Camera and Editing Ideas

Camera

When discussing our film, we have come up with some ideas of camera shots and editing techniques which we believe would be effective in our film and interest the audience and keep them engaged.

Firstly, we had the idea of having a shot where we have our protagonist Lucas at the train station and we can see him clearly, yet the other extras at the station are walking past quickly and appear blurred, but Lucas still remains visible, connoting how he is the focus and a main character of the film. You see this feature in many music videos and our inspiration for this was The Script’s; The Man Who Can’t Be Moved music video, from 3:05 to 3:47 where you can see the cars and people moving by really quickly.

We also have the idea of including point of view shots from Lucas’ perspective, to help the audience engage and relate with him, thus view things from his opinion. We are especially going to employ this shot within our edit when Lucas is deciding whether to get on the train, or whether to help Grace, hence panning between the two of them. This indicates how he has to make a choice so is considering both options, thus leading into the flash forwards of his two different paths of life.

Our other shots will be detailed on our shooting script later on in our planning process.

Editing

Regarding editing techniques, we have decided we are going to include parallel action so will switch between showing the successful life with the family orientated life, hence contrasting them.

Furthermore, at the end of the flash forwards portraying the two different lives that Lucas could live, in both of them he will receive a letter: which in the successful life states how he has received a bonus and in the family orientated life confirms his wife is pregnant. When he opens the letter, we want to display it by the use of split screen, thus in both lives he is opening a letter, yet whereas in the family life he has his wife to celebrate with, in the successful life he is all alone in his posh mansion, hence helping us to contrast the view of the different lives to our demograph.

“Conversations with other Women” is a 2005 film directed by Hans Canosa and has extensively used the split screen technique. It juxtaposes shots and shot-reverse shots of the 2 actors in the same take for the entire movie, hence enlisting the audience as perceptual editors so they can choose which character to focus on. The split-screen is also used to display other emotional effects for example, portrays flashbacks of the past, juxtaposed with the present.

As we are going to be showing the two different lives that Lucas can live, we were thinking we could change the lighting of one of the paths, so it is easier for the audience to follow. For example, in “Memento”, one storyline is in black and white, yet one is in colour. Another film which uses different lighting for each story within the film is the 2000 American crime drama “Traffic”. There are three stories within the film and they are portrayed by all having a different distinctive look; one connotes a cold monochrome blue feel, another connotes a much warmer blossomy feel, and the last one connotes a strobe-like sharp feel. Therefore, as each story has a different look, it is much easier for the audience to identify which one they are watching, so as not to get confused.

We also have the idea of using slow motion in our short film when Grace falls over at the train station, signifying how her falling is an important part of the film, as it is then that Lucas has to make a decision about whether to help her up or ignore her. The 1999 action film “The Matrix” uses slow motion for example, in the clip above from 0:42 – 0:52 slow motion is employed and we would like to create a similar effect to this when Grace falls over in our short film.

As in “Sliding Doors”, we want to include a rewind feature, whereby the flash forwards are all then rewound backwards really fast to reflect how it is all rushing through Lucas’ mind really quickly and how he has so much information to process before making his life changing decision. Coldplay’s music video for “The Scientist”, includes a rewind feature, whereby he is seen walking backwards throughout the video, however this is at quite a slow pace, whereas in our film, we want our rewind to be at a fast pace.