Planning

Film Studies Coursework Evaluation

For my coursework, I made an experimental drama around the theme of young people with anxiety. Focusing on how to express the feeling through mise-en-scene and camera work. This theme was inspired by the short film “Echo” (2011) Dir. Lewis Arnold. Which follows a troubled teenager trying to cope with the loss of her father. I chose not to have dialogue in my film to allow the micro features to speak for themselves as well as my actor's performance. This was a creative decision to encourage my audience to not be passive or to be ”spoon-fed”  the narrative but rather to piece together what is on screen for themselves making the film much more engaging and interactive for the audience. This idea was taken from "Over” (2015) Dir. John Threlfall where the nature of the narrative is leading you to make assumptions about the character. I wanted to highlight the actor's performance in which he had to express the feeling of anxiety without the aid of dialogue. I did this by using closeups in the more intense scenes. Similarly, to how it is used in ”Operator” where there are multiple shots circling the operator around the computer highlighting the intensity of her situation. I think I reflected this well but in retrospect I wish I had been more consistent with my shots in the kitchen scenes, circling the main characters face slightly more rather than inserting too many close-ups particularly at the beginning of the film.

My idea behind the metaphorical dream-like sequences was from another experimental short film “le Bruit de la Lumiere” directed by Vincent Petit. The film uses lighting and visual effects along with sound to express the main character’s phycological state when her  Synaesthesia is being exploited by two music producers inflicting her with physical harm for their own personal gain.

I found this a particularly effective piece of film, so by choosing anxiety as the theme for my short film I was enabled to present a visual representation of a hidden illness. By having such a drastic contrast between the characters distorted perception of reality while also presenting the audience with the actuality of his situation, this enabled me to have more creative freedom with my film, particularly the microfeature such as the colourful projections and lighting, the use of cinematography in a less conventional sense, high contrast colour pallets, while still having a strong three-act structure. I wanted the film to allow the audience to very easily differentiate between the two states of mind within the film. I had the reality scenes set very bright with an almost monochromatic colour palette, mostly made of greys and white tones so that the only colour we really see is the pinkness of the anxiety medication which works quite effectively as it stands out from the rest of the frame. The music was the only part of the film that didn’t change when switching between the two states. I wrote and recorded the soundtrack myself as I wanted complete control over the film's mood and atmosphere and by writing the music this enabled me to do so. The guitar part works well over both parts of the film because I had the simplicity of the plucking of the basic chords, with the distorted psychedelic delay on the melody, effectively creating a sound bridge to tie the entire film together. I think if I were to do it again, I would make it more harmonically interesting to make the piece more engaging; and longer so that the song is not repeating throughout the film, while still keeping within the style to maintain the idea of the sound bridge.

I had multiple drafts of the script that were created after each attempt of filming. I originally had multiple locations planned out but due to the nature of my script, it required multiple filming days that didn’t fit in with everyone who was acting in my film schedules. Therefore, I ended up choosing one location for the predominant part of the film, and for the dream sequences, I used what was accessible around me. I wanted to use lighting and colour effectively and the final draft of the script gave me a lot more creative freedom to do so, in production as well as in editing. I also was able to shoot everything in one day and had one character. The final draft also had a stronger narrative structure with a clearer use of Todorov's narrative stages, including an equilibrium, disruption and new equilibrium. My original intention was to create a film about a normal day with anxiety, showing a student waking up, going to college and going home again. Echo”, where we are not quite sure of the incentive behind the character‘s actions, but instead, we are fed little clues to piece it together for ourselves. In my film I wanted to hint at a sense of being overwhelmed by work, as we are introduced to the character sitting doing work, the editing then begins to get faster (hinting at the anxiety) with an extreme close up shots of hands typing on a keyboard and a computer screen. We then see a dream sequence shot of the character covered in paper and books with only his head being seen.

I wrote the script for this but the practicality of shooting at multiple locations, as previously mentioned, meant the film wasn’t to a standard that I wanted it to be and I was struggling to present a clear narrative structure. I then decided to limit my locations, so most of the film was shot in a house, and the outside shots in the fields that surround my house. The main character was slightly inspired by the protagonist in ”