Ideas for title: The Little Cheese
Actors needed: 3 guys and 1 girl for main story – 1 guy for filmmaker sub story – 6/7 actors for
filmmaker’s films.
Short film idea:
About 4 students- 3 guys and 1 girl who are a study group for their upcoming English exam on pride
and prejudice. Instead of actually studying they just talk about random stuff and as a result they all
fail the exam except for the girl (?)
Set in one room – shows different days of the study group – ends with scene on the bridge where
they are comparing grades
- consider starting the film with establishing type shots ie wide shots of in and around the college
kind of like at the beginning of midnight in paris
For one of the FM’s films’ have Sara Rantchi wear a (ideally yellow turtle neck) dress and her hair
down with red lipstick against a yellow (ideally orange) background – shoot her in close up like
Masculine Femmine and have her talking to a guy who is off-screen . She says something to the
effect of ‘I…never thought about you in that way _ I always saw you as a friend.. ’ – you get the drift
- have a scene where two of them are playing chess while the other two are discussing tetsuo.
- have a scene where Girl does Hamlet’s monologue for a drama audition for the guys and they all
clap – frame it like Darjeeling limited. They say that One can do Annie Hall monologue because he’s a
big woody allen fan.
- the shots of the four doing the exam is to be done with four shots for each person, each one closer
than the last from the overhead. The shots cut to a ticking clock. Like in Blow Out.
--play California dreaming song in the background low volume during the filmmaker interview.
Ideas for filmmaker’s films to use in the interview part:
The bit where it shows FM shooting a movie could be set on the bridge.
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Girl goes over to boy who seems to be sleeping on his desk at the computer, she goes over
to him and turns him over, the camera zooms into his face to shows that he’s dead with
blood coming out of his eyes.
Set in the slanted area on the beckton alps, where the trees are all slanted. Shoot it in high
contrast b/w like Bergman’s Winter Light or Wild Straw – A man in a hat wearing a fedora is
seen running away from the back and we hear a gunshot and he falls flat down like in a
Godard film and at the end we see a smoking gun revealing the gun and the hand of the
shooter.
A girl and boy are standing looking at the lake. Wide shot like in a Kitano film. Girl’s Voice
over says ’And that’s when I realised that I was in love with him’

Final one of me sitting at a table with a cigarette in my hand and a ash tray on the table with
a movie poster on the wall behind me, I sit there in silence waiting for the person in front of
me, he finally says ‘Ok you’ve got a deal’ (maybe wear sunglasses if I can)
Try to make this one more visual – use color posters to stick on the walls to add color to the shots
i.e. pinks/blues like in chungking express
The girl ends up acting in FM film in the end
-
In the filmmaker interview he talks about; how student films with realistic dialogue always
ge compared to tarantino regardless, the stigma Is that kids copy tarantino but if you look at
most student films on vimeo its always tarchovsky they’re copying. I saw a 5 minute film of
just grass blowing in the wind in slow motion with blondie playing in the background. But my
biggest gripe is that young indie filmmakers don’t get that much respect because they think
that with the technology being so cheap now , any old smho can be a director but it still
takes real talent and perseverance- the interviewers phone rings ‘eh Barry how you doing
boy?...No I’m not busy what is it?’ - cut
And shoot the corridor scenes in the orange part or the colourful parts
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Use The song of the road (pather panchali theme) in the scene after the exams where everyone
is in the pond area at newvic. Have a shot of a guy playing with the water in the pond and have
another shot of him from far behind like in the virgin spring when the father is asking god way.
Use the intro to Band A Parte style in the film, possibly at the end for the titles.
Dialogues:
Start with French girl teaching one guy French. He wants to go to paris ever since seeing tha woody
allen film so he’s learning French by listening to French radio and watching French movies. Main
guys askes for his copy of le cercle rouge back which one guy borrowed, he says he’ll give it back
-
That dvd was from a collectors box set, I want it in the same condition I gave it to you in.
-don’t worry, I’ve already seen it, I just keep forgetting to bring it in.
They tell the girl that they only do P&P and not the poetry stuff. Simon has another extra
class where he goes over that stuff.
Might start with the line – ‘for a serial killer he damn fine-lookin guy’ talking about Matthew’s bbc
documentary about him being a serial killer.
One guy just came back from holiday in America where he has been following ska bands in Florida,
they talk about him going to see the supervillains and that they sang a cover of Movin out –
What’s moving out? – It’s another name for Antony’s song etc
Another guys says ; I saw this show last night (talking funny) with ricky gervais where Louis ck talks
about guy who sings sitting on a cock cos I’m gay.
