https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aekfPU0SwNw(0-2mins)

For my scene deconstruction I chose to analyse a scene from the romantic drama film, ‘The Room’ directed, produced and written by Tommy Wiseau. I have not seen this film in its entirety, although I have heard references to it many times. ‘The Room’ amassed a box office of $1800USD and has been referred to as “The worst film ever made” by ABC. This scene is incredibly confusing to watch, as there appears to be no rhyme or rhythm to the shots. Part of the confusion may arise from the actors constantly changing and swapping positions, moving around on the set. The dialogue is mostly filmed with a range of mid shots with a few over the shoulder shots and panning shots. The panning shots serve as very distracting as they prevented me from becoming immersed in the scene, due to them being incredibly shaky without any clear purpose or cinematic goal. This lead me to believe that the budget was so low, that equipment needed for a smooth panning shot could not be afforded. I believe this scene could have been much more seamless to view, had there been a panning establishing shot between the doorway Tommy enters and the seats where, he and Mark sit down.

When I did some research on the plot of ‘The Room’, I discovered that Mark (The character in the red shirt) had been having an affair with Johnny’s (The protagonist) wife. The constant movement of the characters could be an attempt of Wiseau to visualize the deception and dishonesty between the two characters. It is also interesting to note that Mark’s character is always the one to change positions first, with Tommy following behind. I feel this could have been put together in a much more interesting manner had the shot construction been more thoughtfully planned out.

The production design is clearly done with a low budget, and is quite dull and unnoticeable. In my opinion, the production design gave quite a melancholic feeling to the scene, as the greenscreen behind the two characters is keyed to show an arguably bleak city scape with billowing puffs of smoke in the air. One interesting element was the more bright and colorful green screen keyed as Tommy first enters the scene, this background then changes to the aforementioned grey city scape during his conversation with Mark. Perhaps this was Wiseau representing the deception between the two characters through the apparent change in color schemes. The performance of the two actors is not very inspiring as they spout insulting and unbelievable dialogue. I believe this scene could be enjoyed more if it is viewed as if it is satirical, as the script and acting is so ridiculous it is, in my opinion, quite humorous.