Film 4 Shot for Shot Part 2

Film 4 - Shot for Shot - The Village - Part 1

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT OF INTENT

1.     What is the story--the beginning, middle, and end--of this scene in three or four sentences? In other words, what happens in this scene as it starts, as it progresses, and as it ends?

Noah Percy, a disabled man, visits Lucius Hunt. When Lucius tries to explain himself, Noah stabs Lucius, allows him to fall, and then stabs him again.

2.     What, specifically, must the audience understand narratively? How do you intend to communicate that information?

What I find most incredible about The Village (2004) is its thoughtful approach to disability within a confining and restrictive culture. This scene is truly tragic on the part of both men. In a sense, they are both protagonists of the film. It is important to ensure that both characters are treated with respect and maturity. Most of this is done with framing, but it will also have to take place in the directing.

3.     If this scene is from a longer piece, what is the narrative, emotional and thematic purpose of the scene in the larger story?

Lucius Hunt has just asked Ivy to marry him. Noah Percy, the disabled man in the village, is also in love with Ivy, and takes it as the ultimate betrayal. In order to “win” over Ivy, Noah attempts to murder Lucius. This provides Ivy’s story with an objective and rising action to prove her love for Lucius.

4.     What emotion do you want to communicate in this scene? How do you intend to do this?  

I want to create sorrow. There is obviously going to be some gut wrenching reaction to a knife being pulled out of a stomach, but I am going to have to give patient, thoughtful direction to my actors.

5.     What is the first image of the scene? What is the final image of the scene?

The first image in the scene is a door. The final image is a wood-burning stove. Both are inanimate objects in a very raw human scene.

6.     Why is this scene personal to me? What previous personal experience(s) does it remind me of? Why do I need to make this scene?

I’m a rebel at heart, and have occasional anti-establishment sentiment. I loathe when people exercise authority over me, and I believe that the Village is a warning to the dangers of overly confining and restrictive societies. This film maturely approaches mental handicap and simultaneously argues against overt rulemaking. Because of their village’s restrictions, Lucius Hunt nearly dies in the film due to a lack of medicine.

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

This scene is incredibly flat, confining the characters in a space together that they cannot escape. And throughout the film, red is a “bad color”, and it shows up only once in this scene.

8.     What are two or three potential obstacles to creating a successful scene? How can you be prepared to overcome these? Be specific!

The biggest obstacle I forsee is not casting, as I already have two tremendous actors in mind, but the location. The single room period cabin will be hard to find. And harder still will be to find one close by. To overcome this, I am going to start now in attempting to find a location. One thing about the scene that may work to my advantage in this regard is how dark it is. I may be able to cheat a bit.

One Shot Documentary: Moxie

Director's Reflection

For this film, I was attempting to communicate a large portion of my personality. Throughout my life, I’ve hated hearing people tell me that I cannot accomplish something or do something. As a result, I would set about proving them wrong. With this film, I wanted to capture a process that illustrated the tenacity to keep trying even when failure over and over is inevitable.

This project was difficult for me, and after reflection, I learned an awful lot. In most documentary films, you want to make sure you capture the action, and then you have the opportunity to capture b-roll later for things to cut to. This project required not only the forethought into exactly the framing you wanted to capture, but also the ability to purposefully adjust on the fly. Knowing that I couldn’t cut to another shot if I messed up was nerve-racking, and because of that, I wasn’t able to adjust on the fly as much as I would have liked. After our 10 minutes of surf time was up, I began seeing everything about the setting that I would have liked to capture (the character of the peeling wall, the “no running/slip zone cones”, and everyone just sitting in the hot tub staring at us).

One of the biggest mistakes I made was technical/procedural out of a root fear. Rather than call ahead and ensure that Provo Beach would allow me to film, I simply decided to use a small rig and say I was just taking pictures to avoid even asking for permission. As it turned out, the management was absolutely fine with my filming and even allowed us to purchase 10 minutes of private surf time. Because of my lack of planning due to fear of rejection, I only had a small single handle shoulder rig and the resulting film contained a great deal more shake than I desired.

