First and Second Drafts - Why Don't They Work?

In discussions with my collaborative group, regarding current world affairs, we felt maybe creating a film too entirely frustrating might be not the best idea. Also, the practicality of this idea faltered, in the original proposal pre- COVID 19. The film was to be displayed in a cinema where people would be unable to leave and be forced to watch. However, if the film was to be distributed online people could turn it off, or scroll through entirely defeating the object of some ideas like the long black space.

The two clips below presented my example ideas for the editing of the project and although some elements were frustrating I'd seemed to miss the mark and neither of the drafts seemed to work.

In our group discussions, I had to reassess what frustration actually was. The two dictionary definitions were as follows:

1. 'The feeling of being upset or annoyed as a result of being unable to change or achieve something'

2. 'The prevention of the progress, success, or fulfilment of something'

The issue with both drafts was although the clips worked individually, they both lacked a clear direction of where the film was going and having no underlying narratives like in the examples I looked at such as Hypernormalisation or Montage of Heck. Which would keep the audience long enough for them to be frustrated by the film instead of feeling confused. Matt suggested looking at the opening monologue of American Beauty [1999] Sam Mendes as an example of keeping the audience interested in the visual language happening on screen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blpXcAOKgl8

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/e1647e_1d71353bf30543ccbad8b538ae8de3fd/720p/mp4/file.mp4

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/e1647e_b54b98f606604831a68df535c04f6b3c/720p/mp4/file.mp4