We’re shooting the promo vid this week. I’m still a little lost on what we’re going to be shooting / how it’ll all be put together. We’ve gone back and forth throughout the weeks between ideas involving a stark documentary interview style and then, alternatively, an outrageously stylistic Fear and Loathing inspired aesthetic. Also, we’ve gone back and forth between ideas involving interviews with our group members vs. promo interviews with the guests (the latter presents too many practical limitations, in my opinion). A green screen was thrown into the mix at some point as well.
Here are some screen-shots of the recent brainstorming / organising / productive discussion between Carl, Michael and I.
I’m just thinking that we should somehow blend Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas aesthetic/content with documentary aesthetic/content.
Some things that we could borrow and parody from Fear and Loathing are:
- W/R – Hawaiian shirts, bucket hat, sunglasses (please can we put our trusty team leader / host Gabs in this outfit)
- Fisheye / wide angle lens (bring right up close to people’s faces and distort features)
- Colourful lighting – reds, blues, ambers, greens, purples
- Tracking camera movement (/lots of camera movement in general) – this one’s an important one, because if we do handheld tracking we’ll also be able to get that guerrilla documentary aesthetic (merges Fear and Loathing style and guerrilla doco style).
- Voice over from our host imitating the way that Johnny Depp narrates his journey/actions/thoughts/feelings in Fear and Loathing
- Parody specific moments from Fear and Loathing – e.g. when Johnny Depp struggles down the corridor towards his room (jumping from side to side and sneaking along walls etc.) because he’s in such a state of paranoia. <– We could have Gabby re-enact that to reach the interview room (or whatever) with the camera tilting/rotating diagonally like a rocking boat.
Anywho, it’s just some brainstorming. We’ll see what works. Carl can decide what he wants, I’ll shoot it, and Michael can edit it. Hopefully it’ll all work out!
These are some inspiration clips – mostly from Fear and Loathing – that we might be able to borrow from / parody.
From 31:17, the corridor scene (I think this upload might have been distorted and cropped though):
Hotel check-in (voice over / effects / content / asesthetic inspiration):
Opening driving sequence (voice over / content / effects / aesthetic inspiration):
From 3:30 to 4:10 – up close in subject’s face (camera rigged to them? Or not?) and tracking with them, but with a wider angle (fisheye) lens to distort their features: