Story-wise:

We were taught the three act structure, the cycle of hero with a thousand faces, the importance of saving the cat. But I still had a hard time coming up with a story.

In retrospect I should’ve just work with a simple story . In the end I wasted too much time trying to think of a story instead of planning the shots.

Ruyi asked why I didn’t adhere to the three act structure. My planning process was rather organic , so it was difficult to identify the source of inspiration. What I was trying to achieve was the kind of story that allows the viewers to link the dots and give that moement of enlightenment.

A short film that I like: The Piano Tuner

I’m mentioning it because: The story cuts off at the climax, but it’s not exactly a cliff hanger, because the ending is already shown at the start, without the audience realising it.

And to elaborate with what director Yorgos Lanthimos said, “I like starting a film like that—you set the tone but you don’t explain or go back to it. When the film finishes, the viewer can return to the beginning if they want and give their own interpretation.”

So that explained my approach. But the end product didn’t quite meet the expectation.

Reflection???

Maybe there’s too much ambiguity, to an extend that some audience might find it difficult to find things to focus on.  And does the ambiguity really helped the story? That confusion is suppose to correspond with the character’s state of mind. But if it didn’t work that it just become unnecessary pretentious bluffs.

And I think my story telling lacks a gradual increase in intensity,  the climax was rather sudden.

Another major flaw of the story is the characters. I didn’t show enough of the characters to let the viewers like them, so perhaps the plot feels quite indifferent.

Visual-wise:

colour & lines

Many of us made use of the colour to show different stage of story or different emotions . What I attempt to achieve is well illustrated in Pan’s Labyrinth:

And for my attempt I also tried to make use of rigid grids and organic lines to further enhance the contrast.

In one of the jump cut I used  similar framing to further suggest the drastic difference in mood:

In the picture above,  I tried to use the reflection to place emphasise on the character. In this case I placed the mirror in the middle where the lights are, and the characters are almost in the dark, allowing people to focus more on the reflected happy face.

 

This following frame is actually to foreshadow the fate of this character using the juxtaposition, that her time is ending soon.

 

Rhythm

I was also inspired by La Jetée, how the director made use of the rhythm to achieve different intensity throughout his film.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My attempt:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This series of images are taken while I’m waking. It is from the perspective of the protagonist, the motion blur and rapid change of picture is to suggest the chaotic state of mind.

 

I’m also inspired by the  use of abrupt jump cuts to create the impact.

The scene that jumps from the image of woman to the confrontational face of the antagonist is very impactful for me.

Which is the reason for the up front composition for some of the shots I used for the jumpcuts.

And also the use of brightly lit subject matter against the dark background to achieve the same intensity.

And the picture above pretty much sums up my utter disappointment. Try harder next time.