Reflective
analysis of my imaginary film ‘Quantum
Dream’.
The aim is to keep
the audience guessing throughout the sequence and to constantly increase the
enigma using the film language skills like cinematography, mise-en-scene,
sound, and editing. I also
want to aid the audience in sharing the same emotions of the main protagonist.
Additionally, I want the audience to sympathise with the lead protagonist; this
will be achieved through the use of sound/music as slow paced editing, as well
as the use of POV shots, extreme close-ups, and extreme long-shots. Dubbing
heart beat sounds, or heavy breathing will also help in creating tension. I
have looked at films that have some relation to my film, such as Black Swan,
Fight Club and Shutter Island, because these films all share the theme of a
character losing their identity. Therefore, I will take inspiration from these
three films in order to achieve my set goal. I will try to have the audience
not takes sides to characters, I want to expose the horrors of everyman’s
crime, and show that not everyone is innocent but try and do so without the
audience condemning them. The story type I am using is The Quest in which the
character is set a task to find someone or something. He accepts the challenge,
searches for and finds someone or something. He is then rewarded, or not, for
his success in the quest.
I took a great amount of inspiration for my film from
Stephen King’s novel ‘Bag of Bones’, especially the television adaptation of
this. The lead characters suffers from nightmares in which he finds himself
waking up in the middle of the woods. This is very similar to my own film. Additionally,
there was a small amount of inspiration from the film Donnie Darko, for that
opens with a very mystery scene of Donnie waking up in the middle of the road.
We wanted to recreated this sense of mystery. With this, me and my partner,
Mark Clifford, combided our insipartions to create the final sequence. Mark
really liked a hunting scene in the TV series Supernatural, which worked very
well with the narrative. Through these, it gave us a rough idea on how to
compose our squence to create the desired effect.
So the first thing that had to be done was create a
concept and synopsis for the imaginary film. We knew we wanted to make
something like the media above that inspired us, but we wasn’t too sure what.
We then went to research other psychological thrillers and found out all the
key elements that make them fit that genre. We even dived deep enough to start
researching into video game narratives, paying close attention to a Remedy game
called Alan Wake. The games writer himself, Sam Lake, has said to greatly
inspired by Stephen King when writing out the story. And this is highly
reflected in his work, the story of Alan Wake could have come straight from a
Stephen King novel, and had many simularities to the story of Bag of Bones.
Now we had decided on the genre, and even wrote out a
detailed synopsis and narrative, we got to work on the storyboard. The
storyboarding was not my strong suit, I didn’t put too much detail into them,
but more so just the important parts of the narrative. This is because I didn’t
want to feel too restrained to following these images, therefore, using them as
least as we possible could, lead us to bold new ideas that we probably would
not have thought of or even tried if we we’re being strict of the ‘film makers’
rules.
We decided the particular
actor for the lead role because he has clear light skin and is tall in stature.
Pale skin is very common within thrillers because it fits with the idea of
people losing their colour when they’re in fright. As well as this, the actor
was a group member for the work, therefore, I knew I had his total cooperation
and reliability. To further emphasise this, after the filming process, we
removed more colour and darkened the scenes within the editing software.
I opened the sequence with a medium shot of a black
piece of cloth blowing in the wind. The shot begins blurry, but then comes into
focus with a focus pull. This represents loss and death. This is because within
this point of the narrative, the protagonist, Nate, has realised that it is his
fault that his fiancée had been brutalised and murdered. This one simple shot
not only connotes this idea of loss and death, but acts as a very
unidentifiable establishing shot, thus not allowing the audience to know where
they are, leaving them in the same situation as the protagonist.
The next shot is the first
time the audience see Nate during this sequence. It’s an extreme close up of
his eye as it opens wide in shock. The opening of the eye is in sync with the
non-diegetic ‘boom’ sound. Once his eye has opened he begins to breath heavily,
the sound of his breath was dubbed in after the filming. Following on from this
extreme closeup, I lead with an eyeline match POV of Nate staring up at the
swaying trees. The trees lack of greenery really helps create a sinister effect
as they are almost stopping him from seeing the sky. In order to have this POV
more realistic, Mark stayed in his position on the ground but took control of
the camera.
We then cut it to a cantered angle medium closeup. I
then tried to crane the camera by hand by raising it up and rotating it to
become a midshot. The cantered angle connotes the protagonists confusion as to
where he is. The rising crane is as though he is slowly coming to his senses,
but it also gives a feeling that Nate is all alone. However, because we did not
have the actual crane equipment, the shot is not as smooth as it could possibly
be, and it also goes out of focus slightly as it tracks back. As Nate rolls
over, we cut to a medium close-up of Nate staring at something, this is of
course follwed by an eyeline match of some out of focus trees. We then cut to a
close up of Nate to suggest he’s trying harder to make out what is in the
distance. We once again have an eyeline match of the trees, and the shot begins
to come in focus, and we see a scarf caught up in a tree. We cut back to the medium
closeup just before Nate stands up.
