For my created script I
chose to expand on the chosen brief of narrative that establishes and develops
a single main character. The narrative of my script is about a woman who
suffers with insomnia and hasn't slept in so long that she begins to personify
the idea of sleep. She begins to romanticize her time with “him” and starts
acting as if they’re a lost lover that she desperately wants back. I came up
with several aims for my film at the beginning of my planning process, style
wise I wanted my film to clearly convey the conventions of a film noir,
especially the detective style of film noir. Another one of my stylistic aims
was to create an aesthetic similar to ‘Fallen Angels’ as this was an addition
to my research films. My final aim was to trick the audience into thinking that
this wasn’t a film about sleep, but about romance.
I chose to use ‘High
Maintenance’ as my first research film since it had the themes of exaggerated
loneliness and a loss of connection to someone important that I wanted to
portray in my film. The film did this through mise-en-scene, by staging and
placing the characters at opposite ends of the table, as well as several over
the shoulder shots, it creates a visible distance between both the characters
and between the characters and the audience. The mise en scene is also used as
the diegetic sounds of chewing and drinking exaggerates the overpowering
silence as no non-diegetic sound is used.
I also wanted to include
this film as it has a constant reference to the setting mise-en-scene in
“background” themes that actually tell the whole plot. For example, in
this film there is a constant reference to technology, the first man works as a
computer analyst, the lady also refers to their sex-life as “mechanical”. It is
later then revealed that both are robots that constantly replace each other.
This then accentuates that feeling of loneliness as it implies how unsatisfied
they are with their lives and how their lovers are easy to replace as there is
no connection there.
Another chosen reference
film that I’m using in a similar way to this is ‘Stutterer’, due to the film
also making constant reference to the main plot point - having a stutter -
through the use of several types of mise-en-scene. There’s a constant use of
non-diegetic narrative of what the main character is thinking instead of
diegetic narrative, exaggerating the problems he has. This is prominent when he
is deciding whether to call her.
This is also shown with
diegetic sound, for example when he’s in the kitchen and a Jeremy Kyle episode
is playing in the background about a father wanting to communicate to his son.
I also wanted to use this
film to fulfil my first aim as there are numerous close-up shots where the main
focus is his mouth and the movements it makes as he’s sounding out words and I
wanted to copy this but instead focus on the eyes as they’re the main body part
linked to sleep, I also wanted to use chiaroscuro to draw more attention to the
eyes and in my first draft of my script I wrote this in before realising this
wasn’t necessary for a script.
In my film I want to use
this theme of loneliness to emphasise just how dependent my main character is
on sleep and how much she is desperate for it. I also want to use the idea of
romance really emphasise how she’s in love with the idea of sleeping and once
again over-exaggerate that need for it; because of this I also think including
several references to sleep as “background’’ theme will work well for this
idea, as this will mean the main premise of the film won't be lost even if the
audience is tricked into thinking it is something else, therefore I can achieve
my third aim.
The next two films I chose
for the reason of non-linear narratives, these are ‘La Jetée’ and ‘Meshes of
The Afternoon’. Both of these have circular plots and narratives that don’t
show the linear passage of time, to copy this style when I wrote my script I
didn’t say when time had passed and made all the scenes happen at night so you
couldn’t distinguish between days, as when you lack sleep your days blend
together. ‘Meshes of The Afternoon’ is also a film based around psychology as
it actually takes place in her mind, I wanted to copy this and so I made my
film based around insomnia and how it psychologically affects people, which is
why my character thinks she’s in love with ‘Mr Sleep’ and says things such as “And
yet here you are. Waiting at the same spot at the bar.” ‘La Jetée’ also
links with this as the film is told like a storybook using photos instead of
video, and yet there is one photo of a woman that moves as she blinks. This is
the reason I created Mr Sleep, it makes the audience question whether he’s real
and that the sleepless woman is talking about a person instead of sleepless
hallucination. I feel like this would really drive home my final aim; to trick
the audience into thinking it’s about romance.
The next film I chose was
‘Swimmer’ due to its more film noir type style. The entirety of the films
colour scheme is black and white, there’s a long shot of the water that he’s
swimming through and it looks more like a black abyss more than a lake.
As he’s swimming a radio
transmission of a young woman's speech begins playing meanwhile a child is
shown wearing flight goggles which look like they're from the 1940s, I liked
this era and style so began to look up styles similar to it. The use of the
gritty non-diegetic narrative made me think of older detective style films when
they’d layer the person’s thoughts and express them in a convoluted way. I
decided that I wanted the gritty film-noir style throughout the film, but
especially wanted one scene where this more detective narrative style was the
main focus.
There are also several long
takes of the plants surrounding the lake and as the swimmer comes into view the
mise-en-scene technique of editing is used in the form of a slow-mo. I wanted
to use this slower pacing style in my film to mimic the way being half asleep
feels, sometimes using more jolting shots to try to copy the pattern of
restless sleep.
This film also does a lot
more work with chiaroscuro and film noir type lighting, as well as several more
stylised and interesting shots, for example when the swimmer swims away from
the police but the editing means the swimming is reversed and the credit scene
when everything is mirrored. I thought this mise-en-scene would make my film
more interesting as just creating a film about sleep could possibly come across
as bland if nothing is happening visually, as well as this it helped my achieve
my second aim which was to link my film stylistically to ‘Fallen Angels’.
I originally looked at the
‘Lady Bird’ script to base mine around and made my first around 600 word draft
using it before realising that it didn’t include as much detail as I wanted as
the script was very blunt and often just used short sentences with little
description. This is when I instead looked at Dunkirk and Pulp Fiction.
Dunkirk was definitely more
helpful in describing, the script has a good combination of shorter sentences
and yet a lot of detail and explanation for how the characters should act. I
tried to include this in my own script but I still don’t feel like it’s as
concise and clear as it could be. There are a lot of parts where I feel like I
didn’t get the point across like I wanted, for example ‘Her chest moves
slowly as she breaths open mouthed, her face is calm and there are no signs of
distress.’ I feel like this could’ve been written better but instead sounds
quite clunky and drawn out to help me reach the word count.
There was a certain part
from the pulp fiction script I wanted to mimic in my own, ‘Mia draws a
square with her hands. Dotted lines appear on the screen, forming a square. The
lines disperse.’ I really liked the aspect of breaking the fourth wall to
create a certain aesthetic and so wanted to copy this with my line ‘As she
talks bold white wispy texts floats from her mouth to the end of the screen
before dispersing away like smoke.’
This kind
of style reminded me of ‘Fallen Angels’ and how stylised that film is,
especially a certain part where as the camera is placed in the window of a car
and the neon-lights go past they are extremely blurred and layered on top of
each other so the image is doubled. I wanted to include this is my own film and
so put in the line ‘She drags her pointer finger around the drawn moon in
circles. The picture begins to blur and drag around her finger until it's no
longer decipherable.’ However I think now that included instructions like
this isn’t necessary for a script as it is more similar to an editing
technique. Therefore while I would like to include this as it would definitely
help me achieve my final aim as it is a technique from ‘Fallen Angels’, in the
future it might be best to either remove this or word it differently so it
doesn't seem like an editing technique and belongs in the script.
