23/02/16 - Moving Narrative - Script Development

Session 2 Notes                          23/02/16  Moving Narrative                    Allister Gall

Cinema is much more driven, from the camera.

Brunel got together with Dali to create a film with no meaning.

Pure film without dialogue! Makes you think more about the types of conflict that could happen between the characters, start to think about how they can link together

Robert Bresson - French film director

Use what you already have, make your own film in your own way, don't try to mimic other people's work, help you stand out. Thinking about sound for your scripts are important, helps to bring the visuals to life, gives a different perspective

Close-ups are the difference between cinema and theatre, you can skip straight to a close up, restricted to camera direction within cinema as oppose to theatre.

Use this module to focus on drama or narrative - Explore these ideas Aristotle wrote stories 2,000 years ago, his theory of drama contained 6 aspects - he believed the most important aspect of action was the plot.

Session 2 - Set Task

Developing the story further, thinking about the types of shots, whether they are internal or external, choosing a film of my choice to analyse the first 10 mins of the film and the script, see how scenario have been filmed once they are described in the script, have they achieved what was intended.

My chosen short films for next week's lesson are

How Wolves Changed Our Rivers: https://vimeo.com/86466357

What's he Building in Their: Tom Wait's: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaLjwSpZ6Cs

Alone in the Wilderness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYJKd0rkKss&feature=youtu.be

The Lunch Date: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epuTZigxUY8

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Walk The Line - Chosen Film and Script to analyse

The chosen script and Film that I have decided to analyse below is that from "Walk The Line" 2005 film starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon.

I have watched the first 10 minutes of the film and read the first part of the script, from what I can see in the film, at the start we hear the band playing at Folsom Prison for the prisoners to listen too, the script is written from the same starting point, annotating what we can see on screen in front of us, using adjectives and verbs to describe what is going on within the frame, types of movement on camera, the script helps to set the scene by describing the conditions of the prison.

Next we see a shot of the saw machine and we hear someone calling “Mr. Cash onto the stage, I know from watching the film that the shot cuts here and we see the band playing in the prison right at the end of the film, Johnny performs live with June up on the stage, singing their songs, especially A ring of Fire. However, when reading the script it annotates that we see the saw machine, Johnny gets called on stage and then it says that Johnny plays right away to the prisoners. Going back to the film, I know that we have a cutaway shot as Johnny is called to stage, we are taken back to the year of 1944 when Johnny and Jack his brother are living on the farm with there mum and papa. They appear to be working hard for their dad to receive money to support the family. We then get a cut away shot where we see the same type of saw machine, which JR uses to cut the wood for his father, Johnny decides to go fishing, when he is walking home his father picks him up in anger and takes him home, Johnny finds that JR has been injured from the Saw machine and he sadly dies whilst Johnny and their mum and dad are in the room.

This particular scene was not in the script at the start, however when Johnny is in the prison looking down at the saw machine, we can hear a VO over the top which sounds like there Dad calling JR, which then cuts to the farm scenario of when they were children growing up. I guess you could argue that the film has been shot in a non-linear fashion at the start.

The script has been used as a way to annotate what goes on in each frame, used as a guideline for the director and cinematographer to make everything work whilst on set. The script helps to space out the whole project into scenes, sections used to tell the story from different characters point of views, the script is obviously used to narrate the dialogue for the scenes, camera angles, duration of clips sometimes, possible sounds and of course the names of who will be speaking.

References

Short Films: 

Sustainable Human . (2014). How Wolves Changed Our Rivers. [Online Video]. N/A. Available from:https://vimeo.com/86466357. [Accessed: 28 February 2016].

Kuro Groves . (2007). Whats He Building In There. [Online Video]. 22 August. Available from:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaLjwSpZ6Cs. [Accessed: 28 February 2016].

Swererbob. (2009). Alone in the Wilderness. [Online Video]. 27 January. Available from:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYJKd0rkKss&feature=youtu.be. [Accessed: 28 February 2016].

Springboard Schools . (2008). The Lunch Date. [Online Video]. 14 July. Available from:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epuTZigxUY8. [Accessed: 28 February 2016].

Analyse Film 

Walk the Line: (2005) directed by James Mangold. 20th Century Fox