Through the work I’ve done so far in the semester I’ve found myself leaning heavily towards an interest in character. First this started with the short story I wrote for the writing exercise, which was character based and about a couple out on a date, specifically the emotions of one of these characters when they think they’ve been left behind after wandering off to write their initials in wet concrete. I then wrote the story out as a shot list, one linear and one abstract, and through planning the story in abstract I found that I really liked the idea of expressing character and emotion through creative shots and film/editing techniques rather than directly through dialogue or narration. This led to me focussing on the effect of a shot for my next exercise. There was no dialogue or obvious clues as to what you should think when watching these shots, and yet the composition, angle and closeness of the shots all had an effect on how I viewed the character within them. This interest in character was on my mind when we brainstormed ideas in class, and when Paul asked what excites us about cinema, immediately I thought about character, but also of two of my favourite directors: Edgar Wright and John Hughes. I guess this has led me to what I’d like to explore for the rest of the semester. I’m not particularly interested in the original narrative I came up with for the writing exercise, but more in what ways I can show a viewer a character. A director who I believe does this really well and perhaps unconventionally is Edgar Wright, and so I’d like to use his style as something to work off and study as I explore my ideas. In learning to become a better filmmaker, I think there’s a lot I can get out of studying his style as well, and he’s a director who I really admire, particularly as someone who works in comedy but takes their work really seriously. In particular he does this thing he calls ‘the close up montage’, where there’s lots of close up shots is succession to show an action. I think the one from Scott Pilgrim is a really good example of how I could use this to explore character. There’s a lot to learn from these too in regards to transitioning, creating rhythm, using camera movements and setting up an effective close up. In terms of the characters themselves, I always love the kinds of characters that show up in 80’s teen John Hughes movies. I think in particular I love the costumes, and yes to an extent that’s just an era thing, but there’s just something about Hughes characters I really love, so I think thats another aspect I’d like to go into exploring.