A girl walks in and asks if this is the study group, she’s not convinced – the English study group for
pride and prejudice? Yes – you don’t look like you’re studying?
__
One guys goes to the toilet, he comes out and we follow him there and back
__
It’s not that I’m a clean living guy and don’t smoke weed, I just don’t know where to get it
__
Do you want a Satsuma?
__
Why does your Can have tape on it? – Because we can’t show brand logos on film because of
copyright laws, - she looks back at the camera and says ‘oh okay’.
I am so blind that I wore my sister's trouser as a scarf
__
Filmmaker is looking for sara smith to act in his film, asks main guy for help. He finds out that she
isn’t real but something the school computer system makes up to even the numbers so it’s easier for
it to calculate timetables. Mr H who is a student drama teacher tells the filmmaker about sara as a
joke. Main guy asks what happened to Chris who is the main drama teacher and filmmaker explains
that Mr H is just doing his training here; he isn’t yet a proper teacher yet(during that cut to drama
class with Mr H). The guys joke around that Mr H actually stands for Hitler since he is a German. Main
guys friend asks why he doesn’t act in filmmakers film since he asked him to. He replys that romantic
comedy isn’t my cup of meat.
__
-Why do they make us study this crap?
Because James Joyce is too long and Captain Underpants is too dumb, this is somewhere in the
middle, easy to read and analyse yet considered a classic.
- you know it’d be cool if we studied science fiction
But it’d just be classical science fiction like Ubik or Solaris, then you might aswell drop literature and
take up philosophy
-What about Shakespeare, why don’t we do that? Atleast there is a lot of sex and violence in that.
Oh yeah , you will be doing Shakespeare, everyone does Shakespeare, you can’t escape it its
compulsory.
-Isn’t that harder though?
See the thing is, a lot of people forget the fact that he wrote plays, plays which should be performed
not novels to be read. Then you don’t have to worry about the actual script in itself, you just got to
know that the play could be interpreted in different ways by different actors and directors over the
ages, watching Hamlet being performed in the 1600s and watching Ethan Hawke is gonna be
completely different, once you understand that it’s not so hard.
-yeah but when you strip it down to its core its essentially the same thing though, its still about his
inner struggle
Well yeah, and the fact that people can still relate to him is why it’s a classic.
-same thing in Macbeth, its about temptation, power and marriage – all stuff we can still relate to
I didn’t read Macbeth (drinks coke)
-but you know the basic story
Yeah I’ve seen a film once, long time ago thought
-which one?
Roman Polanski version
-oh
What?
-he’s like a child molester or something innit
Yeah I don’t know the full facts but I think he’s been accused of doing something like that.
--there were drugs involved as well I think
Yeah so the little guy makes good films
-he hasn’t made a good film since Chinatown
The pianist, that won an Oscar
-yeah but that’s cos its about the holocaust, every movie about the holocaust gets an Oscar, a
nomination at the very least
--Frantic was pretty good
They go on to talk about how frantic is a lot like Hitchcock films and that it was a tribute to
Hitchcock. They talk about their favourite H film which Is Dial M for Murder. They go on to talk about
what was wrong with the perfect murder plan and second guy and girl go on to act out the scene
where Grace Kelly is getting strangled.
-see tony wendice thought that killing a girl will be quick and easy like in the movies, even if he had a
knife and slit her throat Friday the 13th style it would be too messy. But strangling her with a scarf,
that’s easier said than done. He’s obviously stronger than Grace Kelly but she is gonna try to free
herself and she would use anything in her surroundings to help her, like the scissors. And people
really underestimate how long it takes to strangle someone to death, and it’s probably more
personal than using a knife, you can actually feel her dying. If you wanna kill someone efficiently,
you don’t strangle them specially when time is a factor because then it becomes a whole different
thing. You don’t just want to kill them, you want to really fucking hurt them and see there pain and
you wanna enjoy it, then it becomes this psychopath sadistic thing and Swan isn’t a sadist , he isn’t
even a contract killer and if Wendice knew any better he would’ve hired a professional.
__
There is a bit where they say they should ask Lars Von Trair to join the study group because he
would help them because he is the smartest guy in school. Cut to Hugo Slitz like scene, where Lars is
explained by narration to be a former juvenile delinquent who’s gone straight, now he doesn’t talk
to anyone, just comes to school early every day and goes straight to the library to read books, that’s
how he’s become so smart. He’s now a completely changed man. The reason why his peers call him
Lars V T is because of his striking resemblance to the infamous Danish filmmaker.
