1. Historical background (500-1000 words). Here if where you submit a short report on the actual historical events in question and why it’s important to history. If possible, reference your source material for the movie. You can use the standard five-paragraph format if you wish. Your thesis revolves around why this person or event is historically significant, which is say why does it deserve to be remembered for generations to come? Including an important quote or two from the source material will help immensely in conveying the richness of this history.
2. Film adaptation in three acts (500-1000). Here is where you adapt history into a two-hour-long film with three acts. As you’ve seen from the films we’ve watched, there is a lot of compression and creativity required to fit history into a motion picture format.
a. Real history involves lots of people, but a movie, like a play, only has a handful of main characters.
b. There is a central problem that the main character has to tackle, but in a well-done film, there are sometimes other subplots. In JFK, the main subplot is District Attorney Jim Garrison struggling to find a work-life balance, to convince himself and others that solving the murder of President Kennedy justifies his absence from life at home. In Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, the main story is an immigrant rags to riches story. There is also the subplot of overcoming racism, the romance with Linda, of defeating the demon that curses his family, and discovering what work-life balance means for a man.
c. There must be supporting characters. Historical films need good supporting characters. Recent films like W. and VICE have a difficult time figuring this out because people are still alive, so there’s more pressure to include more real-life characters. In films covering the more distant past, or histories outside of the mainstream, filmmakers feel more comfortable removing a lot of real-life people to help improve the dramatic quality. This is the case with SELMA, in which we know who these few supporting characters are even we don’t know all their names (President Lyndon Johnson, Governor George Wallace, John Lewis, Coretta Scott King, etc). Make sure you indicate who these supporting characters will be and how their interactions help develop the main character and the plot. In Brian Palma’s version of the Untouchables, there is really only Elliott Ness, Al Capone, and Malone. The rest are minor characters, and fictional at that.
d. Remember the three act structure. If you need more info, please read the PDF below.
e. You can’t cover the entirety of someone’s life, so choose strategically where to begin and end. In many historical films, there is an epilogue that lasts a few minutes that covers the aftermath. Usually it’s narration or a few title cards. Please share specifically what these cards will tell us.
f. Think about the type of film narrative/genre you want to employ. There are courtroom drams, mysteries, dark comedies, musicals, epics, confessions, and more. Decide what will work best. How will you know which will work best? You’ll know because you’ll be drawing from the films you’ve watched this summer plus all the films you’ve watched your entire life, which leads us to the last section.
3. Films that inspired your creative process in developing this film proposal (100-500 words). This can be in terms of style and/or content. For example, maybe you love the editing style of JFK, or you like the dark humor of VICE, or the fairy tale quality of McFARLAND (which is indeed a Disney film), or the gritty realism of STAND AND DELIVER or the intentionally modern interpretation of IRON-JAWED ANGELS. Here is where you will provide at least three films that in whose footsteps you want your film to follow
A sample will be in the uploaded files
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