CDM 354
Short film production
Structure.
Renton got off lucky but is still unsatisfied and enters his dark night of the soul by escaping his family and friends to go back to Swannys flat where he relapses and suffers an overdose. This triggers the break into three where Renton decides to move away to London in search of something new. All the characters are mostly separated now. Spud is out on bail, Sick boy is trying to sling escorts and Begbie is continuing his life of crime while Renton leads a relatively normal life selling houses. However as Begbie re enters Renton's life we come to the finale of the film where the group plan and carry out a big time heroin deal which makes them a small fortune. The characters are friends but it is clear they all would betray one another if given the opportunity. The dynamics of the group come into clearer vision in Renton's mind when Begbie starts yet another bar brawl. This train of thought carries on throughout Renton's narration as we reach the closing image where Renton steals the drug money for himself, giving some to spud and fleeing to Amsterdam.
The theme is the topic and feel of the movie and is as a whole is introduced through Renton's Monologue where We learn he is a heroin addict living a life devoid of reasons as the only thing he truly cares about is getting high to escape whatever in his life may of come before. The Catalyst is the event which pushes our characters out of the status quo. This comes when Renton tries to quit heroin, this is an incredibly hard thing to do and many things make him debate his decision. He resents Sickboy for quitting easier than him as he struggles through readjusting to reality and choosing life. There are fun and games here which help make the characters more lovable despite there questionable morals shown, for example how Renton and Sickboy shoot a dog with an air gun to make it bite a skinhead or when Renton steals Tommy's sex tape for them to watch. Both actions are bad things but they fit under this category as they serve to expand the characters and show there desperation for any kind of amusement in the drug obsessed stasis they've found themselves in which in a sense makes them more sympathetic.
In Train spotting the Narrative structure is quite unorthodox and non-linear, while It does hit the main things that would be included on a beat sheet it is sporadic in doing so. The opening image is important and sets the tone for the viewer. It should be engaging or your viewers will lose attention. in transporting the opening image would be the Lust for life scene where Renton, Spud and Sickboy are running from the police in a high stakes chase scene, the iconic soundtrack Blairs and creates a fast pace high energy beginning to the movie which barely slows down until the end of the movie, something director Danny Boyle is well acclaimed for. The films main set up is an introduction to the world of the film and is shown with all of the characters being introduced with title cards and playing dirty at football. It is a small scene but the actions each character take in the game brilliantly reflect and foreshadow there characters as a whole showing us the individual themes for each of them.
The film reach is a Break into two when Renton and his friends start using heroin again. This comes after beginning the Subplot of Renton's relationship with Diane who he pursues at a nightclub with an air of desperation which again highlights the empty hole carved out by his drug abuse. Another horrific event happens for the group with the death of Baby Dawn which spirals them into the midpoint of the movie where we see them live and endless cycle of crime and drug abuse, Renton says "Our only response was to keep on going and fuck everything. Pile misery upon misery, heap it up on a spoon and dissolve it with a drop of bile, then squirt it into a stinking purulent vein and do it all over again." Its clear the characters are nowhere near to changing, they're stuck in there own habits and the only thing changing them and moving the story along is the eventual beat of the bad guys closing in which comes with Renton and Spuds arrest. All is lost as Renton barely gets away from it and Spud is imprisoned.
Character Development.
Character development in film are the specific journeys of inner conflict that characters will go through throughout a film as caused by a gradual and (when done well) believable progression of events that makes the character think differently about a specific facet of their life and the way the act about it so that they have nuanced and interesting responses rather than just being the person that the things are happening to so you can avoid the plot and events being the only memorable part of the film
La Haine - Vinz's arc At the start of La Haine Vinz is sort of like a ticking time bomb of hate and thirst for violence among the three boys Saiid who is fairly neutral and Hubert who opposes Vinz's violence. Vinz's overarching motivation in the film and the catalyst that sends him on his journey is retribution for the arrest and assault of Abdel, he is dying to actualise his strength and self assert his power to gain some sort of feeling of dominance and safety in a system which is opposing the people and making them feel weak and powerless with acts of military fear and police brutality. Vinz's central conflict and manifestation of these feelings is shown through the gun he steals from a policeman during the riot at the start of the film. While Vinz feels the system is his enemy the his main antagonist in the film would be Hubert, the mild mannered champion boxer who calls him stupid for stealing the gun as he sees immediately how Vinz's flaunting rage blinds him to the fact that he really doesn't actually know what he is doing and despite the fact that the gun makes him feel powerful he wouldn't really know how to or be mentally able to use it if he got the chance.