We really wanted to capture
actions from different angles to give a pacey and somewhat bewildered feel.
Therefore as Nate stands up from the ground we have three different angled
shots, all continuous by matching the action from the previous angle. This
helps show that just the simple action of standing up was quite a harsh task
for Nate. This is also shown greatly through the performance.
As Nate staggers, he places his hand on a tree. We had
a close up of the hand, but then we pulled the focus to a medium closeup of
Nate’s body as he reaches into his pocket. Unfortunately, although continuity
was a very import aim of ours, we neglected to realise that his hand is in a
different position to the previous shot, fortunately this is not too noticeable
and does not affect the scene in any way. Again, we change camera angle to an
almost over the shoulder medium close-up of his body, this gives the audience a
better view of what Nate is reaching into his jacket for. With the audience in
mind, we once again cut to a different angle, this time an over the shoulder
close up of Nate’s hands with the photograph in focus so the audience can
clearly see it. This was crucial because the narrative of the film wholely
evolves around this one photograph, however, without context (previous scences
from the imaginary film) this could be confusing. We then cut to a midshot of
Nate as he stumbles against a tree in grief of the loss of his finacée (the
woman in the photograph), once more this shot relies highly on the perfomance
aspect. Additionally, it was my idea to add a score over the shots in order to
create more emotion. I searched the interent to find a royalty free saddening
violin piece that would be legible for personal and educational use. This music
then continues throughout the sequence until the very end. We then cut to an reaction shot to see the
protagonists emotion in the form of a closeup on him. This shows the
character’s fragile state of mind.
Nate then continues on his
way trying to get out of the woods, when he comes across the scarf he saw in
the opening. Again, we have a close up of Nate as he reaches for the scarf to
show his look of confusion. The closeup of Nate’s feet afterwards suggests he
has travelled far, and as he steps out and over the camera, it’s as though he’s
going beyond the woods, he’s almost finding a way out.
Once again there is a cantered angle as Nate approaches
a tree, but as he starts to realise his location, (because he has been here
before in the narrative) the cantered angle slowly returns to a classic steady
shot. There’s then a match on action as Nate changes his direction and walks
off in a way to suggest he knows where he is heading. As continues to touch
things (like the scarf previously) as he walks past, I came up with this idea
that the more things he begins to touch the more memories he begins to unlock
from the depths of his mind. Leading up to the final memory (the boat, which
will be discussed further). We the follow the with an over the shoulder
tracking shot as he makes his with through the brush and towards an opening in
the trees. This shot is almost as the the audience are struggling to catch up
to the protagonist because he is determined to get away from this horror. The
shot of Nate sliding down the hill also aids in the idea of him rushing and
being determined, but it also shows that he is still not quite fully conscious.
We had originally intended for Nate to just step over
the broken fence, however, Mark had the idea of splitting the screen from
freedom and horror and having Nate almost in the freedom half of thescreen.
Therefore I decided to show Nate’s hands reaching the fence, but I raise the
camera as though he is becoming free until I get to the right composition Mark
was meaning. This shot is very effective, it is a way of showing the
protagonist’s hope of escape. A closeup of Nate’s foot as he begins to hop the
fence is purely an action shot to be aesthetically pleasing to the audience.
The match on action from the drop off the fence to the landing on the ground is
a way of showing his freedom from the forest. He drops completely out of shot
and into another, which almost looks like a completely different location. The
camera the pans up and follows Nate. Since Nate’s freedom is represented by a
new location, we decided we needed another establishing shot. I thought of the
idea of having a long shot of the protagonist as he scouts the area, but I
really had this idea of having the grass in the shot. This wheat in shot really
reminded me of a horror movie along the lines of Jeepers Creepers and Texas
Chainsaw Massacre, and I feel it really gave off a feeling that something still
isn’t quite right here. This shot is also very powerful in terms of isolation,
it strongly shows Nate being alone and isolated, everything surrounding him in
the framing is almost enclosing him in, not giving him that escape he’s so
desperately looking for.
After an over the shoulder longshot of a sail boat
wrecked upon shore, (that Nate seems to recognise) Nate runs off towards it.
The over the shoulder shot unfortunately is very disappointing, and both Mark
and I agreed let’s down the scene. The idea was to carefully zoom in to the
boat, however, due to weather and ease of zoom on the actual camera, the shot
become prolonged and very jerky. We thought up many ways to try and film this,
but we decided to go for a hard but creative technique that was brought to my
attention by the director J.J. Abrams. This idea was that instead of running
backwards at the same pace of the actor in order to have his face in shot, but
to rather have the actor run on the spot and try and keep the background out of
focus as much as possible. We would then cut away from this (in this case with
a midshot from behind) to then repeat and stand still run but further along as
though he has travelled some distance. This shot didn’t go as well as expected,
but I still feel the shot deserved to be in the sequence, I don’t feel it could
have been film in any other way to give the same effect. 
