Director's Statement of Intent - Chase Scene

1.     What is the story of this scene in two or three sentences? In other words, what happens in the scene?

      The scene opens on a man awaking from a laborious sleep in the middle of nowhere. Another man who wants his beans chases him. A woman with a gun convinces the first man to hand over the beans by shooting the second man—but it turns out the woman and second man were working together.

2.     What is purpose of this scene in the larger story? (Or, if there is not a larger story, invent the purpose of this scene.)

      This scene would be the establishing scene in a quirky post-apocalyptic tale. The first man would only be the vessel to introduce the “conman-esque” relationship the second man and the woman with the gun have. It communicates to the audience very quickly that the two characters, though vile in stealing beans, would rather feign violence than use it.

3.     What is the emotion I want to communicate?

      For this piece, I want to balance the contrasting feelings of playfulness/whimsy, with misery and gloom.

4.     Why is this scene personal to me? What previous personal experiences does it remind me of? Why do I need to make this scene?

      This scene is significant to me because as a teenager I would make chase scenes over ridiculous items. We even remade a chase over the last cracker in a bowl some friends are sharing. It was fun, and ridiculous. I feel like I need to make this scene to create a sort of culmination of all the old ones—to make people laugh, but also slightly sad.

5.     What, specifically, must the audience understand narratively and feel at the end of this scene? How do you intend to make sure this will happen?

      At the end of this scene, I want the audience to be humored, but also frustrated for the first man who is conned out of his beans. The audience needs to understand that this narrative world contains many flawed characters, but not evil characters. To ensure this, I need to try and make the violence less “shock and awe”, and more quirky.

6.     What two visual elements (line, shape, space, tone, color, rhythm, movement) will you use to help communicate the emotion of the scene?

      This is a fun one. I want to render out the finished film in a high contrast black and white—to work directly against the idea that people are grey. Also, to help further the whimsy, I intend to utilize flat space directly juxtaposed with deep space to consistently change the focus of my audience with additional contrast.

7.     What are some potential obstacles to creating a successful scene? How can you be prepared to overcome these?

      The biggest concern right now is weather. The entirety of this scene takes place outdoors, and we will be filming outside. I’m worried for actor warmth, camera safety, and general mud in my location. Narratively, I’m concerned that the first man will appear too “good” and the other two characters “evil”. To overcome this, I’m going to direct my actors to have strange and unsettling quirks—especially the first man.