The content of my video, to be honest, popped up at the most random moment – right when I ate dinner a few days weeks ago. And as soon as I got the idea I noted it down. The detailed plan will be attached at the end. 

 

When consulting with Robin, I gained more insights and had more considerations for my piece. The observation writing helped me quite a lot, and I am very thankful because I have the habit of writing a diary, so some ideas about the scenes I would do were also collected from those previous entries.

 

I’m fascinated by a style of film that I encountered quite a lot while studying at this studio: that is when the film has very little or no dialog at all. Some examples are ‘From a distance gaze’ and some small cuts of some other movies. In which the content and vibe of the movies are still clearly shown, all the while the listening part is kept very minimal and simple: just background noise, or a piece of music, or a script being voiceover. A common thing is they do not involve heavy conservation between actors. Although I often encounter this type of film, I don’t pay much attention to it. To be completely honest, before coming to Film Form, I still had a fairly “traditional” way of doing things when it came to developing a film. However, after watching a few movies for inspiration and also from my somewhat changed personal perspective, I think having limited dialogue can actually help a lot, especially with short film that has limites duration.I think it will leave rooms for the audience to interpret or create their own dialog or idea, especially when the message and direction of my film is not actually a complicated plot with many details. (Moreover, part of me thinks that creating dialogue means creating details and potential subplots – something I’m not really confident enough to do when the length of my video will be short. I do consider having short dialogues but on point and I will maybe work on that.)

 

We also spent a fair amount of time discussing reconciling and working with both the fiction and actuality elements in my film. This is also the most academic point I wanted to be in touch with and experience when making this piece. In a way, I think my video could be seen as a drama with documentary elements in it, as I am planning to film actual people eating. That leads to another factor to consider: for instance, how to combine those documentary-like cuts and footage for the most reasonable outcome, and especially how to be able to film those scenes. And it’s a way to test my skill: about movement and focus, and how to manipulate your camera and scenes, to understanding these techniques is paramount for achieving artistic and technical precision and to arrange what the scene would look like and consideration of the possible reception of the audience, put myself in both roles’ shoes. 

 

Plan: 

Premise

Would be about a young person, one that is still trying to figure out their part in the world, observing and comparing other people’s meals, how they eat it, what they eat, to hers. 

Story World Description

It would be semi-fictional, and will include actuality (scenes of people having their meals). It would be like a slice-of-life sort of video. I intend to do it in the breakfast, lunch, and dinner, (and maybe snack time) order. But I do not plan to film it necessarily in just one sitting, one day. It would be over a period of time, like a person randomly observing different people eat their meal while going on her life. And I also don’t plan to have any dialog

Character Breakdown

I would just have one main character: a female student, living alone. ‘Alone’ would be a quite dominant adjective of my main character. She would also have a reserved, gentle and quiet vibe. 

And as I said before, since she would be portrayed as a person finding their way in the world and the struggle and loneliness at this particular period of a person’s time, her meal would be simple, sometimes on the edge of unhealthy. Her eating habit would also express her circumstance. I intend to film her mainly eat while doing other things, so in general not eating in enjoyment or having company, and it would mainly stand in contrast to what I would have in the shot of other people’s meals.  Basically what she sees in others will be light, or fun, or cozy and warm while she would be eating bread while running to her next class or to work. 

Tone & Style, Concept Art

One would be the shot of people eating through the main character’s eyes, one would be her image. I intend to have a little contrast in the color in these scenes, and when placed next to each other like this I think you guys can see the difference, too. These shots would be significantly warmer than these, and it would have better lightning too. I would like to include these ‘through the window’ shots, and when I shoot it the character would be the one in the shadow while they will have a lot of light.  I think those would help to set the tone.

It would have a lot of long lens shots, like what we had seen in “Through a distance gaze”.I hope that together with everything else, it would set apart what the character experiences and what is not. 

I’m planning to try and film as many trials and samples as I can at first with different types of camera to see how it went. Cause at first I want to film with a more modest size camera since I would have to be filming in public, in restaurants so I don’t think a big cam will be comfortable in these situations. But technically, I have been told that since I would have to film pov- like, observing shots from a distance to give the right effect, I might have to use a bigger cam, so I’ll try both and see how it went. I would also focus and try to get the scenes with others people eating in public space settled first before moving to the main character’s meals. Since I think managing them and to get the right shot of those would be harder and I would have less control over all the elements than when doing just one person.