The idea:
The objective is to film a scene where a
person is ill and feeling bad, even a bit despaired. There’s someone else taking care of him.
She is worried. Finally, when he begins to recover, both would show hope and
happiness. The scenes would be lighted to suit the different moods, mainly the
despair of the sick person and the peace of the final shots.
The light would be warm for all shots, but
scarce sometimes. The colours would be based on whites as much as possible, to resemble a hospital and therefore the feelings associated with it. Focus will be used to express
not only depth, but also mood.
The storyboard:
Shoot 1: Someone prepares a tea. There's some pills close to the cup.
I want this shot to be neutral and not to give away many things from the story.
The mise-en-scène is pretty simple, the light is natural, clear from a sunny day. When the person who's making the coffee appears, she'll be wearing something white. The mug is also white. The only sound you hear is that from the kettle.
Shoot 2: The person takes the tea and pills into a room which seems dark.
The arrangement of elements is simple and straight forward this time, the viewer will see the door, the person wearing white getting into the room, into a poor lit room. There will be a change of light in this scene. All begins to become a bit gloomier. In this scene you'll hear only "silence" and the door opening.
Shoot 3: In the room, there's a person in bed. By now the viewer would probably assume he's ill.
The room light is very dim, natural light from the sunny day, entering through the cracks from the blackout blind. The bed cover is also white, as well as the tea mug and the "carer" clothing.
Shoot 4: The viewer listens a sound. It happens to be the thermometer that has the person in bed.
Shoot 5: The focus is on the thermometer, so the viewer can see the sick person's fever.
I'll use focus to show depth in this shot. You can see the unfocussed person behind the thermometer. The shot is an over the shoulder camera view. Colour is generally white (with the exception of the thermometer, that unless I buy a new one, mine is yellow with a Winnie the Poo sticker...)
Shoot 6: The person in bed doesn't feel good, therefore he covers himself with the duvet. These shot shows the person below the duvet. He'll look at the camera. I want to show his despair here. The kind of despair you feel when you are feverous and bored and tired. The light is obviously poor here. I'm thinking of lighting from outside the duvet with a warm light just over the scene, we'll see how that works. Hopefully light is diffuse but clear enough. Again the main colour in the scene is white, from the sheets, the person's shirt, etc.
Shoot 7: The carer gets in the room. Her clothes are not white anymore, and she opens the window letting the light in.
Shoot 8: She feels the person in bed forehead, smiles. The sensations are much happier now, just with the change of light.
Shoot 9: She helps the now recovered man to wake from the bed. Sound needs to be more active. Probably the seagulls cries that from outside our flat.
Evaluation
While planning and
filming the assignment 2, I have considered all the studied techniques to
achieve creating atmosphere. See below a summarised analysis and some examples
of the used techniques:
Colour: The main
shade in the shoot is the colour white. The idea is to identify it with a
hospital environment. Some colours, in certain contexts, would generate a mood.
In this manner, something white in a natural lighted scene can express
brightness and a light mood, but in a poor lit scene, with someone in bed,
white can be associated with the, sometimes depressing and hopeless, mood of
old hospitals (thankfully architects are conscious nowadays of the impact of
their design in the ill person and modern hospitals move away from dimness and
plainness).
Light: The idea
of depression and hopelessness would move mainly around the light. Even when it
seems that it is a beautiful day outside, the feelings within the room are
pessimistic and dark. Nonetheless, once the sick feels better, the natural
light gets into the room, filling it with warmth.
While he is ill, the light is coming only from one
side, creating textures and shadows, increasing the sensation of uneasiness.
Once the blind is open, the reflected light eliminates most of the shadows and
the scene, creating an atmosphere of tranquillity.
Balance: The rule
of thumb has been generally followed for the shots, i.e. in the image where the
viewer can see the thermometer, this is situated in the lower left grid point.
Diegetic sound: I have
re-recorded some of the sounds to eliminate disturbances and improve sound
quality. I have also increased the sound of some elements, as the thermometer
beep. In this case, the viewer would not know what is the sound until she takes
the thermometer, but I have hopefully already grab the attention of the viewer
to it.
I have also used some very obvious sound effects in
the last scene to increase the sensation of calmness, where you can hear some
birds singing (my idea was for the birds to be outside, but some colleague has
commented that it seems that the birds are in the room… I might have solved
that opening the window, perhaps).
The result is, I think, only partially successful,
not because the inefficiency or the bad use of the different techniques – I
think they work quite effectively – but because of the atmosphere I wanted to
create (despair, preoccupation, then move to tranquillity) is quite complicated.
It would have been easier I think to show threat.
The first scene is neutral, introductory. The
second scene, when she opens the door into the dark room, is effective in my
opinion, as you can see her entering into the dim space.
The scenes within the room while he is ill might
have worked better cancelling completely the natural light and using
artificial, cold light, like a fluorescent.
The scene below the duvet I think that works quite
well, thanks to the light colour, the dimness below the bed cover and the (very
good acting) of Juan. For this scene I have also re-recorded the sight, to
cancel every other background noise.
Finally, as mentioned before, the last scene is
quite obvious: good warm, natural light, morning birds singing, equal
tranquillity and peace. It would have been useful to insert some other colour
into the scene to break with the white that was implying sickness, but I
couldn’t think of a “natural” way of doing it. Perhaps a jumper that she could
have left over the bed for him might have worked out. I changed the scene from the planned one in the story board, as this seemed a more normal action than getting up so suddenly from an illness.
It has been a very enjoyable assignment, not at all
easy, though. I find that I lack of some lighting equipment and, also, certain
willingness to turn my little flat upside down and in that way create different
stories with the adequate mise-en-scene. I have some ideas already… perhaps for
the next assignment.