This back and forth emotional battle continues between the characters as the film progresses, Vinz exclaims multiple times that his desire at this point of a city wide conflict where so many have been hurt is to use the gun to kill a Cop. His contemplation of this and his hate grows and grows throughout the film as his friends are both arrested as an inadvertent result of his confrontational behavior and made victims of police brutality in an interrogation. This causes friction between the three boys and, going off on his own, Vinz wonders Paris still feeling isolated and lacking direction but using a hard exterior and intimidation to make himself feel safe. The boys eventually reunite but being stuck in Paris for the night due to missing the last train they go to a mall and eventually see the news on the television that Abdel had died in hospital following his involvement with the the police. This sends Vinz into even more anger which leads to a scene where we think he is shooting a cop, smashing glass and causing a collateral nightmare at a petrol station. The scene is very out of nowhere but we quickly learn it is just a fantasy and Vinz and the cop stand opposite each other unharmed.
Here we begin to see how despite how tough he acts and the desires he expresses Vinz struggles actually acting on them. This conversation as to whether he would do anything is pretty much closed and his character development reaches its conclusion in a scene where the boys get in a fight with some Skinhead Neo-Nazis for spitting on them, as the fight ends with Vinz using his gun to intimidate they corner one Skinhead and Vinz drags him down and alley pointing a gun right to his head. Here we see the summary of Vinz and Huberts moral dialogue come to a stand still as Vinz is a trigger pull away from really taking another mans life, a skinhead who poses a threat to his friends and who is objectively evil in his views, someone who would likely assault and kill the boys if he had the upper hand.
Hubert tells Vinz to pull the trigger and take the mans life, but even when staring in the face of one of the worst people imaginable, someone who if they weren't so close to you, looking in your eyes pleading for life you would wish away to hell in a second. Vinz, with all his Rage and bravado cannot kill him. So they spare the skinhead, and Vinz learns that despite it all he still has value for life and for humans and with this he learns to overcome the violence and we the audience see Vinz as having matured in comparison to the start of the film.
Of course the end of this arc comes to set up a reality check that reminds us of the beggining of the film as Huberts moral standpoint of pacifism is verified we learn that these cycles of hate and the reality of violence is nothing but a turbulent fall. Flipping the characters roles on their heads Vinz is accidentally shot by a policeman and Hubert the pacifist, the man who tries so hard to run from hate can do nothing but point the gun at the police when his friend is killed showing us how hate, in a society where it is prevalent is contagious and unavoidable and no matter who you are nobody is safe from continuing it.
Horror
Short Film Pitching
To prepare for creating our first fictional
short film we first prepared our own idea
and pitch for a film that includes a log
line for the hook and a detailed synopsis
of the wider plot.
Once this was made we presented them
to our groups and as a team we picked/
merged a final idea for our film.
Click here to listen to the full pitch!
Once we had come to a conclusion over what story we would create we produced a screenplay using Celtx to fully flesh out the stories and get feedback on them from our classmates. Seen in the golden frame is our final draft for our script once we had made alterations prompted by the feedback we received.
Character Development.
Once we where mostly happy with our screenplay we produced a Directors Visual Treatment which attempts to flesh out and become a visualisation for the look of the film so that anyone involved can look at it and get a proper idea of the creators vision
We then did script lining on a paper copy of our script to develop what shot types we would use and what we would be filming
We then compiled a shot list to finalise these details
And later rearranged these shots into filming order for the most efficient schedule we can follow on the shoot day
We then created a kit list to hire out all the equipment we would need to carry out the shots we planned...
a HOD breakdown was necessary as it allowed us to figure out a list of items we that where essential for the costume, hair and makeup and props to work
And a Prop list to make sure we had everything we needed the characters to wear/ interact with
We made a master shooting schedule which would show us a time plan for how long each shot would take given the time wed allotted ourselves so wed know whether we where ahead of or behind schedule
A recce of the site and risk assessment of the shoot location was completed so that we would be prepared for the access and permissions we had on the property and where aware of any possible hazards
Our last selection of paperwork to complete was our call sheets, these where accessible to every member of the team and included vital information such as addresses, dates and times that everyone was expected on set
After all 4 shooting days where finished i completed a writeup and evaluation of the shooting process