Inspiration from short films we've seen
How film is different to short films we've seen
Director's inspiration
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I made my film, 'Don't Ask Why', with a postmodernist approach to the narrative twist choice for the stimulus. As such, I aimed to include the postmodern traits to my film, including most notably parody, playfulness/lack of seriousness, intertextuality and breaking the fourth wall and style over substance. Including montage and monologues, I wanted to create a stylized film that creates satisfying feeling to the audience, instead of any sort of thought provoking message.
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By far the biggest inspiration I had for my film was the short film About a Girl (Brian Percival). The walking monologue is informative but filled with personality, setting up the character, film genre, story and establishing the use of fourth wall breaks in the film. Although my use of monologues is only at the beginning and end, they still fulfill the same function. In addition, the use of the emotive montage interspersed in the narrative to create a connection with the character is also something I took inspiration from for my film, as the combination of a character's commentary and the reality of the situation (which may differ from the character's analysis) is an effective and entertaining way to present a narrative, which presents the spectator with a lot of information through interpretation rather than overtly telling them what's happening.
The dialogue seemed realistic due to the use of slang and reliance on her regional accent, but in reality the nature of the conversation between her and the audience and the random jumping around topics actually makes it experimental. I aimed to write the Killer's monologue dialogue in a similar way - the character almost having conversations with themselves, and also the audience, with jokes and commentary of the events of the film creating a fourth wall smashing, humorous beginning and end which contrasted heavily with the dark appearance of the Killer and the sad montage and accompanying imagery at the start of the film. This is similar to About a Girl as it also contrasts the bleak reality of the girl's life with her upbeat, characterful monologue.
In addition, the cinematography for my film and this are also linked. In this, the shots of her life are bordering on voyeuristic, for example when showing her sitting on the side of the football pitch or walking with her family. It represents her trying to hide or ignore her real life, but is intruded on anyway. Similarly, my film's first montage in particular uses handheld camera movement, low angles and little lighting to create a voyeuristic experience, as if we're intruding into the character's depressed state. Working with this idea, I contrasted my second montage with this by including more close ups, steadier footage and lighter imagery to show that he is more accessible, both with the camera's perspective and the character's personality. However, I included voyeuristic shots, such as the conversation between the Girl and the Witness being partially obscured behind a wall, to remind the audience of the state he was in, and that as the Killer is still around he is still potentially in danger. It brings about the idea that he's being watched, stalked, vulnerable.
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The Swimmer (Lynne Ramsay) inspired me more from a thematic perspective. The choice to focus more on aesthetic than overt message is a concept I used for my film and relates to my title. The cause for the conflict, is the killer aware of who he is and how she affected him, what's her goal? All of this is never stated, instead I focused first on the aesthetic, similarly to The Swimmer, with the plot being present but not taking precedent, leading to a negotiated reading which was my intention. Although my film is still more obvious than the more experimental The Swimmer. The narrative structure is non-linear
Music is also used in The Swimmer to evoke emotion, particularly at around the 5:00 mark, the 1940s vibe immediately creates feelings for the spectator, but are reliant on their individual experience, and so interpretation, of the music to create meaning, for example the nostalgia of the music and the slow pace creates a calm scene that possibly represents that the swimmer is looking at his past in the narrative structure. I aimed to do this in my film, particularly with The Doors' Alabama Song at the beginning and end. The quirky rhythm acts as a musical motif for the Killer, but the audience's interpretation of the music's quirkiness and lyrics creates connotations of the Killer that are unique to the individual. As this character was written to be an enigma of sorts, with no evident goal or motive, this was what I wanted to achieve; to create an ambiguous character that was up to the interpretation of the audience to define, which the music helped do similarly to The Swimmer.
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The Wasp (Andrea Arnold) is similar to my film in that it uses a world firmly placed in reality while maintaining the dependent-on-spectator ending, as nothing is told to the audience in regards to what happens next for the characters. I liked this approach to filmmaking as it kept the interesting trope often utilised by short films, but kept the story linear and grounded in reality. While I used imagery in my compilations (which this film lacked in favour of literal story telling) to evoke an emotional response and show the feelings of the character, it was still overt, especially in comparison to films such as the Swimmer.
