Psychoanalytical Film Ideas

Idea 1

Taking inspiration from films like the Machinist and Memento, I thought of a short narrative about a person who is constantly over planning/ thinking the things he does in his daily life, leaving notes and lists for himself everywhere either in their room or house to remind them to do things everyday, to the extent where the leaving of the notes becomes obsessive and they start noting down everything that they do and need to do. It could centre on just a few moments of his life or even a full day if condensed down enough as I would only have 5 minutes to film, I could use rapid quick shots to show all of the notes, reminders that the character leaves themselves. One of the things to consider is available space because if the entirety of the film will take place in one room then the size of the room must be taken into account, if the space available is larger however then this won't need to be considered as much. Another thing is what would be written on the reminders, it could either be simple mundane things like "go to work" or it could be incredibly specific things and these specific notes could mention minute details such as perhaps the exact amount of pages to read in a book, to show the obsession of planning and organising the characters life. The thing about this idea is that it would be very achievable as it could only use 1 actor and only more if needed also it would be focused in a single area so locations would only be a problem if it was somewhere where I would need permission in which case I would need release forms to be signed, although I would be able to get all of my footage from that one location if I'm choosing to centre it on one characters life and how they organise it so the location would only need to be their place of work or home. Also this idea could give me the opportunity to use various kinds of editing techniques to make the film more interesting or give it a sense of pacing e.g. by using long shots and slow cuts, the film would seem to run quite slowly but then I could speed up the pace by making faster and faster cuts and editing showing more different shots of the subjects to give the film a faster pace. As for dialogue options I thought that if I went through with this Idea I would mainly use a voice over to describe the situation when needed and would probably just use the visuals to tell the story, the voice over could just be used as a backup means of describing the narrative.

Idea 2

Again taking inspiration from the Machinist but also partly from Fight Club as well I thought of an alternate idea for my psychoanalytical film, it would mostly focus on Freud's theory of the ego, id and super-ego where the character would have a split personality as his id or super ego would manifest itself. The narrative could revolve around the character slowly losing his mind through insomnia such as in Fight Club and the Machinist, the character could be facing some personal guilt after possibly committing a crime and is repressing his memory of it, causing his id or super-ego to surface and manifest itself. The narrative could become circular such as in Memento, where the character is in a constant cycle that they can't break due to their unconscious preventing them from doing so until they have realised their guilt. In terms of actors I would most likely need to recruit at least 2 characters one to play the main character (ego) and another to play their id or super-ego, also I may need to have sub characters included as well to possibly add to the narrative structure, although at least two actors would be needed to play the main roles, possibly people who look like each other or perhaps the complete opposite for a better effect and comparison between the ego and id. One difficulty might be managing to complete this within a 5 minute run time as I would need to make the narrative progress very quickly, also locations may be a problem as there is the possibility I may need a location that requires permission such as a bar which would prevent me from filming in that location. As for dialogue options it would be easier to use a voice over to tell the story and also use the visuals to my advantage as the dialogue would need to be very scripted in order to give it meaning and the actors would need to be able to deliver it without any problems, so either the use of a voice over or simply using non diegetic music and letting the visuals show the narrative would be a more effective approach.