assignment 3 - creating meaning

For this assignment you will create a short sequence that tells a basic story and conveys implied meaning. 

From the suggested stories I've chosen Somebody makes a cup of tea - They are suicidal. 

Story board

1 

You'll see a close up of a tap, the tube is full and overflowing. Some red water appears into the frame.
Soundtrack - diegetic sound.

2

Then we suddenly change the scene, we can see a living room and the phone is ringing. A girl appears in scene and picks up the phone. She listens and seems shocked with the news.
Soundtrack -  diegetic sound. When it is obvious that she has received some bad news we'll begin to hear the noise of a TV with no signal.

3

Then we see what might be the image of whatever the news are... I want this to be quite abstract. We'll see first the close up of the sun (she is oblivious of what is happening) and then hear a crash, she turns her head and runs.
Soundtrack - still the no signal TV noise plus the crash noise

4

Running, camera is moving. Abstract, feeling of anxiety.       

Soundtrack - no signal TV noise

5

She makes a cup of tea. She is visibly sad. She has not much interest in the tea... it's like she is just preparing the tea cause she finds nothing else to do.
You see the kitchen, which is white. The kitchen light is fluorescent type, very white and dull. Camera pans from the kettle to her.
Sountrack - sad music.

6

You see the phone, not properly hanged. Semi-close up. 

Soundtrack - sad music.

7

You see the kettle, she didn't make the tea.  Close up traveling. 

Soundtrack - sad music.

Filming

Music by Alex Mackie, No Easy Way.

Evaluation

The aim of this assignment and section of the course was very interesting. Creating meaning with the images, with the sequences, what you show and you don’t. The specific subject I have chosen was not my cup of tea – someone suicidal – but roughly I think I have conveyed some sadness and anguish. Lets analyse scene by scene.

Scene 1

We see the shower open from above. I moved away slightly from the script, cause I’m back in Spain and water is very valuable, so I did not fill the tub.

Framing and composition - The camera is tilted and gives a sense of unbalance and instability.

Lighting - The light is artificial which suits the scene.

Sound - You hear the noise of the water running and suddenly the noise of a phone ringing comes in.

Meaning – in the shower you cannot see anybody (well, you can if you look at the reflection in the tap, but that is a beginners error), you only see the red water trickling into the frame, which is quite an obvious signal of somebody committing suicide.  But why? The intention of this scene right at the beginning is to give sense to the rest of the short sequence.

Next we see is a title frame indicating that what we have just seen has happened in the future, and the phone was ringing in the past. “…earlier that day…”

Scene 2

We see a woman picking up the phone and being shocked for whatever she listens in the other end.

Framing and composition – The frame is wide so you see the whole living room. There is no need, but this gives her a nice location in the frame (one of the thirds to call your attention), and we can see her movements clearly.

Lighting – Natural light comes from the background window and silhouettes her out.

Sound – Sound is diegetic sound, but when you see that she is shocked by the news, you begin to hear a beeeeep, like the one from an old analogue TV with no signal.

Meaning – most of the meaning in this scene is coming from the acting and non-diegetic sound., which gives a very strong sense of uneasiness. 

Scene 3

We see a close up of the sun, and then the camera changes and the viewer (subjective PoV) is running and falls.

Framing and composition – Framing and composition is not critical for me in this scene, as I try to convey a subjective PoV. The only important thing was that the sun needed to be isolated and quite in close up. Then the camera zooms out to show how the viewer is running.

Lighting – the light comes from the dazzling sun, which was quite high in the sky in a very clear and bright day..

Sound – TV with no signal to link this with the previous scene (see meaning). The plan was to include the sound of a car crash, which would have given a bit more sense to the scene, but I tested this and didn’t help much to the meaning of the scene and the result was a bit odd.

Meaning – This was a quite risky and abstract scene. The idea was to show how she was kind of oblivious (dazzled by the sun) to what was happening and then she wants to run away, literally, in anguish and frustration. I expected that the sound would help to give this meaning, this sense of being “inside” her head.

Scene 4

We see a close up of the kettle being set for a tea, then the camera moves and we see the woman seated, looking sad, playing around with the cup and the tea bag.  Then she stands up and leaves, not making the cup of tea.

Framing and composition – The close up works nicely and well in this scene. It allows you to see just what you need, you guess from the context she is in the kitchen.

Lighting – I planed I would use the artificial and bright, white light of my kitchen. When tested, I liked it better with the dim natural light coming from the terrace. She is in the shadows, the light does not lit her directly but rather from behind. It gives a nice look of sadness to the shot.

Sound – The beep ends and a sad music begins. Music is by Alex Mackie, No Easy Way.

Meaning – The music is sad and it gives sense to the scene. The acting, framing and light help to convey meaning. She is sad, she is helpless, she leaves.

Scene 5

We see the phone, nobody has bothered to hang it up. Then we see a picture of the woman and a man.

Framing and composition – The frame is a close up, the camera set at the height of the subject.

Lighting – Natural light.

Sound – sad music.

Meaning – A travelling moves from the close up of the phone to the close up of the picture. It does mean something, the two images are linked, something has ended, something is wrong.

Conclusion

I had the idea of ending with the cup of tea, again unfinished, but thought that was then two closures and didn’t include it.

The camera movements and framing I think work well. The subjective PoV of the abstract scene achieves the uneasiness I was looking for, and the travelling in the last scene works quite nicely in my opinion (although the travelling equipment can do with some improvement so the image does not jump).

On the other hand, the narrative is quite confusing, as I have tested with some friends. They don’t get the idea; they think somebody else has committed suicide, not the girl. The abstract scene (scene 3) is not understood within the sequence unless I explain it… but they do get a feeling of sadness. Fairly enough, next chapter is about narrative; let’s see what I can learn there.


Edit 29/11/15 to attach copy of my tutor's report:

project 14: camera movement

Find 6 examples of moving camera work

House of Cards, series 03, episode 13.

Minute 16, Clair Underwood gets into her bedroom after leaving his husband's campaign. In the background, you can hear Frank's speech in the background while the camera follows Claire in the room. She walks to the bed side table and leaves her rings, then turns and goes back to close the door. Then the speech is silenced.
The scene works brilliantly both with the diegetic sound (from a different image than the one we are seeing) and the camera movement.

I have not found a video to show it, some screenshots shown below.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Harry and their friends are running to the boot that would be used as a transporter. The camera moves to become the main element in the screen after following the characters in their walk through the hill.
Lauryn Hill, Everything is everything video.

The whole video is recorded with movement, following the people walking in the streets ad the cars, as the city happens to be an LP disc plate.

La Isla Mínima

In this scene from La Isla Mínima we can see a pan camera movement from the inside of the car. The camera, located in the backseat, follows a guy from the front seat who gets out of the car and goes to open the boot. In the boot there are geese who get in the frame. We can see another guy at the distance who was supposedly also in the car, and calls the guy the camera is following. 

The Wolf of Wall Street 

In the scene when Jordan Belfort gets his first job in Wall Street, and they begin to call the clients, you can see the action. A zoom in to a telephone while someone is dialling helps to feel the fast pace of the scene. 

Sex and Lucía

In Sex and Lucía's last scene we can see how while Nadjwa Nimri get's closer to the photo of her daughter, the camera POV changes to subjective. The camera keeps closing into the photo of the girl, and suddenly we are in a different scene, when the photo was taken (in the past). The camera then zooms out of the girl and tilts to show the building, where Lucía would be singing in the window.