Exploring the ‘Underground Cave/River Idea’:
In week 3 we completed a writing exercise with the aim of fostering the conception and development of ideas for potential fictional film projects. In this exercise I brainstormed 3 ideas – and since then the potential of my third idea has become more apparent. I thought it’d be interesting to create short film product that would (attempt to) target and evoke emotions of panic, claustrophobia and relief. To achieve this emotional power, I wanted to explore the idea of being trapped in the dark, maze-like location of an underground cave system. In this post I’ll try and unpack this idea further and explore the ways I could bring the idea into reality.
[Since the writing exercise I remembered where the underground cave/river system I explored in year 9 was: near the top of Mount Buffalo in the Victorian Alps]
Sound:
To develop this idea I first began by thinking about, and imagining all the sounds that you would hear while crawling through a underground cave & river system. From memory, during my personal experiences in the underground – there was a combination of fairly quiet sections and really loud areas where the water was rushing through cracks and openings. This contrast would certainly be a good thing to emphasise in my imagined film and I think the sections of deafening water flow would be a really powerful element that would likely contribute to the emotions I would be trying to evoke in viewers. I think it’d be important to explore a wide range of water sound effects – from slow drips, things splashing in the water, etc.
In addition to the strong use of water sounds, I think it’d be important to explore a range of other sound sources as well – from the scraping of a character’s shoes and body agains rocks, to the whistling noises of wind escaping the darkness and maybe even the clicking of cave-dwelling insects.
Image:
I started to try and think of films (and other products) with similarly cramped locations or ideas of darkness & claustrophobia. The one that I immediately thought of (despite only seeing the trailer) was James Cameron’s ‘Sanctum’. From my understanding the film takes place in a deep and unexplored underground water system – the trailer certainly had some panicking moments and I think that as a viewer, many sequences in the film would be quite uncomfortable.
I just re-read The Hobbit and the chapters that take place in the Goblin cave systems also evoked similar emotions of darkness, inescapability and claustrophobia. The descriptions left readers feeling somewhat blind (to sympathise with the characters’ hopelessness and desperation). I feel that these sequences in the film failed to achieve the same effect, as (obviously) in the film medium the scenes had to be lit fairly brightly so that viewers could embrace the amazing detail of the cave’s design and also so that they could observe the characters’ movements easily. If I were to translate my idea into a tangible film, I think I would avoid lighting many sections too heavily as to avoid ruining the blindness and uncertainty that the dark provides (this would also add more power to scenes/shots that were lit brightly – giving further emphasis to the darkness – at the moment I’m imagining a shot where the camera escapes the dark and cramped cave space and finds the brightness of the open sky.
The opening sequence of Mad Max: Fury Road also feature maze like and quiet uncomfortable cave systems. While they were more spacious than what I currently have in mind, the feeling of being chased in an unknown and weaving maze was conveyed by Miller incredibly well. Not knowing whether one path will lead to a dead end certainly results in a more intense and stressful viewing experiences (as we root for Max to escape Immortan Joe’s lair).
Execution:
Now I have to deal with the question of how I could use these ideas and in the production and creation of a fictional film piece. At the moment I think that a more experimental approach to a film would be beneficial (and given that it’s pretty hard to film in a cave system) this approach would probably allow for more creative options in regards to ‘creating’ the caves. I’ll explore this idea further in a future post, however for now I’ll conclude this post.