one-shot scene: director's reflection

NAME: Brenna Empey

DATE: 11/17/2016

FILM: 5 (One-Shot Scene)

DP: Howie Burbidge

TMA 285 DIRECTOR’S REFLECTION

Overall response (2-3 paragraphs):

In 2-3 paragraphs, write an overall response to your film: Were you successful at achieving what you set out to achieve? What are you proud of? What would you do differently if you could remake this piece? What did you learn?

            This piece actually turned out to be one of my favorite projects, and I think it’s because of how blessed I was to get an amazing cast and DP. When I was blocking this out in my head, and trying to figure out ways to keep the audience engaged and interested, I decided to try and make the cinematography snappy and try to get quick, definitive performances out of my actors. I wanted each character to feel distinctly different so it wouldn’t just feel like three clones interacting on screen. Like I said, I was blessed with actors who really took that idea to heart, and each character ended up with their own way of speaking and their own body language. I think that translated really well and made for an engaging piece.

            If I did this again, I would probably change the location or add things to the location. It was great that the gas station was abandoned, so we wouldn’t have to worry about cars passing through, but the empty white exterior wall of the gas station felt boring and underdressed. We talked about this in class, but because there was nothing happening on the exterior, there was no motivation for a lot of things, like the hitchhiker walking towards the wall and even Thelma talking on the phone near the wall in the beginning. There was no payphone in sight at this location, but I wish there had been. We would’ve used it and it would’ve helped things be more motivated. In another vein, for the most part I felt like all the performances were really solid and I felt like most of the class agreed in their feedback. My only setback was the few moments with Andrea that felt too much like acting a character rather than being a character, which I’ll talk about below.

Briefly answer the following:

What, specifically, did you want to communicate? Were you successful? Why? Why not?

            I wanted to really focus on the emotions of the two women in this piece, partly because they seemed more interesting to me, and partly because the hitchhiker character was more of a catalyst for tension between them rather than an individual (at least that’s what it seemed like in the script). So, before we began shooting, I briefly discussed “who is this character?” with each of my actors. I think we were very successful in giving each character his/her own presence, and making those presences distinctly different from one another. The piece ended up being very back-and-forth, very eventful. I really wanted to communicate what it feels like to be attracted to someone, those first few moments of realization, and then the subsequent primping and “acting” that comes with trying to impress that someone. Going back to the definitive personalities and actions of each character, I think it worked nicely that Andrea (as Thelma) was uncomfortable/ flirtatious, Solomon (as hitchhiker) was smug and suave, and Shiloh (as Louise) was – pardon my French – a total cockblock. My only complaint is that Andrea felt like she was overacting a bit, not to a fault, but in comparison with the other two performances hers wasn’t as believable.

How, specifically, did you try to say this? What visual elements, techniques, etc. did you use?

            Thelma has just told her husband Darryl to “go to hell,” as we see in the very beginning, and she’s going through a lot of emotions after that. When she runs into the hitchhiker, then, we begin to see that flirtation, that new impression of possibility with a new love interest. I really tried to favor Thelma’s face in the cinematography, because she’s the one going through the biggest change in emotion in this scene, and I really wanted to see that. For instance, we move into a close-up on her face when she tries to get the hitchhiker to stick around, emphasizing that she’s attracted to him. Whenever possible, I also used the lines of the car and building to lead the eye to the right places, and used the blocking of the actors to communicate things about how each character was feeling. A good example of this is when Louise walks directly in between hitchhiker and Thelma, a visual representation of her desire to keep them apart.

What did you learn about storytelling:

            With this project in particular, I learned a lot about point of view. With three characters in the mix here, I knew the camera wouldn’t be able to capture all of their faces all the time, so I had to pick one character to really favor. That character ended up being Thelma, who I think is the most emotionally interesting one of the three. To tell the story from her perspective, as I mentioned before, I made sure the camera was on her during times where there was an emotional beat. In other words, we don’t see as much of the hitchhiker or Louise because I chose to make the story about Thelma, not them. That’s something I wasn’t really thinking about when I first picked this scene to do as a one-shot, but now it seems obvious – you have to pick a perspective.

