Bohemian Cinema By Jonathan Pacheco

The Quiet Album

Tags: Scripts, Shorts, The Quiet Album, Pizza

A while back I had an idea for a film; I thought of it as a concept album, but a little bit in reverse. The idea would be to make a film that was supposed to be the equivalent of a music album, but instead of 13 or 15 songs, it would be 13 or 15 short films. Sure, people make movies compromised of a bunch of short films all the time (some of you will point to Paris, je t’aime), but I feel this idea is slightly different. Like many of these compilations, the films will share a common theme or style, but the idea is to approach it from a more musical angle.

When I had initially thought of the idea, I thought of The Abbey Road LP. And I would plan out this album: we need a totally hot song to start us off, we can have a medley in the end—stuff like that. Then I’d try to see how I can translate musical notions onto the screen. What’s a medley? Probably if the story of one short carried onto the next. How does a guitar solo translate? Is it a monologue? Or a stretch without dialogue that exhibits a lot of style and emotion? What is the chorus? Is it the “point” of the story?

I know I’m not the first to have this idea (and I’m sure some of you can point me to specific films), but it’s one that intrigued me so much but that I never followed (I had started to, though, a couple of years back. The project: The Adventures of Marco Palogne. I started shooting “interludes” to the shorts which would have been the equivalent of the spoken interludes found especially on hip-hop albums).

I don’t think I want to follow such a strict code this time around. I want it to be more free-flowing (isn’t making music supposed to be like that anyway?). Instead of planning it out like the Abbey Road example, I want to just write and shoot some shorts, see which ones work, which ones don’t, and in what order they’d work best. It sounds like any other compilation, but I want to treat it creatively like an album. I won’t necessarily follow the verse-chorus-verse-chorus format, but I will keep those elements in mind. I will think, “Does this short need a ‘solo’ here?” and then work to find out what that means. Or something like that. I’m not sure…

I think I’ll post the “tracks” as they’re being made, even if they’re not in their final order. That way you can follow my progress.

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I have an addiction: once a week, I have to go to Cici’s Pizza. I know many people who won’t go in there because it makes them feel “dirty,” but for the price, and for the amount of pizza I can get (pizza is another addiction), I don’t care how the place makes me feel. The other day I sat there eating slice after slice, listening to my iPod, and I observed people.

The middle booth against the wall contained two women: one in her thirties, and one that was probably 16 or 17. I noticed these ladies because the younger reminded me of someone I knew a few years back. The older woman spoke words I could not hear, but I could clearly see the teenager’s reactions. I won’t tell you everything that happened, but I will say that I watched a conversation unfold that I probably shouldn’t have kept watching. Yet, it was so compelling to see it all happen in front of my face without being able to hear a single word.

The entire experience felt like it would make an interesting short film—nothing groundbreaking or profound, but a very small piece. This is also the second very short film idea I’ve had that involves little-to-no dialogue. So I’ve decided that for this album that I’m working on, the common theme will be that all the tracks are dominated by silence, leading me to the obvious title: The Quiet Album.

So look for tracks of The Quiet Album to show up soon. I even have ideas for a possible movie EP….