In Week 3 we were given a blank sheet of A3 paper told to write some raw ideas down on it and that would eventuate into the ideas for the exercises we would work on and then the expertise we would later pitch in class.
It is incredible how many ideas we have swirling around our head like the wheel of fortune at any unexpected turn you could end up with a ground breaking idea or a heap of horse manure. Thankfully on this particular day the brain was ticking in the right way and began the process of meditation and exploration. Through the endless stream of experience I have had in my life I had compiled a list in no time of people that I most admired, whom had profound effects in shaping the person I was today, I had written places of great fascination and intrigue, things that made me very curious and ways in which I wanted to show the very best combinations of all these categories.
I’ve always wanted to create a piece of cinematic history, a moment that is so inspirational it becomes immortalised and becomes sacred in not only cinematic history but history in its entirety. That is not easy. The storming of Omaha Beach in Saving Private Ryan is the most intense, bloody, gory opening to a film I have seen, the 15 minutes on screen has been seen by veterans and they say it was very accurate to the real D-Day landings. The imagery, layering of the scene, complex mise-en scene, intricate camera angles, special effects and dialogue are all aspects of this scene that make it so memorable. The Shawshank Redeption when they are covering Andy Duffreuses escape and Red manages to find all the clues with a hair raising voice over it all leads to a jaw dropping tear jerking reunion all set up by a perfectly executed story through some excellent cinematic techniques and a powerful narrative structure. Pulp Fiction the reading of Ezekiel 25:17 is spine tingling, not only is Samuel L Jackson an intense character and delivers the lines with such perfection and furry but the extreme close up captures the true emotion and the shot reverse shot to show the fear of the victim is what makes this scene memorable.
To make a scene of emotion you need to have a clear connection between the audience and subjects on screen, even if it is as something as small as the feelings that you have when you meet someone new and exciting and you think you will fall for. Audiences react to when characters lose someone close to them on screen if through a beautiful soundtrack and tight well articulated camera angles and shots it can really draw emotion from the audience. That is what I intend to create, through wind and sunshine glimmering through the grass and the subjects in slow motion walking, running or lumbering through the grass with well executed tracking shots and numerous dolly shots and personal close ups an emotional cinematic scene I believe can be achieved.
By drawing all these similarities together, through all of my experiences I believe I can create shots that can capture true emotion and through them get the desired reaction from my audience.
