Looking at how my film ultimately turned out, I found it intriguing
how much the tone had shifted from the conception of the idea. The main driving
force behind my project was the inspiration and how much I wanted to capture
that. The biggest draw for me were the portrayal of villains from the TV shows ‘Jessica Jones’ and ‘Sherlock’, specifically looking at the characters of Kilgrave and
Charles Augustus Magnussen respectively. Kilgrave especially helped shape the
film as his struggle to win over Jessica in his own sadistic and desperate way was
the basis on which the film was built upon. I wrote a film last year about unrequited love
however that was played straight so this time I explored an exaggeration of it.
When coming up with the names for
the characters, I had to take certain things into consideration. As a tribute
to ‘Jessica Jones’, I wanted to
feature a moment reminiscent of it and, as a result, needed a name that had
three syllables like Jessica. What drove me to pick Eleanor was the song ‘Elenore’
by The Turtles as I personally feel it has a similar theme as my film and it
would make for a good moment when the antagonist sings it. Speaking of the
antagonist, his full name (while not all in the film) was derived from the two
men who created the protocol that would allow the World Wide Web to run, Robert
Kahn and Vinton Cerf, which I blended into Robert Vinton although he is only
referred to by his surname as it just seemed more fitting.
The biggest challenge I faced was trying to convey the
subtle meaning behind the film. In order to apply the use of analogue and
digital, I came up with the idea that the antagonist was a human embodiment of
the internet which would explain why he’s clingy, voyeuristic and defeated by a
lack of internet connection. I still believe the idea and intention is still in
the final film however I fear it is much too subtle to the point where
audiences wouldn’t be able to identify it. I suspect people will focus too much
on the relationship aspect of it rather than question why he has access to phones
and intercoms.
To enforce the idea of internet and relationships, I focused
on two characters that can represent Donald A. Norman’s idea of the ‘Machine
Centred View’ which declares that machines show characteristics such as being
precise, rigid, and insensitive to change while humans are the opposite. I saw
this as good grounding to build characters from by having them be polar
opposites. I also wanted to capture this through the cinematography. For the
first two thirds where Vinton has control, I wanted him to be positioned in the
centre of the shot unless I was more dramatic effect while Eleanor would be off
centre. This would switch towards the end with the crossing point being their
encounter on the stairs when the both are centred. The last shot of the film
emphasises this by making sure Vinton is to the right.
Initially, I found the idea of filming this a bit daunting
as this was a much more ambitious project however I found it manageable by
splitting the film into thirds and filming each third individually. There were
a few moments within each third that had to be filmed out of sequence but, ultimately,
I think it came out as my best looking film so far. I’m proud of quite a few
shots and the colour and lighting worked in my favour. The best example is how
the lighting showed off Kilgrave’s influence as he is commonly known as The
Purple Man and the light on Vinton in the penultimate shot makes him look like a
light shade of purple.
It was hard to convey the narrative to the cast and crew as
I feel the film can only make sense when all edited together. Editing wise, the
influence of ‘Sherlock’ is apparent
most notably through the use of on screen text to show what is displayed on a
phone. I find this technique much more engaging than cutting to the phone
screen as it can be disorientating and makes it harder to read the message. I
also made sure that I used the same font that is featured in ‘Sherlock’ which has been used for London
transportation since the 30s. It’s not too distracting; it makes the film more
unique and gets the message across easily for the audience.
The original idea was much darker and focused much more on
paranoia with Vinton displaying his knowledge of the people he knows much like
how websites remember information you input which also would have tied in the
influence from Charles Augustus Magnussen. Magnussen retains a large amount of information
on people in his mind so he can use this for blackmail. The only influence of
Magnussen that has retained is Vinton watching Eleanor through his computer.
There were close ups of Vinton, mostly focused on his glasses, which has
inspired by similar cinematography from ‘Sherlock’.
After filming and looking back on the footage, I found that,
while the creepy tone is still there, there was a bit more of a black comedy
vibe to certain scenes. For example, Vinton sings ‘Elenore’ in a much more
casual tone than originally intended and I think it added to his character a
bit more. He also conveys much more exasperation at the end. It’s fascinating
to see things change between how I originally envisioned it when writing and coming
up with the idea compared to how the final product actually turned out.
If I were to point out where any of my improvements have
emerged from, it would be framing and lighting. Previous projects, both in and
out of college, have suffered from bad lighting as they are either blown out by
natural lighting or covered in shadows. This time, I used proper lighting
equipment and the film looks better for it. More detail can be seen with faces
being lit up more effectively and the only prominent shadows are giant ones
cast on the wall, creating a nice effect. With a stronger idea of how I wanted
this film to be framed, there are a number of shots that came out really well.
I consider this a big improvement over previous films I have made. I feel this is
because I experimented more with equipment and ran with an idea I had since the
start, allowing me to develop it further.
One aspect I had to tackle was finding fitting locations
that I could realistically film in. I had rough ideas of the sort of atmosphere
I wanted but when actually trying to think of places to film, I was too worried
about people interrupting shots which is a problem with filming in public
locations. The third act was the hardest but luckily we found a large stairwell
that had enough light and echo to accurately portray what I was aiming for.
With the echo already taken care of, I still had to do a
fair amount of sound editing in post. Two moments when Vinton uses technology
to talk to Eleanor required sound editing after filming. The first example of
the screen turning on with him on it was a simple matter of playing the audio
from the original video that is being played with a radio filter but the second
took more effort. I had to splice between Vinton speaking into the microphone and
Eleanor reacting (filmed separately so Eleanor’s actress was reacting to
nothing) and then add both the radio filter and reverb in order to make it
sound grander and match the natural echo that the stairwell has.
To summarise, I felt this project went better than
anticipated. From a behind the scenes look, I used for equipment (mostly
lighting) to make the film look much better than previous ones with more detail
highlighted and a better sense of framing is apparent. I was a bit cautious of
the content and tone of the film as it is a departure from what I’ve previously
done. In terms of how I think the final product turned out, I still feel that the
internet based undertones are too subtle to the point that most people wouldn’t
pick up on them however I’d rather it be open to interpretation like that
instead of being so blatantly spelt out for the audience with nothing for them
to take away.
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