Example #3 H1 MM1 Director Statement Assessment Task PDF

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example for assignment 2...

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MM1 Directors Statement Assessment Guidelines Write a Director’s Statement outlining how you would direct a film based on one of your own original stories. This can be either the same idea you used for your visual sequence or another original idea you may have. While we assess the story, you are mainly assessed on your ability to communicate your vision of a film, encompassing its key elements, from a director’s point of view. You must use what you learned in the lectures about genre, camera, lighting, sound, editing and more to illuminate a story on the cinema screen. The overall word limit is 1600 words with the usual +/- 10% applying. The Title and Logline are NOT included in the overall word count.

Simplified Rubric • •

Story: creativity, thematic sophistication and narrative cohesion: 30% Director’s vision : use of FIVE of genre, production design, sound design including music, editing, casting, locations, camera, lighting, special and visual FX: 50%

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Engagement and effort : Presentation incl. spelling and grammar :

10% 10%

Assessment Form (fill out STORY and DIRECTORS VISION below) NAME:

STUDENT NUMBER:

Story Title (10 words max – may be between 1 and 10 words):

Mirrored Identity Logline/Tagline (30 words max – may be between 5 and 30 words): When her husband is murdered, an oblivious woman must follow her instincts and find justice for her husband when his identical twin brother steals his identity. Synopsis – include target audience/demographic (aim for 200 words limit) In my film “Mirrored Life”, we meet Sarah Lesly, an aspiring actor trying to make her breakthrough in the famous city of Los Angeles. She lives with her husband, Joshua Lesly, who she met on the set of one of the first movies she was cast in. The two have been married for just over three years, and their lives could not be going any more smoothly. Everything is the way it should be. That is, until the night everything changes. Enter Jack, the identical twin brother of Joshua, who was raised on opposite sides of the world after the split of their parents. He was abandoned at a very young age and never had a family to call his own. His path was very dark, and always held on to hatred for his brother for living the life he had always wanted. He has been stalking his brother for years, that is, until the day he impulsively murders him and takes his place as Sarah’s husband without her knowledge. “Mirrored Life” follows the journey that Sarah endures as she slowly becomes suspicious of her so-called husband’s strange behaviour. Following her instincts, Sarah searches for evidence and ultimately finds justice for her husband’s death. This film is pitched as a late-night movie for Netflix release, aiming at a late teen and young adult demographic of both males and females.

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Director’s Vision Choose FIVE of the following elements and comment upon how you will use these elements to tell your story, to bring your film to life: genre, production design, camera, sound design (including music), editing, casting, lighting, locations, special and visual FX (aim for 1400 words limit): You may include references to your inspirations/influences, to help the reader “see” and “hear” your film, (if so, include as endnotes), you may cast anyone, at any stage of their career, and your budget can be as large as your vision! I intend for Sarah’s character to be portrayed as a loving and caring woman who tends to put other people’s needs in front of her own. I vision her to be determined in her stride for success in her career and also someone who is brave enough to speak up and fight for justice when something does not seem right. After precise research and careful consideration of potential actresses for the role of Sarah, I have decided that Brittany Robertson would be a perfect fit for the role. Robertson embodies the innocence and aspirations of a young female who is trying to strive for career success, while also possesses the bravery and fight of a women needed by her character, Sarah. Although Robertson does not typically act in thriller movies, I feel as though this film could be the perfect challenge at this point in her career, which could also intrigue the audience who have viewed her in a different type of role. As the two brothers only really interact in one scene; that is, the murder scene, I have chosen to cast the same actor to play a dual role of the identical twins. Although the budget allows me to cast identical twins for the roles of Jack and Joshua Lesly, I feel as though casting one actor in a dual role would not only give an accomplished actor a greater challenge, but would also have greater thematic significance to the film. For the dual role of the identical twin brothers in the film, I would cast Zac Efron as he has built a successful career in the film industry and has played different kinds of roles. Efron possess the skills required to play two completely different characters with great balance, while performing with a real expressiveness, bringing out the complexities of the characters. He is an established actor that is well known by the audience, which would boost the movie’s viewership. I would shoot the film as a thriller, specifically a psychological thriller as the antagonist, Jack Lesly holds a dissolving sense of reality where his unstable emotional state is emphasised. That is, his perceptions, thoughts, distortions, and struggle to grasp reality would all be highlighted where at some stages in the film, the audience can further describe him as a psychopath, changed by his flawed upbringing. The film would also incorporate elements of crime, mystery and drama; these elements stemming from whether the protagonist, Sarah Lesly, would be able to prove that she has not gone crazy and is not imagining that her husband is not actually her husband, but rather his murderer. It provides a question of if and how she will be able to find out what really happened to her husband. Being a thriller, there is an expectation or rather a promise made to the audience that needs to be fulfilled. Therefore, I would ensure that the film creates suspense around critical scenes such as the build-up to the climax, where Sarah is about to find out that the person she has been living with is not the person she fell in love with, but rather his murderer who also happens to be his identical twin brother that she never even knew existed. Further, I would ensure that Jack poses as a threat to Sarah, which would add to the element of suspense where viewers would need to question is she will survive or be another one of his victims. She would be in a situation of fight or flight, ultimately deciding to fight in order to escape her living nightmare and earn justice for her late husband. Sound design will be key to creating the troubling world in which the plot heaves. Sound will be used to simulate the full power of the viewer’s imagination so that their mind can visualise what they cannot see, especially at major points in the film. This creates a heightened sense of what is happening or an intently felt anticipation of what is about to be revealed. The creation of diegetic