The dialogue is realistic, especially for the demographic it was aiming to portray, which contrasts with my film in part, as I used both realistic and stylistic dialogue.
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The Grandmother (David Lynch) effectively uses imagery via colour and film speed to create a feeling of shock or unease, which is something I aimed to replicate. For example, in Grandmother, the extreme white of the boy’s face contrasts with the impossibly deep black, as does his lips, to draw the eye to him while creating connotations of him not belonging, being out of place, which along with the experimentally jarring visuals achieved via mise-en-scene create an unending feeling of dread that doesn't subside throughout the film. Although I only aimed to achieve this with the mise-en-scene of the mask, I still took the alien visual, and its contrast with the surroundings, to tell the audience immediately that something is wrong - the character is dangerous. In addition, the use of blackness or shadow in Lynch's film adds to somber tone of the picture. Although this isn't revolutionary, the extent to which the darkness is exaggerated forces the feeling upon the audience, and I also wanted to include such an effect in my film, for example with the text section, when the character is surrounded in darkness it shows his isolation, and the darkness that defines the first montage also shows that his overwhelming feeling is depression, supported by the dialogue in the police interview scene.
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The stylized works of Quentin Tarantino were a significant cinematic inspiration in particular for my film. His oeuvre is often described as, in typical postmodernist fashion, having 'style over substance' - evoking a feeling of thrill and tension while usually lacking any metanarrative or intrinsic message, and that was something I aimed to achieve with this film. Often (student and short) films get so bogged down with the message attached to it, that it forgets to be exhilarating or even subtle, and can feel preachy instead of enjoyable. Because of this, I wanted to create a film that was fun to look at, listen to, and experience, for the audience to come away with a feeling of 'coolness', not a thought provoking idea, which is a concept that I discovered and took from Tarantino. The dialogue of the Killer is playful, humorous, as if they aren't taking the situation seriously, which is an attitude that defines the film in its ending moments and is a key aspect of Tarantino's work (for example in the 'square' in Pulp Fiction) and postmodernism. The randomness of the gun shot, the intertextuality and pastiche of the opening line, the immediate break of the fourth wall all contribute to the postmodern ideology I used to create the film, which was inspired in part by Tarantino.
Furthermore, the use of '60s pop and rock is also reminiscent of Tarantino's work (again in line with postmodernism), and I decided to use it to create a stylistic work that would create the desired stylish feeling via the audience's perception of the music as well as the tempo and lyrics adding to the scenes they were over. While one goal of the music was to encourage the audience to attribute their interpretation and experience of the song to the images they were over, it was also used to evoke themes reminiscent of classic noir. I also held my takes for a long time (especially in the end monologue), in part to allow the song to play out more and so conjure more of an atmosphere, which is also common in Tarantino's work, for example for the Reservoir Dogs torture scene.
Also, the costume of the killer was inspired by similar characters in his works. I wanted something striking, stylized and memorable, and the mask in particular works as a memorable part of mise-en-scene, much like the yellow jumpsuit in Kill Bill or the suits in Reservoir Dogs.
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Of course, the opening line of the film plays off the cliché trope of 1980s films and the animations of Disney and Pixar - and as this trope is so recognisable that my intention of immediately going away from it via the jarring gunshot and killing of the assumed main character was intended to present the audience with the darker, more stylised alternative while still maintaining the whimsical aspect of the trope with the dialogue and performance of the Killer. My postmodern approach to film lent itself well to the self-referential aspect of the beginning of the film, with the first line and the Killer's following monologue creating a playful aspect to the narrative which defined the character immediately.
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My inspiration for the faceoff scene was classic westerns, for example the classic face off in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Using the postmodern ideology, I wanted to spoof the concept comically, which I intended to shock the audience and show that it doesn't fit into the expected narrative. As my intention was to include a narrative twist, and as well as unmasking the Killer at the end, I aimed to present twists in genre expectation throughout, i.e. by parodying the trope.
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