– Reflective Report –

Group members: Lucas Worcester and Claudia Viota

Within a flower lies both poison and medicine. Lovers are alike in so many ways. This prompt, given to our group initially, engaged us to start building ideas that we believe would relate to the prompt, but in a non-conventional/ romantic way. We were drawn to relationships within a family, and the idea of how a family can both be seen as medicine and poison. Because of the dark themes we want to explore, we are going to try to create a dark mood for the film, and have the events be very drama orientated.

We came across the short film Let’s Be Civil Kenneth!, directed by Eric Pumphrey. It revolves around the building tension between a 1950’s couple in one consecutive shot. The two characters are married and don’t seem to follow the respective roles in their society. It is quite confronting to see a domestic dispute between two strangers, and as a group we thought it would be interesting to dive into this idea of revealing the life of a dysfunctional family because we often never get to see what happens behind closed doors and really understand what different families are like.

After one of the screenings in our studio, I was unable to stop thinking about Lynne Ramsay’s short Small Deaths. The themes and mood communicated were really captivating and engaging for me as an audience. I knew that Ramsay directed the 2011 feature film We Need to Talk About Kevin, so I was quite excited to see it. The film captures the almost demented relationship between a mother and her son. Kevin, the son, begins to show psychopathic signs of a mental disorder, but unsure whether this is due to the debate over “nature vs. nurture”. Kevin’s mother Eva, played by Academy Award Winner Tilda Swinton, plays a mother who replaces her hostility and hatred for her child with superficial kindness. In the scenes where she lives with her husband, son and daughter, they are situated in a suburban home, which appears quite expensive. This serves as a sort of mask for Eva. Trying to appear normal to the outside world, and even to her. I have seen many domestic dramas focused on the relationship between husband and wife, but very few about the relationship between a mother and her son. Ramsay creates an eerie mood through this non-linear, inside perspective of a mother who has a sadistic son. We Need to Talk About Kevin has similar aspects to the type of film our group wants to make. Portraying the reality of a dysfunctional family/relationship.

Stills from the 2011 film, “We Need to Talk About Kevin”

It was hard as a group to decide whether we wanted to go with realism techniques for film, or to work with surrealism and focus on nightmare qualities about family life. None of us have worked with surrealism in film, so we thought what better time to try it out than in this studio. I’m quite lucky with the draw of this group, because I have had some bad experiences with group work in this course, mostly due to the fact that we are in an environment with so many creative minds, we are all bound to have different ideas and styles. The group I’m in for this studio, although there have been some communication issues and problems with roles, we are able to bounce ideas well off each other, and we all have a pretty similar idea of the film we want to create, and the style we want to use.

A brief synopsis of the film we as a group wish to create is: A dysfunctional couple undergo an emotional onslaught of feelings and physical abuse before they undertake a family portrait. The image we have of the first scene is a setup of a family portrait, starting with a close up of a child, who is seated between her mother and father, as they are sitting getting their portrait taken. The young girl and her father try to smile while the mother weeps hysterically. The father struggles to remain composed as his wife’s cry’s intensifies. He breaks his pose and smacks her on the back of the head. We then plan to show moments from the night before, domestic situations that portray the power play between the parents. After these scenes, we will end the film with the aftermath of the first scene, with the mother just being slapped; she composes herself and presents a pearly white smile. The father squares his shoulders and rests a firm friendly hand on his daughter’s shoulder. At the touch of his grip she cocks her head slightly, producing an innocent smile from ear to ear. Creating a family portrait of how they want to be perceived by the outside world: normal.

The portrait is a symbol of the intended surface appearance that families give off. This superficial image shows nothing but what a family or individual wants you to see. The staged portrait we want to show in the opening scene, implies control and stability of the family, something that they definitely don’t have. Each parent trying to control the situation and create an image free from the tribulations that have formed over the course of their relationship.

Since we decided on a surreal film style, we started to explore short films of a similar nature. Lucas came across a really interesting take on a similar idea we had, a family portrait. The short film by Joseph Pierce A Family Portrait, provides an insight of a photographer taking the portrait of a family, but they cannot seem to get in sync. It starts off quite normal, until photographs of the family start to be taken, with over exaggerated smiles appear in this animation form. The use of exaggeration of body parts and expression is a tool to really show the audience the importance of the expression or movement, for example, the nose of the wife growing and completely covering her husbands head because she is smelling him to see if she can smell another woman. These theatrical traits can also be applied in our surreal domestic drama, such as the couple wearing blindfolds to show they don’t want to even look at each other.

In the reading A typology of domestic violence: Intimate terrorism, violent resistance, and situational couple violence by M.P. Thompson, abuse and violence within an intimate relationship is said to be caused by the control dynamics in the relationship. Domestic violence is quite regularly addressed in the media, with many films and television shows covering the issue. The reading also discusses the idea of “mutual violent control”, where both members of a relationship are controlling and violent, fighting for control over the relationship, but states that there is very little known on these relationships. I found very little information about mutual combat in relationships, so because of the lack of knowledge I have on this dynamic, it will be interesting to sort of figure out how we want to approach it ourselves in the script and performance.

I’ve always been very interesting in photography, doing classes and workshops for the last few years, and I loved that the art by Gregory Crewdson made it into the teachings of this studio. Inviting the audience to be a voyeur on his photographs creates a sense of mystery, because the photograph is just a still moment of time, leaving many questions unanswered, which is sometimes what he intends, stating that sometimes there is no “moral to the story”(5). One of things I love the most about some of Crewdson’s pieces is the idea of showing the audience a domestic situation that we wouldn’t be able to see without him, which relates to our project idea, of seeing behind the closed doors of families. “I want to take familiar tropes like the suburban home … and project onto them some kind of personal meaning”(5), communicating themes and a mood can be as simple as this in a short film, even by using the juxtaposing setting of an average suburban home, with the dramatic events unfolding in the narrative.

