Film Studies

I am planning to produce a screenplay for a short experimental film. I am interested in creating a script for a film that focuses on establishing and developing a single female character through surreal and hyperreal imagery and sound. Initially, I am inspired and drawn in by the narrative and cinematic style used in Deren's 'Meshes in the Afternoon' and Lynch's 'The Grandmother', I find this style of experimental art film to have the most potential for the exploration and development of a character, her psyche, and her interactions with both herself internally and the world around her. I am planning to either expand upon or create something similar to a script that I wrote in the first year called 'Faceshopping', as I am interested in deconstructing a female identity through surrealism and hyperrealism in a futuristic and nightmarish world. As I am imagining my script, I would like it to read similarly to a nightmare and have the same strange and disori...

From the feedback on my presentation, I have learned that I utilised images and screenshots well to supplement and support points about Steven Spielberg's cinematic style. I linked my points to the Auteur Theory and presented the information in a way that was clear and well structured in order to make the presentation easy to understand to somebody who did not research Spielberg. On the other hand, my presentation could have been improved by including short clips from Spielberg's films instead of, or in addition to the screenshots I chose to use; this would have allowed me to go deeper in my analysis and find similarities in the construction of Spielberg's sequences and shots. I could have split the larger paragraphs of information into multiple, smaller slides which would have been more appropriate for the format of a spoken presentation, and may have made it easier to listen to and digest.

During this task, we chose to create a horror film about a college student who becomes so overwhelmed with work and life in general, he goes on a killing spree. We showed this by having the first minute of the short film full of repetitive shots, such as the card being scanned to get into the college, the work piling up as the film progresses to show how much work he has to do and a shot of a tree blowing in the wind with the grey sky in the background. We thought this would be evident to the audience that life has become repetitive and boring for the main character, and thus he wants a dramatic change.  We then showed the 'snap' of the main character by the use of a firework clip. This emphasises the idea that something inside his mind has 'snapped' and therefore both relates to the song perfectly and the title of the short film, 'Before You Snap'. The rest of the short film was dedicated to showing the killing spree that the main character went on. W...

(Note: the scene where the main character 'snaps' has been replaced from a plate smashing to a firework going off - along with non diegetic sound of the firework and screaming. The scene which featured the shot of the arm covered in blood has also been replaced with just blood on the wall, or paper since we couldn't put the blood on the wall itself, so we improvised.)

Create a list of cinematic ideas for a key sequence: this must include extreme close up, medium shot, two shot, zoom-in, high angles, low angles, low-key lighting, editing, sound, etc. Beginning:  The short film will start off with a repetitive montage of shots. These shots will be of: walking into college, scanning the card, walking to class, getting notes and books out, taking notes, packing away, walking out of college (?); regular things that happen on a day to day basis within the college. These will then be repeated through the use of editing to emphasise the repetition of a day-to-day life. The shots will slowly get faster and faster, until the character 'snaps'.  Middle:  The main character, Michael, will then go on a murderous killing spree, much in the style of Michael Myers in terms of the weapon, but Jason Voorhees in terms of the mask. There will a use of middle shots from behind, not showing the main character's fa...