Hi Robin and Paul!
This scene (to me) is as close to perfect as i’ve seen.
TRANSITIONS are a big passion of mine as they link scenes together in a fluid and creative way, which is what Danny Boyle’s 1996 Tripper flick Trainspotting has a lot of. I chose to include the scene before just to establish the transition that takes place before the scene being analysed and the significance of the shots and action before the “Red Carpet Grave” scene. The scene immediately before the one i have chosen to analyse and the one in question, are dripping in connotations of death and dying.
In scene immediately before Renton (Ewan McGregor) jumps off the brick wall is a gathering of his friend in a bar (in mourning) of Spud who has gone to jail. This leads to the scene where Ewan says “I need to visit the mother superior…to get us over this long hard day.” ending in him jumping off the wall. These three items are representing death: The death of Spud is him going to jail, the reference to a religious figure when talking about a drug dealer with a reference to getting over the hard day, and finally the shot of him jumping off which mirrors that of the same shot type you would see in a film when someone has committed suicide.
Why has he chosen this? To build to the scene i have chosen to analyse of course! when Ewan lands out of the transition this is him “Falling to his death” as he has landed here, this is where he dies.
To go any further in the analysis of this scene i will break it down into it’s individual shots and shot types. In this scene there are Nine (9) setups in total.
1 – Opening shot of Ewan as he lands. Continues through until he injects the drugs. Shot repeated 3 times.
2 – Dealer MCU – panning shot of the dealer checking the money that he has been given to check wether it is real or not under a UV light.
3 – Tight shot of the UV light on the money.
4 – Tight shot of the needle going into Ewan’s arm. Probably not even Ewan’s arm.
5 – Macro shot inside of the needle as the drugs go into Ewan’s system. No doubt this was shot on a much larger scale and shot to look smaller.
6 – Ewan falling backwards and sinking into the carpet. Would have been done on a stage with a false floor that can be lowered up and down. Disguised by the red carpet which also creates a nice softening of the death motif in which it is like an enjoyable demise. Tracking on this shot brings us into the grave.
7 – MCU of Ewan in Grave, camera tracks in to further involve the viewer in what is happening and to bring us into the grave with him.
8 – Shot of Ewan full length lying in the grave. Shot most likely as variation in shots and shot sizes.
9 – Shot looking back out of the grave, Ewans POV. The beginning of this shot is tracking backwards, works with other shots to show Ewans decent into his “red carpet grave.”
Out of these setups, only 6 require a full crew as the others are tight/ macro shots that can be done at another time with a smaller setup. For most of the scene the main shot used is the MCU of Ewan as he lands on the carpet and takes the drugs, the shots from then on are used to draw the audience into the grave with Ewan and demonstrate his state as a result from his drug taking. Important to note is the tracking on the first shot which goes from a loose mid to a close up. This is then repeated as he goes into the grave.
The scene would by no means be as effective if it were covered differently as the shot sizes and shot types are indented to draw us into the grave with him, which they do effectively, and gives us an involvement in the character and his actions in the scene.
Important to note is that this film was made with a budget of $3mil, very similar to that of These Final Hours (Australian apocalyptic film) and Whiplash, which sets a benchmark for me in my mind that good independent films have budgets in this vicinity.
Hope this is good?!
Karl.