Forget Trailer

The film explores the dynamics of two characters – Janice, who wants to forget memories of a previous relationship by returning everything that reminded her of it, and an unknown guy, who wants to get rid of her.

The element of the seen and unseen comes from two characters – the seen, which is Janice, and the unseen, the unknown stranger. The whole reason we do not see this stranger is because we are in the mind of the protagonist, Janice, who seems to be recall this memory and she does not recall his face.

We are thus questioning at the end of the film – are we watching Janice’s memory or are we watching a drama play out before us?

Objective and Subjective Shots

Objective shots.

Objective shots are used in this few examples to provide an “observer” perspective, to allow the audience to interpret the situation from an third-party perspective.

Subjective Shots.

The subject shots, however, allows us an insight into the mind of the characters, sometimes we observe the reactions and draw our interpretation from the perspective of the viewer.

Opening and Closing Shots

Opening and Closing Shot

Opening Frame:

The frame is dimly lit, Janice is framed in isolation and solitude and establishes the mood, genre and POV at the start of the film

The film opens with a one-sided phone call exchange with Janice and the mysterious person. However from her response we can only assume what his response is. From the one-sided dialogue, we establish there is an unknown second character in conflict.

She is constantly framed in an isolated way, to emphasize her solitude and loneliness in the film. We are given a psyche into the mind of the character with the opening frame.

Closing Frame:

The door closing, literally closes the film, and establishes that the connection that was made between the two characters were severed.

Mise-En-Scene

Frame within a Frame

Inspired by Wong Kai Wai’s In the Mood for Love. There are shots with the element of “frame within a frame”, this is to put the characters in a claustrophobic environment where they are locked into this conversation.

Obscured Characters

Another element inspired by the film is the framing of obscured characters. I got inspired by the way Wong Kai Wai hides characters through framing and negative space, and incorporated my own touch of things by adding things we should see in frame such as the box or Janice’s reactions.

Wardrobe

I instructed my casts to wear black and white to juxtapose their personalities and motivations. Janice will always be in the light, however the ex will be in shadow and if he is visible, he will be in black. This further adds visually to their conflict.

Reflection

Overall, I’ve learnt to really plan out my shots better – to think through what are narrative and acting beats and how to hold a shot longer so that a cut can be earned than convenient. I learnt the importance to be more thorough with my shot planning and to tell as much as I can within a single frame than explaining it over a few frames.

I think I could improve on my directing though – to know what to tell actors to get into the psyche of the character that their little actions will speak of the mind and personality of the character better than to explain them action by action in detail about what I’d like them to do.

okay bye.