So that I could
clearly understand and interpret this script, I decided to break it down so
that when I create my story from the script; I have a clear understanding of
whom is in the script, what it is about; what’s happening, where it’s happening;
and why it’s happening, resulting in the resolve from this scripts series of
events. This will also help identify each of the individual elements that is in
this script, which I could use to help convey the ideology of my stories genre/theme;
such as character design, set design; location selection, props and so forth.
This breakdown is
going to act as a basic blue print for me to build up off of.
Script
breakdown
Characters
- · Main character
- · Second main character
- · Side character/ bystander
Scene locations
- · Home
o
Front room
(scene 1)
o
Bathroom
(scene 2)
o
Entrance
of the house (scene 3)
- · Route 1 (scene 4)
- · Route 2 (scene 5) – side character passes by
- · Route 3 (scene 6)
- · Route 4 (scene 7)
- · Route 5 (further up the road from route 4) (scene 8)(meet location)
- · Location 6/5 new characters location towards the meet point (scene 9)
- · Meet location 5 (scene 8)
- · Home (scene 1)
Props
- · Bed/couch (home)
- · Mobile phone
- · Clothes to get dressed i.e. coat/jacket, hat, trainers (home)
- · Mirror (home)
- · Tooth brush (spit blood in the sink) (home)
- · Sink (home)
- · Women pushing pram (Route 2 props)
- · Guy talking on his phone (Route 2 props)
- · Guy walking dog making ‘Main’ want to watch cautious (Route 2 props)
- · Watch, or time on the phone
- · Push bike? (Route 6/5props)
- · Car (Route 6/5props)
- · Motorbike (Route 6/5props)
- · Jacket
- · Undefined Package
Story overview:
Main
character wakes up from a deep sleep at its home location. While at the
home location a phone rings, the main
character answers this phone and exchanges a few words: presumably
confirming a meet location. The main character
gets ready (brushes teeth, washes face and so forth) and leaves its home
location to go to the meet point.
On route to the meet
location a passer by catches the
attention of the main character,
however, this does not throw the main
character off from its course as it continues to the meet location.
At scene location 7,
the main character checks the time
to make sure that they’re on schedule; advancing further up the road to scene
location 8. Once the main character
reaches the meet location, the main
character pulls out its phone and dials a number: confirming to the person
on the other end of the line that they’ve reached, and asking where they
(second main character) before ending the conversation.
At scene location 9 we
see the feet of the second main
character, travelling towards the meet location. Meanwhile at scene
location 8 the main character is
fiddling with the thread on its coat, waiting for the second main character. An unidentified sound alerts the main character: turning around the main
character notices the second main
character approaching carrying an “undefined package”.
They have a brief
conversation as the second main
character hands over the “package” to the main character. The second
main character then turns to walk away: leaving the main character behind.
Back at the main characters home location, the main character is sat down in the
trappings of their lifestyle: viewing the content of the “undefined package”,
which clearly influences the mood and atmosphere of the main character.
Once i've thought of an idea for this script, I shall use this breakdown as a basic building block to work from: so that it saves me time and hassle allowing me to focus more on the story where i've already broken down the main parts of this script.
Genre: Thriller
“These
include such genres as mystery, detective movies, gangster movies, crime, spy
films, science fiction, film noir, occult
and haunted house horror movies. An
atmosphere of creeping menace and sudden outbursts of violence, crime, and
murder characterise these films; the withholding of crucial information from
the viewer is also an important device, as are action set pieces such as gunfights
and chases. Thrillers often present a
vision of the world and society as dark, corrupt and dangerous, but in
Hollywood they usually feature upbeat endings in which evil is overcome and the
status quo is restored, often with lingering side effects.”
Theme
The theme can arbitrarily be taken for one or even a
collective of these suggested themes in the list below, because when you view
the picture your witnessing many themes at the same time, the way how I’m going
to story board this story will hopefully help convey the idea of some of these
selected/suggested themes below.
Depression, suicidal, lonely, death, despair,
evil/sin, fear, illusion reality, spiritual/ fighting inner demons.
The idea/story
Ophelia, a 38 year old widow whom has been made bankrupt
because of her husband’s death; taking on his financial debts, with nothing to
live for; commits suicide by overdosing on pills to put herself out of misery.
She attempts to flood her house in the process so that she can drown away her
sorrows with her demise. Having overdosed on the pills, she entered into an
unconscious, mysterious; surreal, timeless; hyper-reality, parallel universe of
her suburban house surrounding.
Because the lights in the house have been switched on
constantly for a week straight, the neighbours are suspicious as to what has
happened to Ophelia. A neighbour decided to contact the police and notify them about
the house; and also the recent events what has happened concerning Ophelia. Two
police officers were dispatched to go and investigate the report. Up on arrival
to Ophelia’s address, walking up the pathway to the house, before they reached
the door they were greeted with the most prevalent, overwhelming disgusting
musty mist of stench, which smelled like wet earth mixed with stale cider and
cigarette smoke; to which immediately they rushed to the house and began to
bang at the front door to see if anyone was behind it before they broke it down
to enter.
Meanwhile, while we’re still exploring this unconscious, timeless, hyper-reality; parallel universe, we’re distracted by the prominent sound of the
house phone ringing, gradually getting louder; which signifies us to wake up
(exit this hyper-reality; parallel universe); to which we are then brought back
to reality as we hear the door banging, and shouting from outside, assisted by police
walkie talky sounds. The police eventually break the door down, and are overpowered by the strong smell of death as the water gushes out the door onto the pathway, surrounding their feet carrying Ophelia with the current, whilst the audience of neighbours, startled, watch in awe.
The end.
Characters
Name: Ophelia
Age: 38
Ethnicity: white
Physical appearance: 5 ft 5, dark brown hair, brown eyes, smooth skin,
Marital status: Widow
Personality trait
Polite, sociable, well spoken, responsible, kind, gentle,
loving, and morally vigorous. But ever since her husbands’ death she has become
upset, stressed, agitated, unsociable, escapes to an alternate reality in
reading books and rely’s on consuming off the shelve drugs for happiness,
Name: Police
Ethnicity: One officer is black and the other white.
Age: 36/37
Physical appearance: one is overweight with a endomorph build and the other has a slim mesomorph build
Pitch
Recently widowed, faced with financial crisis, house about
to be repossessed, Ophelia normally drowns her sorrow to escape reality, but this
time there’s no return.
Using photoshop, I made a canvas bigger then the photograph and deconstructed the different elements in the picture; using the mind map method, also making brief comments as to why certain elements might be placed in their location, and what could it signify (pills on the table, overdose?), and what could be happening around other elements such as the window (outside noise, birds chirping?).
Conclusion
From the analysis of this photograph, its definitely helped me to identify many different elements/sounds i could use, and also different angles/orientations of the how i could display this picture to help produce my 'story'
Tag :// 1-Minute Sound Design Film,
Tag :// Directions Unit,
Tag :// Idea development,
Tag :// production prep work,
Tag :// Project Update,
Tag :// Research
I've been doing some research to understand exactly what this picture is about, and what is happening in this picture from different art critiques interpretations; and have found some really good breakdowns of the scene description plus ideas about the narrative from these two sources.
Ophelia by Gregory Credson
Post By Donbullock
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2009
In Ophelia, Crewdson takes the setting of a flooded suburban house and introduces a floating female corpse. The furniture and style of the interior of the house is very plain and could be almost any older middle income suburban home. The introduction of water, as if the neighborhood has experienced a flood would make for an unsettling photograph, but Crewdson takes the process one step further and introduces a floating corpse to the composition. The introduction of the corpse should make the scene demented, but in a strange way it matches the calm water and adds a weird, all be it morbid, tranquility to the scene. Crewdson divides the aspects of his set for Ophelia into an upper half and a lower half. The upper half of Ophelia is mundane and normal suburbia while the lower half, defined by the water level is mysterious, surreal and sinister.
Crewdson creates a private space that he invites the viewers to peak into. The lines of the stairs, corner of the room and furniture guide the viewer’s gaze to the floating corpse. The corpse is framed by the flood water and the viewer is left to guess what lies just below the waterline. The position and pose of the female corpse is of interest. Instead of floating lifelessly, limbs sprawled, the corpse is rigidly posed with arms to her side and feet together. The corpse creates an unnaturally harsh horizontal line.
http://donaldbullock.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/ophelia-by-gregory-credson.html
CONSTRUCTED REALITIES AND METAPHOTOGRAPHY:
GREGORY CREWDSON'S TWILIGf-ITSERIES
by
Ashlee Cook
A thesis submitted to the faculty of
The University of Utah
in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts
IN
Art History
Department of Art and Art History
The University of Utah
December 2009
CHAPTER 2
TWILIGHT AND PHOTOGRAPHIC TRUTH
Gregory Crewdson's photograph Untitled (Ophelia) depicts an ethereal woman
floating in the center of a flooded living room. The walls are lined with floral wallpaper;
family portraits hang in a row above the stairs. An exterior light source muffled by
shutter-covered windows adds a strange atmosphere to the dark room. The interior is
decorated with contemporary furniture; a bookshelf, a table, a couch and a chair all half
submerged in the still, dark water. Little traces of life are scattered around the typical
suburban house, pedestrian objects like coats hung on hangers, slippers discarded on
stairs, a glass of water and an open pill jar on the table. The woman's translucent
nightgown emphasizes her pale, limp body. Her dark, cold eyes remain open and her lips
slightly apart.