__
Talking about matthew in the beginning – he used to send hate mail to Richard dawkins every week.
__
A bit where two of them argue about the film Tetsuo, one says it’s an analogy for puberty because of
the symbolism eg. Shaving, drill – the other says that its just a Japanese rip off of Eraserhead and
says although its scary that’s because of its cinematography and clever use of sound.
__
End scene on the bridge where they get main guys results and he saus even though he failed he still
has his dignity.
_
Bit where main guy and girl both go to toilet, girl comes back and picks up her bag and jacket and
says that she has to go now, shortly afterwards the guy comes back, they think he just had sex – ‘let
me smell your penis’ – girl gets up to go to get a drink of water not to the toilet because she says
‘these pretzels are making me thirsty’
_
Bit where girl replys to the fact that one guy just came back from florida by saying that she’s been to
florida before once but it sucked because she contracted (conjunctivitis) pink eye by swimming in
the pool and had to stay in her hotel room for the week before going home. One guy asks how she
got that and she replys ‘some dirty kids shit particles got in my eye’
_
One guy finished his work in graphics and went to youtube to watch a Richard Dawkin video on his
new book. Fat guy comes over and asks if he believed in all that evolution stuff. Dialouge between
the two about why evolution is true.
_
Ben gets mugged by Jam with a fountain pen to the stomach on the way to first screenwriting class,
turns out Jam is in his class.
_
One guy loses his ipod shuffle and makes everyone look for it for 15 minues until he relises it was
stuck to his belt al along. Girl just looks at him and leaves the room, one guy says …fucking utility belt
other guy says ‘…cunt’.
_
Have a shot of all of them doing the exam.
_
Girl says ‘I keep getting this chain email that says – forward this to 16 bagazillion people in 2 seconds
or you’ll be constipated’
_
Guy sits on a comb on his hair says ‘theres a comb on my chair, what kind of a person puts a comb
on a guys chair?’
French girl: Je pense donc je suis
One: Je pense donc je suis
French girl (smiling): mon accent est pathétique
One: mon accent est pathétique
French girl: et je suis un idiot
One: et je suis un idiot, what does that mean?
Main walks over to them.
French girl: I have to go now, I’ve got stuff to do.
One: Oh okay…bye
^ start with this or start with the following…
Setting: Newvic corridor- in front of English classroom
One is waiting for Main, he is listening to French music – either Masculine Feminine theme song or
something by Chapemlon (prioritise MF theme).
Main: Sorry I’m late
One (he takes out one ear-piece and cowboy swings it to latch onto the other and yanks it off): Nah,
It’s alright
Main: Were you waiting long?
One: 15 minutes but I was with Marlene, she just left.
Main: Marlene.
One: She had 10 minutes before her classical civilisation class started so she was just teaching me
some French.
Main: Isn’t she German?
One: She’s multilingual.
Main: Lets talk inside?
Cut to them inside the classroom sitting at a table with a bunch of papers and books (inc Pride &
Prejudice)One: Ever since watching that Woody Allen movie, I just want to go to Paris. I don’t know there’s
something about it.
Main: It’s just the way it was filmed and the music that was used, it romanticises Paris…like
Manhattan.
One: Yeah but I just want to go, see for myself.
Main: Why don’t we all go for a couple of weeks after these exams are over?
One: No. I don’t want to go there on a holiday, I want to go and live there for a year. I just want to
absorb myself in the Parisian culture, you can’t do that in a week or two as a tourist.
Main: That’s why you’re learning French.
One: Yeah. For the past three weeks, I’ve been listening to French music and watching French TV
shows and movies.
Main: Which reminds me, you still have my copy of Le Cercle Rouge.
One: Yeah, I’ve seen it I just keep forgetting to bring it in.
Main: That dvd is a collector’s item, I got it from Criterion. Do you know how much there dvds cost?
One: No
Main: Way too much. I want it in exactly the same condition as I gave it to you.
Enter Third.
One: Well if isn’t Mon frère
Main: Hey here’s our boy!
Third: Hey man, what’s up? (to Main) What’s up? (to One)
One: So how was Florida?
Third: It was…unbelievable, now that I’m back it all kinda feels like a dream. The weather, the
beaches and best of all I got to see The Supervillains live!
Main: That’s crazy
Third: Yeah, they played all the hits and they did this cover of Billy Joel’s Antony’s Song, It was
insane.
One: Which one’s Anthony’s Song?
Main: It’s just another name for Movin Out, its track one on The Stranger.
Enter Girl:
Girl: Err, Sorry I’m looking for the English Literature study group.
