This is part of a very ambitious project and it will probably take a while to realise. And yet, for those who read what I write, this should not be the least bit surprising.
Carried Away Captive is the working title I'm using for my film project proposal on the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923 where 1.5 million Armenians were killed through outright execution, starvation and disease under the supervision and execution of the Ottoman Empire. The title is a phrase you find throughout the Old Testament, especially in the prophets, and the context for nearly all of them refers to the Babylonian Captivity/Exile c. 7th century BC* Other title suggestions are encouraged.
*Forget that BCE/CE crap. I don't care if it's not current scholarship
I only have bits and pieces of this whole thing. But what little I've written (only a couple of pages of scribbles in a composition book), it should point me in the right direction. But the first thing I'm going to do (and soon I should think) is to schedule some research time at the Armenian Genocide Museum and Memorial in Washington, DC. I'm very sure the research staff would be thrilled to help out someone who is interested in directing/writing/producing a film on the Armenian Genocide (even if he's not Armenian... I hope that's not an issue).
The research is going to focus on two general things, with some details as subcategories: the overall sequence of events between 1915 and 1923 and the human element. The former is going to serve as the plot progression. The latter will help the individual scenes and provide the means of taking the audience through the history. I think anybody will tell you that this is how historical-based fiction films work. Take a classic of my generation Schlinder's List or a more recent endeavour, Saints and Soldiers. The way they work was they took a segment of history and widdled it down to the human level. So you weren't watching an effort at mass extermination of human beings or a particular battle in the European Theater. You were watching human beings going through bigger events. And so I will use this same approach with this event.
This is also where I will need a collaborator for the script. This is more to have a second voice and a second brain to gather all this information into something that can work as a film.
One of my ideas is to have the dialogues use the appropriate languages, namely Armenian and Turkish with some other ones if necessary. In order to do that, I need to collaborate with a translator who knows those languages (maybe several people) in order to get the dialogues to sound appropriate for the language. And maybe he's got a better way of saying things (especially in terms of idiomatic phrases). I'm always a sucker for foreign languages, even though I'm probably language deficient. Plus there are people who love to use languages other than English for their film projects. (I'm looking at you Mel Gibson).
Another idea is anticipate making it as a two theatrical film release for the sake of maintaining a texture as far as history and characters. The first part will be from 1915-1918 (have the ending point be after the Armistice or as the Armistice occurs) and the second part will be from 1919 to 1923.
There are a few other ideas I have but I'll get a better sense out of them when I do my research (which I may be able to do this weekend, if not some time this month).
In the mean time, keep this amongst yourselves =]
Carried Away Captive is the working title I'm using for my film project proposal on the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923 where 1.5 million Armenians were killed through outright execution, starvation and disease under the supervision and execution of the Ottoman Empire. The title is a phrase you find throughout the Old Testament, especially in the prophets, and the context for nearly all of them refers to the Babylonian Captivity/Exile c. 7th century BC* Other title suggestions are encouraged.
*Forget that BCE/CE crap. I don't care if it's not current scholarship
I only have bits and pieces of this whole thing. But what little I've written (only a couple of pages of scribbles in a composition book), it should point me in the right direction. But the first thing I'm going to do (and soon I should think) is to schedule some research time at the Armenian Genocide Museum and Memorial in Washington, DC. I'm very sure the research staff would be thrilled to help out someone who is interested in directing/writing/producing a film on the Armenian Genocide (even if he's not Armenian... I hope that's not an issue).
The research is going to focus on two general things, with some details as subcategories: the overall sequence of events between 1915 and 1923 and the human element. The former is going to serve as the plot progression. The latter will help the individual scenes and provide the means of taking the audience through the history. I think anybody will tell you that this is how historical-based fiction films work. Take a classic of my generation Schlinder's List or a more recent endeavour, Saints and Soldiers. The way they work was they took a segment of history and widdled it down to the human level. So you weren't watching an effort at mass extermination of human beings or a particular battle in the European Theater. You were watching human beings going through bigger events. And so I will use this same approach with this event.
This is also where I will need a collaborator for the script. This is more to have a second voice and a second brain to gather all this information into something that can work as a film.
One of my ideas is to have the dialogues use the appropriate languages, namely Armenian and Turkish with some other ones if necessary. In order to do that, I need to collaborate with a translator who knows those languages (maybe several people) in order to get the dialogues to sound appropriate for the language. And maybe he's got a better way of saying things (especially in terms of idiomatic phrases). I'm always a sucker for foreign languages, even though I'm probably language deficient. Plus there are people who love to use languages other than English for their film projects. (I'm looking at you Mel Gibson).
Another idea is anticipate making it as a two theatrical film release for the sake of maintaining a texture as far as history and characters. The first part will be from 1915-1918 (have the ending point be after the Armistice or as the Armistice occurs) and the second part will be from 1919 to 1923.
There are a few other ideas I have but I'll get a better sense out of them when I do my research (which I may be able to do this weekend, if not some time this month).
In the mean time, keep this amongst yourselves =]
posted by djproject | 11:29 AM
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