While I feel I adequately captured a progression of James learning how to indoor-surf in an interesting and ambiguous opening, I am sad that I do not have better sound. I am also sad that I was not more upfront about my intentions with Provo Beach, as they ended up being incredibly accommodating. I wish that I had spent more time pre-planning on location (I felt comfortable with my shot list before showing up), as I only had 10 minutes of surf time to capture. I’m happy with the resulting understanding on how ever-present the ubiquitous winged witness must be in my mind’s eye.

Feb 15-19

I really liked the ceiling here in my apartment complex, and I wanted to use it to convey depth. Granted, the light at the end of the tunnel doesn't necessarily help, but the converging lines and difference in size as you travel down the hall on the ceiling helps. Also, check out how obnoxious that red fire alarm is on the right, and how central the blue bike is.

I wanted to have ambiguous space and convey some kind of depth, and this storm drain did just the trick. Since the angle is worm's eye, and the bottom is so close, its super ambiguous.

We're not really as much on color and texture as much as movement, but I found this planter divider to be interesting. There is no color correction here at all. Both left and right of the barrier seem dead and forgotten. Winter is lovely.

I was frustrated with the fact no one could tell that the foreground item in Lauren's chase scene was the file, so I wanted to try and capture something that you could tell what it was, and I captured this.I love the organic vs. industrial shapes here. The organics are dark, however, and the industrial meters are extremely dull and unsaturated.

I suppose I was a little obsessed with bird's eye views that were somewhat ambiguous this week. I think this captures depth fairly well, and movement. It is rising up to the right, which is hard, but not the hardest movement to follow. I really like how the Blue here is less saturated on the left and more so on the right.

Feb 8-12

Flat, but with three distinctive contrasting tones.

I really wanted to place an awkwardly large flower between these two, and its awesome.

The tone is rather full of affinity in this photo, even though all the hearts are different colors.

I really like the difference the shadow creates in the lower left corner. It shows what lighting can do for tone.

This is my coin jar, and I love the noirish contrast in this photo.

Director's Statement of Intent - One-Shot Doc/Film 3

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

It opens on a man indoor surfing. He is not highly skilled and falls a few times, each time getting back up to try again.

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.)

The larger story is of this young man’s desire to succeed. With each thing he tries, he may not be incredibly talented off that bat, but he wants to get better at anything he attempts. He comes to have fun, yes, but wants to prove that he can.

3.     What is the emotion I want to communicate?

I want to communicate perseverance and dedication.

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?

Throughout all my life, I’ve hated people telling me that I can’t do something. It aggravates me to the core, and rather than accept what they say, I set out to prove them wrong. While I may not be good at something when I first attempt it, I truly believe that I can learn to do and be good at anything—as long as I try. Indoor surfing can be incredibly frustrating and painful for beginners. James is going to be my subject, and I’m going to try to capture the process of failure and trying again a few times.

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?

I’ll admit that I’m expecting James to fall. In the case that he doesn’t, I’m going to still emphasize how hard he is trying to overcome the surfing obstacle by focusing on his feet on the board, his facial expressions, and close-ups of the water to show it’s power and relentlessness.

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

One visual element I feel will be easy to communicate, regardless of James’ ability in surfing, is the relentless rhythm of the flowing water. It will, I believe, show that it is unchanging, whereas James must change constantly to adjust to the water. Also, to better yield depth in the square room, I’m going to manipulate the white balance just a tad to make the scene bluer.

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

The first potential obstacle in accomplishing my scene is the fact that James might actually be good at indoor surfing right of the bat. While I cannot manipulate that, I feel that I can still capture the fact that he has worked to overcome the obstacle by focusing on close-ups of each portion of his skill—his footwork, body movement, and facial determination. Another potential obstacle is my ability to capture close-ups, as James will be on a water wave, and I will not risk bringing a camera on with me (and I doubt Provo Beach would let me). I’m going to bring a versatile lens to be able to zoom in and pull out for wide angles.