One: Yeah that’s us
Girl: You’re the study group, the one that’s doing Pride & Prejudice?
Main holds up a copy of P&P
Girl (Main gestures at the chair and she goes to sit at the table): Alright then, Richard told me come
here to prepare for the exam. He told me you guys run a study group.
Third: Who’s Richard?
Main: Dickers, English teacher, tall.
Third: Oh Dicky Anderson, what did he say about us?
Girl: He just said come to this room, there’s a study group for English literature students
One: But we only do Pride and Prejudice, that’s out main focus, we don’t do any of the poetry stuff.
Girl: That’s alright, I only need help on Pride and Prejudice.
Main: Okay that’s cool, I’m Main, this is One and that’s Third, he just came back from Florida
Girl: Oh what, as a holiday?
Third: Yeah I spent two weeks touring with bands from the Florida Ska Scene.
Girl: What’s Ska?
Main: Oh you haven’t heard of ska? It’s kinda like Reggae but with a bit more kick. It’s really cool
music.
Third: Yeah I just came back last night, it all feels like a dream.
Girl: I’ve been to Florida once about two years ago.
Main: Yeah, did you have fun?
Girl: Erm, I was there for about 3 weeks, the first two were fun but then I contracted conjunctivitis.
Third (concerned): How did you contract conjunctivitis?
Girl: I was swimming in the pool and some dirty kids shit particles got in my eye…It was awful, I had
to stay in my hotel room for the rest of the week before going home. (One gets scared and starts to
touch his eyes gently)
Third: See that’s why I always swim with my goggles on.
One: Are your eyes okay now?
Girl: Yeah there alright, it’s not a big problem.
Enter Filmmaker –
FM: Hey, Main can I just speak to you for a minute.
They both go outside the room.
FM: It’s romantic comedy, the plots not that important, it’s all about character, so naturally I need
the best actors I can find that will work for free. I’ve got someone for the Male lead but the
character of the girl is more important so I need someone brilliant. Now, there is this 2nd year drama
student who’s supposedly a great actress, all the drama teachers are saying she’s gonna be big
someday. Her name is Sara Smith, and I just can’t get hold of her. I looked her up on the school
system and her profile page doesn’t have a picture.
Main: Are you sure? How can she not have a picture? Everyone needs one, for there ID card to get in
and out of the school.
FM: That’s what I thought but I just figured there was something wrong with the school system. So I
scroll down to see her timetable right so I could get try hold of her.
Main: Yeah
FM: It was empty.
Main: Yeah, see they probably haven’t updated her thing on the school system yet. Is she a new
student?
FM: No she’s a 2nd year.
Main: Who told you that?
(cut to drama class with Mr H during this line)
FM: Mr H, he’s this new guy who’s teaching Chris’s classes.
Main: What? Did Chris get the sack or something?
FM: No he’s still here, this Mr H guy is just training, he isn’t like a proper teacher yet. He’s only here
for experience, he’s one of those student teacher types.
(cut back to conversation)
Main: And he’s the one who told you about Sara?
FM: Yeah, so I wondering if you could look into it you know, get her contacts or something. The way
Mr H was going on about her, I think she would be right for my film.
Main: Didn’t you audition any other girls?
FM: Yeah I did a few last week, but none of them are any good.
Main: Yeah, Okay I’ll look into her and let you what’s up
FM: Ok see ya (he walks away)
Wide shot - Main stands there and looks at the paper with Sara’s name on it – fade to black
Side note – make FM and Main scene longer.
Fade out-Fade in
It’s a different day. Main, Third and Girl are there but not One – (the following dialogue is happening
with a over the head shot of a chess game between One and Third)
Main: I didn’t know you wear contacts.
Girl (smiles): This morning I wore my sister’s jeans around my neck because I thought it was a scarf.
Everyone chuckles
Main: Jeez that’s bad. Aren’t contact lenses supposed to be real uncomfortable though?
Girl: Nah, You kind get used to them after a while. If it does get uncomfortable, I have these eye
drops, so you just pooppoop and you’re good to go. Glasses are a major pain in the ass anyway, I
used to have them you know years ago but I kept losing them.
Third wins the chess game
One: Set it up again
Third: Nah, we already played four times, I’m going home now.
One: Exactly, it’s a tie; we need to play one more game to settle the score… come on.
Third (thinks for a bit): Hmm, Nah. I’m going home.
One: Okay Girl, let’s go.
Girl: Fine (moves seats to sit opposite One), (to Third) But could you guys get like a monopoly set or
something next time.
