Well, now that I’ve shot the entire scene/ continuous take that I’ve been prattling on about I guess that the cat is out of the bag!
But I don’t think that I’ve fully explained the said cat and this really needs to be dissected so that I can better learn from what I’ve put myself through and others!
I’ll probably have to start with the pre-viz/ conception of my idea. Which i came up with while mulling over ideas for a future idea for a feature. I thought to myself, how can I get the best value out of this exercise? How can I use this to further me in my goal of making a feature?
I decided the best way was to try and combine all of the themes and ideas that I had been throwing around and try to represent them all in their own self contained way within a scene. The idea of the shot being continuous did’t occur to me until much later, I realised that I NEEDED to link the action together in one long take because the action needed that common link. Without the continuous shot the meetings between the girl and the protagonist or the guy and the protagonist are just little exchanges and scenes in their own right, independent of what happened before/ after them. If i continued the take beyond the meetings it brought the relationships of the characters together and their effects on the central character. You see that he isn’t actually meeting these people, but they are just apparitions of his mind. Which juxtaposes well with his flowing rant that addresses these themes and ideas at the same time. The Voice over working to both illustrate the themes as well as to provide structure to the narrative and to the musical score.
The important phrases or ideas that he touches on are highlighted in the pre-viz. When he says “Freedom” the music becomes unbalanced. Is this freedom a good freedom? Is this freedom the same freedom that you or I would like? and when he says “I miss her” and the music becomes melodic, obviously for sympathy but also to show a weaker side to this dark figure moving through giving a negative rant. I myself find sympathy for the villain or unsavoury characters very compelling! You don’t know if they are getting what is meant to be coming for them, or they are being treated unfairly and this justifies their behaviour.
The main character is a manifestation of a negative stereotype placed on young males by society that I have chosen to highlight. He is not necessarily angry and jaded because he has become that way, he is angry and jaded because that is what society dictates a young man in a hoodie is. He is angry at society for labelling him. When he says “Everything is too covered in labels” he is talking about commercialism as much as he is talking about society. The main character is jaded because the viewer is told to read him that way (thats what he thinks) which is why he is openly addressing the viewers (society) in such a candid way. He is attacking “their” way of life because they have chosen to dictate his and label his.
The girlfriend is herself a representation of my own personal relationships. I don’t think putting yourself into a film makes you any more or less of a film maker, why do we do it? therapy? acceptance? maybe putting our issue out there for the world to see is a better, more acceptable way to deal with the issue? anyway! Thats another discussion. The girl in the film is representational of girls I have been with in my life, the girls who have loved me and who have turned on me or abandoned me. This sounds all grim and bleak, but it is just a normal facet of life, sometimes we let down the ones we love. When she screams at the main character and yells abuse, this is symbolic of how I don’t deal with relationship problems openly, i suppress and avoid the conversation because I am too afraid of what is to come. The girl character in this piece of work is (for my taste) too strong a stereotype and I wanted to make her a better symbol but It was hard to achieve in a 3min take. She instead had to be a vision of a anger which still is still as effecting as it is humorous, because after all, you have to laugh!
The Friend that emerges from the car is symbolic of all those friends who you had that you realised weren’t really your friends. That they would’t help you unless there was something in it for them, I put this character in my scene because I remember having this experience myself when I had just finished high school, and i felt quite angry at the person. And i imagined that this character would be angry at a lot of fake things or things that aren’t “genuine” and what a better representation of that then a fake friend. I instructed my actor playing the friend to behave like a guy we both knew who was a dickhead, and didn’t care for anyone but himself. He responded by dulling himself down, and giving this affectionate dialogue that was veiled in a mood of something that wasn’t genuine. and after we did the first run I said to him “Perfect! That was just like him! Saying a lot but not meaning anything!”
The Musician I placed in the narrative because I wanted to complete the trio (sorry, you probably wanted something super deep) but he’s just there to fill space and pad out the scene. The Only real function of the musician is that he ties into the music that is driving the whole scene, and when the strings arrangement dies away, all that is left is him. This is meant to represent the main character’s emotional arc through the scene, from despondent to raw emotion and reflection. The change in the music makes his statement “I have to get away, I have a way” much more raw and powerful. Because my goal was to have a ranting character who makes a lot of good points or stuff that you chuckle to, but then to end with this stripped back, raw line that gives you chills because after all this other ranting he’s said this powerful, foreboding, statement that could mean anything!
I enjoy the arc and construction of the scene, it works incredibly well as a character device and is quite entertaining and visually pleasing both in the pre-viz and the final product. Please don’t think that the things I have written in the script are there because It is me on my soap box. It is the voice of a despondent young man, depressed at the label society has given him and he is lashing out. It is not me, I have just given this character a voice.
As a filmmaker, I am not here to entertain you, I am here to trouble you.
KFW.