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sound will be extremely vital in creating an atmosphere where a heavy action on the screen can be intensified. For example, the diegetic sound of Sarah’s heavy breathing, Jack’s footsteps, and the sound of a door creaking open would be used to intensify the scene where Jack becomes a dangerous threat to Sarah and she finds herself trying to escape from him before he is able to harm her. In order to build tension and suspense that would unnerve the audience in the lead up to the climax of the film, I would use the Shepard tone; which is an auditory illusion of a tone that continually ascends or descends in pitch, yet does not seem to get any higher or lower. Throughout the film, I would use music that fluctuates in pitch, tempo and volume in order to create moments of both high and low drama and tension. I would combine this with sudden breaks and silences to build up the fear and suspense from the audience. For the resolution of the film when Jack has been rightfully arrested for his brother’s murder, I would like to use the diegetic sound of nature and birds chirping to convey Sarah’s sense of relief and clear mental state where she is finally ready to put the past behind her knowing that she has found justice for her husband. Throughout most scenes, I would use close up shots to convey emotion from the protagonist in moments of fear and suspense as they would allow the audience to see the actor’s facial expressions and the small movements on her face. I would avoid wide shots during tension filled scenes as they do not carry the same impact as a close up shot would, however, I would use wide shots to set the set as well as emphasise an intense conversation. The film would start out with the camera seamlessly moving from a birds-eye view to orientate the viewer to the large city infrastructure of Los Angeles, and then continuing to zoom into and pan across the neighbourhood, finally landing on a wide shot of Sarah and Joshua’s house. I would also use low angles in scenes where I want to emphasise the power Jack holds within the narrative. A critical scene where I would use the low angle would be where Jack is about to stab his brother with a knife, ultimately leading to his death. Within this scene, I would alternate between the low and high angle as the high angle would show Joshua’s vulnerability and lack of dominance leading up to his murder. In terms of movement of the camera, I would use a mixture of tracking, panning and zooming in or out throughout the film. Tracking and panning would be used to follow Sarah when she is attempting to escape from Jack after discovering the truth, effectively highlighting to the audience that she is being followed by Jack. This creates tension, increasingly leaving the audience in suspense for the duration of the scene as the danger is slowly being revealed. I would use continuity editing as the predominant style of editing within the film as it is able to smooth over the inherent discontinuity of the editing process and establish a logical coherence between shots. In this case, the editing would be seen as seamless or invisible. However, in crucial moments of the film, I would utilise quick editing within the film as it creates tension and unnerves the audience as they suspect something is about to go wrong. This form of fast paced editing builds up tension within the audience, therefore I would use it in the chase scene between Sarah and Jack as she is portrayed as the victim who is trying to escape the threat of her imminent death. Obtrusive and montage editing would additionally be used to highlight the feelings and emotions of the main characters as well as assisting to build tension and suspense within scenes that can be felt by the audience. Also, I would use flashbacks throughout the movie in order to show fragments of Jack’s past and give insight into the events that shaped his life as a child, and how his upbringing contributed to his psychotic demeanour. These flashbacks are an important addition to the film as they show the backstory between the twin brothers who were separated at a very early age, and the way in which they lived their lives in completely different ways. Flashbacks also give important messages regarding certain scenes, therefore allowing the audience to be better able to understand Jack’s jealously towards his brother’s life and hence his motives for his murder....