like 30 questions. This approach didn't really work for me, whilst it does start the thinking process of character, I found it too formal and formulaic giving a flat result, answering 30 questions about a made up character doesn't necessarily create depth, especially when rushed. So later that night I decided to try and put myself into the mindset of a real person who has a very different life to me, I then wrote a short story about a snippet of his everyday routine, whilst also thinking how to express this in a filmic way in writing, so whilst there is an element of dramatisation the character is still grounded in the real, leading to greater verisimilitude or believability. As follows;
This story starts. A man lying on a bench, eyes splitting open to the sun as it rises breaking through the crisp dark air, his tired beaten face ages him beyond his years. The sun offers no warmth to his heart, nor does his damp sleeping bag that lost its warmth many years before. He frowns, as feeling returns to his limbs hanging limp from the stretched bag. "Another day, I live another day". The sun progresses past the line, glaring into the viewers eyes, sparking pain in deepest depths of his mind, layers of repressed meaning that is no longer cared for. Dropping his bundled legs his body drags itself upwards, slumping against the bench in upright position. Staring into the sun, "I'm awake", he drops his gaze, the world sparkles in tiny droplets, a multitude of colour glistening with every movement, a hard frost. It covers the grass, it covers the path, traveling up his legs and onto his chest. Inhaling the air as if for the first time, what once was refreshing no longer chills, exhaling through a scarf his breath condensates frozen in time, hanging in the air, "still some warmth" he thinks. Muscles seized, bones aching, he fails to move, "I need to move", "why move" he thinks. Moving his body forwards his hand drops to the ground, cold and hard as ever, fumbling around the attached limb knocks a pure smooth yet hard, fragile bottle, catching it before it falls. He slumps backward tightening his grip, hitting the back of the bench hearing a crack, the bottle rises with the movement keeping its momentum he raises it to his lips, a strong smelling liquid fails to burn his hairs, perhaps anti freeze, he chuckles, "that's what I need". The cold liquid slips down his throat sparking alight, falling deeper down it filters, the fire is lit. The liquid warmth flows fire through his veins as the sunlight begins to haze, he feels, "it's time to move". He stretches his back, his body, down to his legs, dropping the rigid form he stretches out his arms and swings forwards into a stand. The sleeping bag drops to the ground stepping out his body creeks, "more oil required" he thinks.
I then thought this could be expanded to a playful short that jumps from character to character, for example a cyclist goes past the homeless guy and we get the cyclists story, probably in this case through symbolism, who then passes another character and so on, perhaps the last character having some connection to the first character.
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