The boat in the sequence is
the great turning point in the narrative. It’s as he looks inside the old boat
that he realises what he most do to get his fiancée back, this is shown through
the POV shot of Nate, followed by a close up of his reaction as he realises
this. If this was to be a full length feature, the boat would be a reoccuring
motif to represent escape. As Nate continues past the boat he 
strokes the side in an almost loving fashion, it
reminds him of the past when he was happy. This stroke is emphasised with the
use of a closeup on his hand as he does so. 
Once round to the other side of the boat, we can see
Nate’s finally obstacle to freedom. I decided that I would film this part from
behind the metal fencing so it is as though Nate is caged inside. The open sky
is in high contrast with the opening of the sequence which was filled with
trees. This again suggest Nate is on the right path to becoming free from his
pain and sorrow. Once he manages to hop on over the fence, we get the first
shot of Nate where is isn’t surrounded by something in the framing. This is the
first time we see him in an open area.
A closeup of Nate’s feet is he’s about to jump of the
wall onto the beach I tried to make very reminiscant of someone who is about to
commit suicide. As he steps off, it is almost as though he is stepping off just
to end it all. He continues to walk down towards the coast and we get a POV
shot from Nate of the sea just before he stands still. This helps the audience
know that this is his desired location, this is the place that he has been
looking for this whole time. He now knows exactly what he is doing.
Through a midshot, we once again see him reach into his
pocket. Through a match on action to a close up with continuity editing, we
once again see him remove the photograph from his pocket. He turns over the
photograph and it reads ‘The Perfect Shot’, from following the story from the
beginning, the audience would understand that this photo is evidence of his
fiancée’s murder. The murder he witnessed and didn’t do anything to stop but
sat back to take a photograph.
We then cut to a closeup of Nate as he stares at the
photograph. I really wanted the camera postioned slightly to the right to
create a gap at the side of the framing. This is to represent the loss of his
fiancée, it’s the space that’s missing from his life. This is then underlined
by the eyeline match, which is a closeup of the photograph which Nate then rips
apart right down the middle, splitting the girl away from the murderer.
Nate then raises his arms, almost like Christ before
falling to his knees. This is very significant, as I felt the ending needed a
religious theme, Nate needed to beg for forgiveness before having his sins
washed away. As Nate falls to his knees, we cut to a profile medium shot as his
hits the ground. He then looks up to the sky. We decided to add the eyeline
match for that final sense of freedom. The sky is open, he is on his knees
beginning God for forgiveness.
The end is highly left to intepretation, however, when
I set about writing the sequence, and the finally getting it onto film, I
really felt like he is given the second chance by God himself. This is why I
wanted the final shot to be a high angle of Nate, almost like God looking down
on him. Also, thankfully for the windy weather during the filming, it helps
great a much more ‘magical’ atmostphere to the scene.
After we
gathered all the footage, we then had to place them together with an editing
programme. While the majority of the college students used the editing suites
within the college, I thought it would be wise to use my own computer at home
to grant me more frequent access, as well as the ability to be able to work
from home if necessary. The programme I used to edit the shots together is
called Adobe After Effects CS6, which is a very professional editing software.
Within AE (After Effects), it allowed me to cut clips to precise timings, the
the precise frame rather than a second. This freedom allowed me to create the
exact feel I wanted from the piece. As well as this, it allowed me to drown out
the colours to make it almost black and white, which is very typical of the
pyschological thriller genre. Also, I decreased the brightness slightly to also
increase the enigmatic and twister thriller feel that I was aiming to achieve.
One of the main problems from the footage was the
sound. From filming in very windy conditions, the microphone picked up a lot of
it, including some very irritating whistling. Therefore, we tried our best to
remove the annoying sounds, quieten the louder sounds and emphasise the action
sounds (such as breathing and footsteps). During the opening of the scene, in
one clip in particular the wind was far too loud and therefore we had to remove
the sound completely. We then had to record new footstep sounds to place on top
of the clip to make it much more realistic. Throughout the whole sequence we
also had a royalty free wind sound playing constantly, the really helped blend
the clips together that still had sound to make the cutting of clips less
noticeable through background noise, as well gives those clips that had no
sound at all and atmospheric and realistic feel.
If I was to redo the course, I would definitely alter
my time management. At some points I felt really rushed to get it finished,
meaning I had less time to make small corrections to my film just to make it
that bit more professional. But in restrospect, I’m very proud of the sequence
that we managed to produce, and felt we managed to bring the story to life.
