In the process of storyboarding our film, we decided to split the script into four different sections for each of us to do. I ended up with the final two scenes of the script, which essentially involve Tim seeing the band play at a bar, and then leaving the bar afterwards.
The first of these scenes, where Tim sees the band play, is intended to be a very positive and euphoric point in the film. This is when we kind of really discover what all of his devotion is going towards, and in seeing him actually visibly happy for the first time in the film, we can hopefully begin to understand what he gets out of this lifestyle. With all of this in mind, I was left with the question of how best to shoot this. Firstly, I decided that it should all be a close up of Tim, as we are at our closest to him as an audience. This will be the first and only time that a close up of Tim is used, as I further discuss in this post where I discuss how Tim will be framed in a more broad sense. I also thought that this scene could largely be a single take in which Tim, always in a tight close up, is tracked from front on as he makes his way through the crowd at the show. This front on track could also be the first instance of camera movement in the film, in the hope of conveying that through better understanding what Tim gets out of this, the audience is now more involved with him.
With the framing and camera movement fairly well thought out, the next element of this scene to think abut is the lighting. Up to this point in the film, the lighting will have always been largely natural and reasonably dull, so this scene marks a change to that – in the same way it marks a change in framing and camera movement. In the early stages of the scene, before the band have begun playing, the room will be quite dark, but as the show begins, lights will begin to strobe and flash. While we may not end up having so much control over the lights, in my head I see them as pinks and warm yellows. It is once these lights have begun to flash on the tight close up of Tim’s face, and the music begins to play (which I go into in more depth here) that I hope the sense of euphoria and magic really kicks in. With this word ‘magic’ in my head, I found a source of inspiration from a perhaps less typical place than most of my other tonally and thematically similar inspirations. This place was the Disney movie, Tangled, in particular this scene.
While obviously our film will not be a Disney style animation, the way in which this scene portrays a character, as well as the film itself, finally reaching the thing they were after from the beginning, in a sort of emotional climax, is really quite similar to what I’m hoping to achieve with this moment. In terms of a specific aspect of the Tangled scene, the colour that comes from the lanterns is very similar to what I’d like the lights from the stage to look like.
Hopefully, all of these elements will be achievable when it finally comes to shooting, and our film will have its euphoric emotional climax.
References
Tangled. (2010). [film] USA: Nathan Greno, Byron Howard