Mind your Head: Incorporating the works of Charlie Kaufman

1. Mind your Head:Incorporating the works of Charlie Kaufman By Lana Oggelsby

2. Contents • Introduction: Proposal • Practitioners • Concept • Research • Production skills • Schedule • Conclusion: Overall Product

3. Introduction: Proposal By using the inspiration from screenwriter Charlie Kaufman I will be writing two 4-6 minute long scripts, one for film and the other for radio. I will look at ideas exploring the mind to determine if a script in the style of Kaufman will suit a film or radio production.

4. Charlie Kaufman as Practitioner “Charlie Kaufman has won wide acclaim for creating inventive, elaborately surreal scenarios in which he composes unexpectedly nuanced portraits of the emotional lives of his characters – people who are deeply flawed and also profoundly compelling. In his films, Kaufman unapologetically dramatizes the truths of human life – its contradictions, confusions, and occasional insight. Perhaps most surprisingly and usefully, though, Kaufman has transformed our sense of what can take place in a film by affecting our understanding of the role of the screenwriter.” (LaRocca, 2011)

5. The Concept If you give into temptation you will be consumed by your inner most fears. The idea that if a person who has purposely forgotten events from their past is to remember them these memories will consume that individual. In my scripts the character of Charlie has forgotten his abusive past he goes on a journey through his mind and is forced to remember what he had previously forgotten, by doing this he is physically consumed by his father the source of his abuse as a child.

6. Research • Charlie Kaufman • Repressed memories • Child abuse • Freud’s Psychoanalytic theory – The id, the ego and the superego • The mythological Greek God Cronus

7. Production Skills • Scriptwriting • Audio/ Voice directing • Sound editing • Directing • Editing

8. Schedule • 24th November – 30th November: further research on the id, the ego and the superego. Redrafting scripts to build in Freud’s theory. • 1st December – 7th December: research, develop scripts to a production draft standard, chose primary script to use for the remainder of the project. • 8th December – 14th December: begin planning for the production. Find actors, locations (if necessary) etc. • Christmas break: further planning into production. Decide a directorial approach to chosen script. • 7th January – 20th January: Film/ record production • 21st January – 10th February: Edit Production • 11th February – 14th March: Re-draft, re-film, re-edit • 15th March: individual project due in

9. Conclusion: Overall Product • Using Charlie Kaufman as practitioner and incorporating his work into my short story. • Development of Screenwriting of two 4-6 minute long scripts to production stage. • Choose between film and radio script • Produce either: • 1. A 4-6 minute long Radio drama • 2. Test shots for a 4-6 minute long film • 3. A mixture of radio and film test scenes

10. References • Berg, H. D., 2003. Freud’s Theory and its use in Literacy and Cultural Studies: An Introduction. Rochester and Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer • Child, D. A., 2010. Charlie Kaufman: Confessions of a Ordinary Mind. California: ABC- CLIO • LaRocca, D., ed. 2011. The philosophy of Charlie Kaufman. Kentucky: The university Press of Kentucky. • McKee, R., 1998. Story: Substance, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. London: Methuen Publishing • Cavendish, M., 2005. Gods, Goddesses and Mythology. New York: Marshall Cavendish Corporation