Dazed and Confused...Help!

So at the moment I am in a horrible thing - a creative rut! And I am resembling thsi girl in the Diet Coke advert more and more the more stressed I get about it (although I dont dance on the tables)

Next year at Uni I have to make a film, a big film, all my own story and work and everything, and its worth a lot of points, sooo you can understand that the actual story has to be pretty good and a lot of time and thought must go into picking what I want to make...

The first idea that i had was to recreate something I did as a child, on Millenium Eve. I was so scared about the future and going into the next year, decade, century, and millenium ( I was 9 at the time so all i ever knew was the Nineties) that i didnt want to leave it.

This is two pages from my sketchbook that I was using to sketch memories I had of that night. Thats how mine and my sisters bedroom looked,and that the bottle I used. I also remember staring out my window at all the fireworks going off and starting to panic,because time was running out.

I knew that next year I would be 10 - double digits! Yuck. I'd have to start High School pretty soon after that. I'd have to act all grown up. I wouldn't be able to play with my toys anymore, I'd have to drink, and smoke and kiss gross looking boys - basically everything I'd ever seen on Grange Hill and As If.

I desperately thought of different fantasical ways I could stop time or at least freeze it for a little while so that I could stay there, in 1999, forever.

In the end I grabbed one of the little coloured glass bottles that my sister and I used to play with (all sorts of imaginary concoctions were created in them :D) and scooped up some of the air inside the bottle, and corked in firmly shut. In my mind, it would be '99 forever inside that bottle. No other factors would change it as long as I kept it corked, the Millenium couldnt touch it, it would never become old.

So I'm thinking it would be so much fun recreating a girls bedroom from the Nineties, putting all sorts of little nostalgic bits and bobs in there, making little tents out of bedsheets,having fairylights all over the ceiling,toys,music boxes, drawings, old videos and CD's...

And I've found all this beautiful photgraphy that has inspired me on different ways how to make children look so dreamy and etheral on film.

I had this idea near Christmas time (thats how far ahead I plan things haha).

But, I also had another idea which I have done substantially more work on which is a circus themed film.

I had an idea of three yobbish boys approaching an old depleted shabby looking stall on a street, where a Ringmaster in a tatty red jacket sat in front of a pair of old red velvet curtains.

As a magic trick, the ringmaster would make three beeeeautiful circus girls appear from behind the curtain, and lure the boys behind the curtain...

Behind the curtain, they wouldn't believe their eyes. A large circus in a tent would sprawl out before them, when they thought they would simply be faced with the brickwall of the street the ringmaster was sat in. Strong men, clowns, jugglers, fire eaters, stiltwalkers, contortionists and all sorts of odd extravagant characters would be running around, getting the three boys in the carnival spirit...

But, slowly and surely, the circus folk begin to turn more agressive and vicious, eventually pinning down the boys and roughly forcing them into clown outfits and wigs, slapping make up on their faces.

We then see the street stall again with the same Ringmaster sat there, until three girls approach the stall. He performs his magic trick and 3 boistrerous clowns emerge from behind the curtain to lure the girls inside, and we see there are the three boys he lured in before.

Now I love both these ideas, equally, although I have spent a lot more time doing artwork, scripts and even making costumes for the circus one. I had this sudden moment of clarity the other day afer finally finishing the circus script, and realised - its SO much work. The cast would be well over 20, the sets would be huge, and the expense would be too. And, knowing myself pretty well, I think I would become overwhelmed by them amount of organisation involved ( a struggled with my last film) and I wouldnt be able to make it as beautiful as I would have wanted.

But, if I pulled it off, it would look amazing.

And the first idea, the Millenium bottle one, I think could look amazing too, and would be a lot simpler to do,still hard work but simpler.

I really am in a pickle and I honestly don't know what choice to make :(

Any Advice anyone? :(

x