Third: I don’t own a monopoly set.
Exit Third
Girl (to One): I’m gonna be white. (He turns the board around)
Main: Hey have you guys tried these Satsumas, they’re pretty good.
Girl: Gimme (Main puts a Satsuma wedge into Girl’s mouth)
Main: Tell you what’s good about Satsumas right, they’re like oranges but… (peals Satsuma
effortlessly) they’re easy to peal.
One: Bananas are alright aren’t they? They come in their own little case, you eat em – chuck it away
- no fuss no muss.
Girl’s phone rings (Supervillains ringtone) – she checks it and puts it back in her pocket.
One: Who was that?
Girl: I keep getting this stupid chain letter that says ‘forward this to 16 bagazillion people in 2
seconds or you’ll be constipated’
Everyone laughs
Third enters
Third: Forget my book (picks up Pride and Prejudice)
Cut to Filmmaker interview
FM: I wanna make this movie, hopefully by next year –err it’s a romantic comedy, I’m in the middle
of casting right now, I held a few auditions but I still need to find the female lead.
Interviewer off screen: What’s it called?
FM: Err the working title is Fuzzy Grubs…so hopefully I’ll make that by next year but there’s too
many characters I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it.
Cut to FILM 1
Cut back to interview
FM: It’s hard you know, you have to think about a lot like the story, the casting – acting,
cinematography, location – because the technology to make films is so cheap now, a lot of people
think anyone can do it and people who want to break into the movie business, a lot of the students
worry about all this new competition but at the same time, all those crappy movies aren’t really
competition if your movie is fucking badass. Sure they’re a lot of PEOPLE out there now but if you
make something that fucking grabs the audience and shakes them, then people will notice.
Cut to FILM 2
IOS: What’s the hardest part of a making a movie?
FM: I think for young indie filmmakers, finding the right actors is always tough. Especially for people
like me who make films with no budget. The casting process can take a lot of time. I kinda put up
posters everywhere for casting calls and hold auditions but …err yeah the auditions are always errm
pretty…interesting.
Cut to Auditions
FM: Err Let me see… I think it’s forty…one short films, with Fuzzy Grubs it’s forty two. So yeah, and I
write, direct and edit all of the movies myself. On location they’re will be me working the camera
and Erik on the sound, there is no proper crew or anything which can make it pretty hard
sometimes. – Cut to them on set – The good thing is that since my films are made with no money
and no crew, people don’t criticise them that much, so I don’t really worry about how bad they look
some times.
Cut to FILM montage
FM: Yeah, I think I’ll always keep on making films you know, even if it’s not what I end up doing to
make a living….(pauses and looks down) cos you know without my film I’m nobody.
Cut to third scene in the classroom
Girl: *Hamlet’s monologue*
Darjeeling limited style shot of three guys clapping
Girl: Yeah you guys like it?
One: No, that was really good, just the fact that you memorised it all in the original script. That’s
Brilliant
Girl: Yeah, I hope that’ll impress Mr H –
Third: When do you have to do it?
Girl: The actual auditions were about two weeks ago I think, but the girl who was supposed to play
Hamlet she was brilliant but her family joined some sort of weird religious cult where acting is like
one of the seven major sins or something.
Main (to third/one): Yeah, she has to shave her head every full moon and can’t eat peas
Girl: No, she can only eat peas after sunset on a Wednesday.
Third: That’s alright
Girls: Anyway since, she isn’t gonna do the play anymore; Lucy, Chris and Mr H are doing special
auditions again just for that one role.
Main: Why is he called Mr H?
Third: Didn’t they have fall back option?
One: Yeah they usually have understudies in plays, in case the actor falls ill or something.
Girl: Yeah they usually do but I don’t know what happened. (Smiling) I guess it’s just the universe
giving me another chance.
Third:
Sara: Yeah something like that, what have you been doing?
One: I was upstairs doing prep work for my final Graphic Design project. Hey guys know Colin?
Third: Is he Fat?
One: Yeah that’s him. Anyway for my graphics project, I’m designing a jacket for a science book right
and since it’s just a made up book, I just chose Richard Dawkins as the author.
Main: What’s it called?
One: Meet my cousin, the chimpanzee. So Colin comes over to my computer and says ‘So you
believe in all that evolution crap do you?’
Main smiles
One: I say ‘It’s not a case of me believing in it, it’s proven fact, there’s all sorts of archaeological
evidence’ – he goes ‘Nah there’s no way we evolved from chimps, I’m not buying it’ – I say ‘We
didn’t evolve from chimps, humans and chimps both share a common ancestor’