Blood Relations Senior Thesis Film

Abstract

WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW, UNLESS THAT’S BORING The common advice given to any budding filmmaker is to keep their work grounded in their own experiences. This is completely reasonable, and most often leads to higher quality, distinct student films. If students didn’t do this, then half of any given thesis filmmaking class would likely produce Lynch-ian knock-offs while the other half aped Spielberg. Occasionally, however, this filmmaking mantra “Write what you know,” needs to be tweaked, worked around. Sometimes, “What you know,” is actually somewhat common. As my granddad used to say to me, “You want to be a writer? You need to be creative for that. All you have to write about is petting your dog.” This may have been oversimplifying, but there was some truth at the heart of it. A twenty something white male from Overland Park, Kansas feels loneliness, disillusionment, jealousy, longing, angst. These feelings usually lend themselves to screenplays about surrogates for said white male ultimately finding love and an amazing sex life. Not exactly the stuff of Oscar winning short films. So write what you know, but maybe add a twist. My thesis is about loneliness, disillusionment, longing and grandfathers. It’s also about cannibalism.