Homework Assignment #2

Deadline – 31 January 2020, 11:59pm

Hey, team!

This is our second assignment, and Kristin and I have been racking our brains for a new and interesting challenge. As we step into the year 2020, you may have noticed an influx of social media posts praising what we in America refer to as “The Roaring 20’s”. This decade has been romanticized, for good reason, in our films, books, and television shows. What is oftentimes overlooked amongst the struggles, styles, and successes of this time period, however, are the emergence of what we refer to as “talkies”.

However, the “talkie” did not arrive in the decade until the release of The Jazz Singer in 1927, which means that many of the classics from that time period were silent films. This month, as an homage to our entering a “Roaring 20’s” of our own, we challenge you to reimagine the concept of a silent film. As always, there is no submission fee. There is no award money. This is simply an opportunity for you as a filmmaker or writer to flex your creative muscles and come at your craft in a new way, with the intention being that we can all grow from this experience.

Theme

– We’re looking for your take on the concept of the “silent film”, with a twist!

– For this assignment, participants are not allowed the use of music or dialogue for any reason. The exception for the “silent” concept is that participants ARE allowed to make use of any ambient noise or “Foley Sound Effects”. For more information on Foley Effects – https://youtu.be/UO3N_PRIgX0

– No specific genre.

Guidelines

– Films must be between 5-8 minutes in length, including title sequence/closing credits.

– Films must be emailed to nightmareboxproductions@gmail.com with the title “HW#2 Submission – (YOUR TITLE)”.

– Any and all participants in your film MUST be credited, whether they wrote, directed, acted, or simply walked by the camera. No film ever came from one mind alone, and every person involved deserves the credit for the whole.

– Any and all equipment used for the film MUST be listed in the emailed submission. If you’ve mastered an incredible shot with an affordable camera, captured an interesting piece of audio with a cell phone rather than an audio recorder, or wrote your screenplay in Notes rather than Scrivener, we want to hear about it.

– Have fun! This is not a competition in so much that there will ever be a verifiable winner, we simply want you to do what you can with whatever you’ve got. Think of it as guerrilla filmmaking. Don’t stress yourself with an unattainable budget or with renting expensive equipment to get the shot you know you could do without it. Focus on working with what you can in the time you can set aside, and share your journey with us.

Kristin and I will be playing along each month, and you will be able to view whatever content we create, on thenightmarebox.blog, at the end of each month. Alongside this, we will post between 3-5 listener submissions to our YouTube page. These will be ones that we feel garner further review, based on stylistic choices, story arcs, or a particular scene. These will be the films we discuss during the first podcast of each month, the same show where we will reveal that month’s assignment.

The game is free, and the challenge is yours. We hope to see what you can do!

I love you,

Brett