As i think more and more about these scenes I want to shoot, and after conducting a few test shoots I’ve realised the most interesting thing about them are my actors reactions to their phones. Even when very subtle it gives something intriguing to the scene and it makes the reasoning behind showing their environment seem more appropriate. It’s as if the actor reacting to their phone, shuts them off from everything around them. They become so comfortable in their environment, but also shut off as they are absorbed with their phone. I’ve come to realise how my scenes will be shown and the reasoning behind them. I think this is, in a way what I’ve always wanted to show but I just didn’t know how to articulate it.

People reaction, whether its happy, angry, frustrated, in conjunction to the stimulus of a phone makes for something really interesting. I want this to be the more important research question in my investigation. “How can I make the use of a phone interesting in a scene?”, how will i use the location, costuming, lighting and acting to make this action interesting?

I first made a conscious effort to have minimal dialogue in scenes however I would like to have one scene that uses speech to highlight the phone use. Showing a different way people communicate with and interact with their phone. I was thinking of having my actor in the ‘Empty Room’ scene on a phone to juxtapose it with the other scenes that will remain with minimal or no dialogue.

I found this video and thought the idea was really present and strong. I like the different environments in which they filmed people on their phones really diverse and interesting. I don’t necessarily care much about highlighting a message with the usage of phones. The idea that people are always on their phones and disconnected from friends and loved ones isn’t what I’ll be focusing on but maybe more the ways we use our phones and how they become secondary characters.