Gregory Crewdson: Reclining Woman on a Sofa (2014) from Cathedral of the Pines © Gregory Crewdson. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery

Gregory Crewdson is able to create a melancholy narrative through an elaborately staged shot. In his 2014 work entitled Reclining Woman on a Sofa,  there is a story being told. The audience is given the opportunity to see this rare insight on this character’s life. The setting is normal, with pastel coloured furniture, and 1950s styled objects, but the woman lying on the sofa has this look of despair while she is completely naked, almost seeming unaware that she is being watched by so many.

– References –

1. Pumphrey, E. (2014) Let’s be civil, Kenneth!.

2. Ramsay, L. (2011) We need to talk about Kevin.

3. Pierce, J. (2011) A family portrait.

4. Johnson, M.P., 2010. A typology of domestic violence: Intimate terrorism, violent resistance, and situational couple violence. Upne.

5. Morrow, B., 1997. Gregory Crewdson. Bomb Magazine, p.38-43.

6. Crewdson, G. (2014) Gregory Crewdson | reclining woman on sofa (2014).

I often forget that filmmakers whose films I love have created short films, because they aren’t always as easily accessed as feature films. This goes especially for Taika Waititi, who directed one of my favourite films Boy (2010). Before Boy he made the short film Two Cars, One Night (2004), which are both about young children, and the film being from their view of things.

We discussed in class this week, that short films aren’t just films that are short, but a short film. The audience should walk away and not imagine it as a feature film, because it is in itself, enough. A short film doesn’t have to be events and situations rushed into a shorter time frame than a feature film, but should be focused on communicating something to the audience, which is what I believe, happened in this short. Two Cars, One Night was thoroughly thought provoking for me. It amazed me how simple the idea of children waiting in their car for their parents at the pub could be so rich in both its characters and dialogue. The film wasn’t rushed; it was paced in a realistic way.

This has led me to really want to explore having one scene and one location and how it can be so entertaining with its simplicity. Also, with focusing our class exercises on character in today’s studio, and in relation to this short, I want to also see if I can develop a character that the audience can subtly learn about in a small amount of time.

Whenever I want to tell a story, whether it be written or in film, I always forget about my past feelings and experiences and focus on that of other characters. Although, in the Michael Rabiger reading, ‘You and the creative process’, he emphasises that you need to learn the core of you to get better at your craft. I actually often do the opposite, and try to avoid stories and characters that are relevant to my life, which I have never really noticed until now. I think I’m scared of not being able to portray something important to me in an authentic way, so I just avoid it. This is probably something I have to tackle during this semester. “You cannot excel as an artist and stay in hiding”.

The “just do it” approach that Rabiger discusses, has been evident in a lot of the class exercises we have done in the first two weeks of this class. I have always been quite afraid of this sort of format of working, because I prefer things to be complete and perfect before I show them to people. But with these exercises we usually only have a few minutes to think and write and then present them straight after, which really makes me anxious, and I absolutely hate it, but I know it will be beneficial to my creative process if I embrace it.

The Alphabet is one of David Lynch’s first short films, mixing animation with live action. This film creates an extremely unsettling feeling in my stomach, and I didn’t know films could have that effect on me, so I am very interested in looking into more of Lynch’s earlier shorts.

This experimental film showcases an abundance of bizarre shapes and textures. Being interesting enough that there does not need to be a plot or strong characters. Lynch’s motivation for this film was to portray a nightmare to audiences when they are awake. This surreal nightmare uses its abstract visuals and sounds to create a mood that is almost impossible to describe. Lynch was inspired by the niece of his wife Peggy, who had been reciting the alphabet in her sleep during a nightmare. That’s the sort of simple moment that can inspire a brilliant film like The Alphabet.

 I have always focused on plot in projects that I have undertaken in the past, because I thought plot was one of the most important elements in film, but after watching some abstract and experimental short films over the past two weeks, has really made me think differently. I might use this film as inspiration for sound design, because without the sound design in this short, it wouldn’t have been as eerie as it was. After screening this in class, we also learnt that the wind sound was just Lynch blowing into the mic, which I really didn’t even think of until he said it. So maybe I could explore using vocals as sounds that you wouldn’t expect.

Small Deaths, directed by Lynne Ramsey, was the first short screened in the second studio of the week, but my first class. It is important to view work by filmmakers who have a clear project vision. Since we are working so closely with theme this semester, Lynne Ramsey is a great first focusing point for me, because Ramsey works with dark themes which work almost in juxtaposition to the visual dreamlike quality to her films.

In the three chapters in this film, there are graphic matches to shots in each, as well as the use of aesthetic repetition to connect the visuals. There is also a focus on the separation between the foreground and the background, with these shots reoccurring in different chapters.

In the second chapter, the impressionistic background of the shots show that Ramsey has a photographic background and takes high importance of cinematography, as she is a visual storyteller.

The soundscape in Small Deaths works with mismatching sound and visuals in the first chapter with the sound of children playing while a girl is in her lounge room with her parents in the background. No sign of children playing – this soundscape creates an almost abstract tone.

For the first course group work for the semester, in my group I am focusing mostly on sound design and production design. Small Deaths has leaded me to want to experiment with abstruse sound design and separating the meanings behind the visuals and sounds. I could start by shooting some interior shots but have the soundscape be of a highway, and then see what sort of effect this mismatching scene can have. Perhaps also working with overlapping voices and noises could lead to obscure ideas for the future in this course for me.