Ophelia is both haunting and alluring. The mystery surrounding the woman in
this photograph and the implied narrative of her drowning provoke more questions than
answers. The carefully crafted composition including the line of the stairs, the curve of
the couch, and the three diagonal windows on the door that are reflected in the pool of
water brings the focus continually back to the woman in the center of the image. The
strange lighting highlighting her cheekbones, chest, and hands emphasizes her beauty, and simultaneously, her death. It is easy to fall into the photograph, be held captive by it
much like a child stationed, eyes transfixed in front of a horror film in the hazy aftermath
of tragedy.
Conclusion
From this research, it has definetly helped me towards analysing this photograph from an experienced/studied point of view; saving me time on trying to understand it myself. This has also helped me to deconstruct the picture to find the different elements in the scene such as, the slippers on the stairs; the pills on the table next to the glass of water, to which, whilst doing so i'm identifying the different sound elements in the picture and its giving me ideas towards different narratives for this photographs story.
Tag :// 1-Minute Sound Design Film,
Tag :// Directions Unit,
Tag :// Idea development,
Tag :// Research
So that i know what i have to do, i've outlined the main things that i need to make sure i've covered whilst doing this project so that i can keep on track. Like a guide/plan/ project blue print for me to follow.
Check list for sound design film:
Research artist
Research example of this style of sound design on picture
Choose picture
Research picture
Examine elements from
picture to build up sound library list
Create story or an idea
about the picture
Create intro and outro
title that compliment story
Create storyboard
Produce the story
Edit in post
Conclusion
All of the sections on the check list are tasks for me to make sure i've covered, for each task it will definitely have its own sub tasks (i.e. research, idea development, equipment and so on) that will have to happen in order to complete the task. But so long as i have my main objectives i know that i'll be on track.
To see what examples is out there I decided to
search around on the web to see what I could find; surprisingly it was really
hard as there is not much material out there that fit this genre of art. I
Crawled the web typing in keywords that would relate to this area of art to see
what examples I could find, I found few but not nothing with such detail as used
in cinema, mostly student or nature stuff, which is still good. However I did
come across a style of photography I didn’t know about called Audiography
which is someone video/audio recording where their taking a picture of, which is a good idea, because you could build up your own sound library of uniques sounds from the location your taking a picture of at that time.
These are the keywords
I used in my searches:
Still Images with
Sound
Still Images and Sound
Sound pictures
Still picture movie
Still image sound
design
Sound and shot
Picture with sound
Sound motion picture
Audiography
These are the results that came up which I liked:
Example of Audiography
Tag :// 1-Minute Sound Design Film,
Tag :// Directions Unit,
Tag :// Idea development,
Tag :// Research
I've decided to do some research on Gregrey Crewdson since this project is based off of his work, and also to find out what sort of person he is, the way he does his work, and also the inspiration behind his work so that I could possibly understand the ideas his trying to convey in his work of art.
So just who is he?
Gregory Crewdson (born September 26, 1962) is an American photographer who is best known for elaborately staged scenes of American homes and neighborhoods. Gregory Crewdson's photographs usually take place in small town America, but are dramatic and cinematic.They feature often disturbing, surreal events. The photographs are shot using a large crew and are elaborately staged and lighted (from Wikipedia).
interesting read about his inspiration and thoughts on his work in interview he done features in the telegraph
 |
| Dead calm: an untitled 2007 photograph from Gregory Crewdson's 'Beneath the Roses' project |
 |
Alex Soth born( 1969) American photographer
|
 |
| Russell Banks (born 1940) is an American writer on fiction and poetry |
Conclusion
So yea this research i feel has been very useful, from knowing nothing at all about Gregory Crewdson, to now understanding some of the inspiration behind his work and the detail he puts into it; and also how his work is interpreted has definitely given me some more creative ideas towards my approach for the planning of this project, so hopefully the sound design i create would match the way how the picture was intended to be perceived as.