Working with actors and getting performance:

            Like I said before, I really was blessed to get this cast. Shiloh, Andrea, and Solomon are all fantastic, professional actors with convincing presences and an innate ability to become. I talked to all of them individually about who their characters were, and what emotions they go through during this scene/encounter. We came up with words to assign to each of the characters – Solomon’s label was “smug hunk,” Andrea’s label was “rebellious wife,” and Shiloh’s (my favorite) was just “bitch.” Sure, we probably could’ve spent more time fleshing out the intricacies of these characters, but I think these simple labels aided themselves to the punchiness of this scene. After watching it on screen, though, I do wish I’d spent more time with Andrea in getting to know Thelma. We went through basic emotions – at the phone, she’s distressed about telling her husband to go to hell; and in the car, she’s concerned about how she looks when the hitchhiker begins to walk over. We didn’t talk much about how this situation with the hitchhiker functioned in the context of her marriage, which I should have done. I think the emotions she gave me would have been more genuine and seemed less fake, if that makes sense. Watching her, it felt like she was saying to herself, “Okay, this is how I show being upset,” or, “And this is how I make sure I look okay in the mirror.” Rather, she should’ve been thinking about specific things rather than general actions. I love Andrea, and she gave me some fantastic stuff in this scene, but she does have the tendency to overact when she doesn’t understand a motivation’s complexity. That’s something I should’ve addressed on set.

Blocking — camera and actors:

            This was the craziest part of the shoot. Three characters, I discovered, is a lot to block. Like I’ve said a couple times already, I wanted this scene to be engaging, punchy, and quick. Since I couldn’t cut, I just made sure the camera moved into a variety of shots, wides and close-ups and what-have-you. To make all these framing moves seem motivated, I had to block the actors in a way where they were almost always moving. And by “always moving,” I don’t necessarily mean walking – little things like Andrea leaning forward to look out the car window is movement enough to change the framing. We had to practice the blocking a lot, but thankfully my actors have done this a million times and only had to practice twice to get the blocking down. Once we threw the camera into the mix and made a few tweaks, we got the scene in six takes. Andrea, Solomon, Shiloh, and my DP Howie all did really well with the blocking even when we had to make small changes here and there. My favorite blocking moment is when Shiloh walks between Andrea and Solomon, essentially punctuating the fact that she doesn’t want them talking to each other. One blocking thing I wish I could’ve changed is when Solomon and Andrea run into each other – it doesn’t feel very motivated since Solomon doesn’t have anywhere to go, he just runs into her for no reason.

Visuals — composition, framing, visual elements:

            I wanted a variety of shots in this scene to make it feel punchy and intriguing, but I also wanted to make sure I was using the location’s lines and shapes to keep the shot varying and artistic. I think I was successful in this regard. A couple framing choices in particular: when Andrea leans out of the car to watch Solomon, the black line on the car doors leads straight from her gaze all the way to him. When Solomon leans on the car to talk to Andrea, his body and arm frame her in a half-moon shape. To establish location, I made sure there was a moment where we looked toward the gas pumps, when Andrea is walking back to the car. One thing I wish was different, though, is that I wish there weren’t as many sun flares. We were really fighting the setting sun on this one, and even though it’s “not that bad,” as was said in class, the flare is really distracting to me and I wish we’d either shot at a different time of day or re-framed.

Design & Art Direction:  

            This was a tough one because we didn’t have much to work with at this location. It’s abandoned Sinclair gas station, so the green roof was nice, but I wasn’t a huge fan of the blank white wall. I do like, however, that it has vertical lines on it to break it up a bit. I wish there had been a payphone or one of those newspaper dispensers outside – just something for my characters to interact with would’ve been really nice. If anything, I wish I had thought to pull one of the small construction trash cans over into the negative space of the wall, so at least Solomon would’ve had something to do when he went and stood by the wall after bumping into Andrea. Other than that, I liked the car choice, the matte silver worked well and wasn’t distracting – it kind of blended into the background to keep the focus on the characters.

The Production Process — collaboration with crew, the logistics of making this piece:

            Like I’ve said many times already, I was really blessed with my cast and crew. Spencer and Howie were fantastic as my sound and camera. My biggest worry, honestly – and this might be silly – was letting my actors down. I’m not very confident as a director, it’s difficult for me and I don’t really want to make a career out of it, so my biggest worry was making a fool of myself in front of three very professional actors that I highly respect. I knew it would be a hard piece, because my I feared my blocking was going to be too complicated and there was the risk of getting kicked out of the location, all things that would’ve made me feel embarrassed. When we got to the location, though, things couldn’t have gone more smoothly. While I talked with the actors and began blocking things out, Howie and Spencer were quickly setting up their equipment, so by the time I was ready for a full blocking rehearsal everybody was good to go. The cast and crew offered suggestions when we ran into blocking problems, and it turned out to be very collaborative and not stressful at all. Even when the owners of the property came and asked us what we were doing, they were very kind and let us finish filming without any problem.

                  

What was it like to watch your film with an audience? Did they understand it? Miss the point? Why did they respond the way they did?  

            I think the overall response in class was great. I couldn’t be prouder of my DP, Howie, who really blew everyone away (including me) with his ability to smoothly carry out my vision for camera movement. I loved the time we spent in class talking about what could’ve been addressed and fixed in Andrea’s performance, as the complex emotions her character was experiencing didn’t translate onto the screen in the way I had hoped. That was a great discussion and I think it’ll help me a lot when I direct things in the future.