South Korean-born producer and founder of Seesaw Pictures, Heejung Oh, attended the second phase of IDOCLAB to mentor and give an interesting lecture on how to effectively deliver the message of a film. This forum was held on Tuesday, December 5th 2023 at Gaia Cosmo Hotel, Yogyakarta. The discussion that Heejung delivered was centered on writing a proposal for a documentary film project, and he began his discussion with an engaging question as mentioned above.
Heejung then asked the audience to share their own difficulties when writing a proposal, where a lot of people in the audience had a lot to say: struggling how to write down their story ideas, forgetting what to write down due to other conflicting agendas, and lack of knowledge on how to properly draft a proposal. After hearing their many thoughts, Heejung then gave the audience an advice to write down any ideas that came to mind on paper, even just the keywords are enough because, “Keyword help us to connecting the dots.”
Afterwards, she presented a list of questions that the audience had to think about, along with the film project team. There are 6 key questions. What is the essence of the project? What is the main goal of the project? Who is the target audience? How can I capture and convey that? What is your priority? How can you reach them?
To give the audience a clearer picture, Heejung then gave a few examples on the answer to one of the questions: what is the essence of the project? It could be because the filmmaker wanted the community they grew up with to watch the film. It could also be because the filmmaker wanted to be seen as someone with artistic bones in their body. Another reason could be that the filmmaker wanted their artwork to be presented at a festival. Heejung advised the audience to make a film that could be a voice for their target audience pertaining to the third question: who is the target audience. Target audience isn’t just about certain categories of people that are expected to watch the film, like older women who work at blah-blah-blah. Heejung revealed that it’s better for filmmakers to picture their target audience as a specific individual.
The advice Heejung gave to filmmakers is to create a fantasy audience in their heads. That way, they can build a story so personal it could tap into the very core of the audience’s emotions in a way that is universally unique.
Heejung added that there were also artistic visions to consider and well-prepared by filmmakers during the process of developing their projects. They are subject, perspective, crew, budget, solid production time plan, target audience and distribution, teaser or trailer that will intrigue the audience, and crewmates that align with the vision of the project.
Following that, Heejung moved on to the next discussion, the logline of the film project proposal. Logline is compulsory for the decision maker before watching the trailer, which is why it needs to be catchy and intriguing. She added by saying that logline consists of only two things: characters and plot. The sentence doesn’t have to be pretty and wordy, it just needs to be concise and informative. And let them know the characters’ names. Heejung then discussed synopsis, and that it needs to include: the structure of the story, characters and theme, and the ending. An important factor that Heejung added is that filmmakers need to showcase the uniqueness and essence of the film.
She then discussed the producer statement. The filmmaker’s intentions regarding the story, choice of characters and theme, as well as the urgency of the story are the producer statements that needs to be seriously considered, along with the producer’s production plan. Several other things that need to be considered: why the film is made, how the film is going to be positioned in the industry, values and ideas that were the foundation of the film, as well as the production plan.
The segment ends with Heejung declaring that there are going to be several things that filmmakers need to remember in regards to writing a proposal for a film project. One, application proposal is PLAN A (The capitalized letters are intended by Heejung). Second, the selection committee reads more than 50 proposals that were submitted. Third, the first three minutes of reading the proposal are crucial for the applicants’ projects. Fourth, Heejung said that, “Budget speaks more loudly than you think”. And five, “It’s better to show than tell.”
Covered by Hesty N. Tyas on December 5th, 2023.
