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FILM RESEARCH & ANALYSIS

To know how to make a film, you actually have to watch films. We were tasked with conducting research on a film of our choice. This time, you have to actually dive deeper and analyze the film with a filmmaker’s perspective. This is to make ourselves familiar with how they are made and the processes that go along with it. I chose to analyze 28 Days Later directed by Danny Boyle, written by Alex Garland starring Cillian Murphy. This movie was released in 2002. Cillian Murphy as Jim awakes from a 28-day coma from a bicycle accident after an outbreak of an aggression-inducing virus that caused the destruction of society. It’s like a zombie movie but this movie is different. The delivery, atmosphere, the message, is unique. That's why despite its flaws it's one of my favourite movies.

selena

jim

Characters: Jim is a bicycle courier who got into an accident before the outbreak and wakes up 28 days later, alone in a ruined hospital. Throughout the film, he battles his fear of isolation that manifested into reality in the form of an empty London infested with mindless infected. Because of that, he constantly seeks companionship with other people and is never his own man.

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Selena is a paranoid survivor that believes people will slow her down. Things that have happened in those 28 days have turned her into a cold and calloused woman. She saves Jim from being attacked and he learns how to survive.

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Eventually, at the end of the film, after sharing traumatic events, they both metaphorically took a piece of each other’s heart and put it in theirs’ like how Jim learns to be his own father figure and how Selena learns to live instead of just surviving by giving love a chance.

Narrative: The film starts at the disruption of equilibrium when clueless animal rights activists set free chimps that are being experimented on. Little did they know, they are infected with an aggression-inducing virus. This is the catalyst that caused societal collapse. Consequences that arise from tampering with things that they don’t understand. 

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Camera angle: close-up shot

One recognition of disruption is when Jim seeks help in a church only to find dozens of corpses of a mass suicide and a handful of the bodies re-animated as Jim lets out a fearful ‘’hello?’’. This scene represents the existential dread for not only the world’s inevitable destruction but also for Boyle’s view of Christianity. The people who committed suicide there had lost all hope for a god who will save them and chose to commit a mortal sin even if it damns them.

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Camera angle: Tilted high shot 

Another recognition of disruption is when Jim, Selena and Hannah are taken in by soldiers who are offering ‘the answer to infection’. The answer to infection was using the girls as means of repopulation [in a bad way]. Basically, they were lied to. How Danny Boyle presents this part of their journey is as a critique of man and social issues like sexism, PTSD, de-sensitivity towards violence and such through the soldiers’ behaviour.

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Camera angle: Medium shot

In summary, the repair is when Jim escapes from being executed for wanting to help the girls, released a captive infected to get rid of the soldiers and brutally murders the soldiers that stand in his way to save Selena and Hannah.

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Camera angle: Medium over-the-shoulder shot

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Finally, the new equilibrium is when the film cuts to some time after that event to all of them being saved by the actual military, the infected being starved and showing how all the characters develop.

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Camera angle: Extreme close-up shot

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I would like to incorporate how Danny Boyle's presentation on introspective and intimate moments into my film. Like paintings with stationary camera camera shots and brilliant body acting. I also want to incorporate how he uses music to amplify characters' emotions. 

Camera work and editing: The film is recorded with a mini-dv camcorder because they lack the budget but this indirectly gave the film a gritty and dirty look which perfectly matches the atmosphere. It made the film look like a perpetual nightmare. During the epilogue, they shot it with a 35mm camera which is in a way fitting to show a happy ending because the colours on 35mm are more vibrant compared to dv.

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In terms of camera shots and angles, Danny Boyle likes to shoot Dutch angles which can give uneasy feeling that something is wrong and also shots that peek out of objects which give a sense of the characters being watched.

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The film was edited with a lot of repetitive jump cuts to simulate the panic and adrenaline the characters are feeling during action sequences.

dutch angles

dv

35mm

Mise-en-scene: This film was shot around London and sometimes in the country-side depending on the situation. The weird thing is that the streets are not littered with corpses and instead Danny Boyle presented the effects of the pandemic in a more subtle way. For example, the surroundings are messy with sometimes personal belongings littering the ground indicating that the people’s fight or flight response have taken hold to ensure their survival. Other than that, is mountains of posters of missing persons on notice boards plastered over each other.

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Music: Composed by John Murphy, the score is minimal horror ambience throughout the film but during key moments like when Jim was wandering around London, the song East Hastings by Godspeed You! Black Emperor was playing. The genre of the song is post-rock which is a genre known for its hopeless and dismal sound and structured like a rock orchestra which is very fitting for the film. Fun fact, East Hastings is a place in Vancouver which is full of junkies and poverty. Both the pandemic-stricken London and East Hastings share a common feeling of hopelessness.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor F♯ A♯ ∞

*That concludes my analysis for this film. Almost all these things I've analyzed is why I love this film and is actually what got me obsessing over media.

PRE-PRODUCTION PLANNING

plot

A man encounters a feeling through a trance. He’s obsessed with it and dedicates his life to it. On his journey to look/chase for it many things are sacrificed. He learns that this feeling is not meant to be felt but he knows it exists. An outside force is probably responsible but why? Or not? Who knows?

some notes to consider:

  • The film shows how this pursuit destroys himself.

  • Surreal and painting-like motifs for it to be timeless and universal.

  • Non-linear opening [what the pursuit results to then show the catalyst event].

  • Plot is simple but what I want to do is communicate a feeling that I can’t put into words. Something that is not logical or material

  • Masked character for ambiguity. So that people can perceive them to be anyone including themselves. Similar to the reason why Spiderman is masked.

  • Film not meant to be sad lol.

  • Film has ambiguous meaning

  • Can be satirical depending on audience’s interpretation

  • Feeling can be represented with an apple/book/flower in a bottle/piece of jewellery

 

Plot is cryptic but somewhat relatable. For Example:

  • An unsure follower of a cause that might have no meaning

  • Drug addiction

  • Lovesickness

  • Isolation

title

I came up with 3 titles: Only In Nothing/Only In Heaven/Heaven In Nothing. Out of these three, I chose 2 titles to get my point across which is Only In Nothing/Heaven In Nothing. Death as a metaphor or literally will be the result of his search and what waits for him in death is nothing [which is bad] but heaven/enlightenment can be found in nothing [in real life which is good] by himself [meditation] thus, Heaven In Nothing. Only In Nothing is a twist on the protagonist’s words if confronted as if he is indirectly asking for death and nothingness. In context, ‘’only in *insert place* is where I’ll find it,” and replace the place with nothing thus, Only In Nothing. It’s also because it might sound interesting to movie goers.

genre

I guess it can be categorized as a surreal psychological drama. I want it to be surreal so I can tell a kinda corny story in a cool way with multiple meanings and I like to compose pretty pictures. As for target audience, I don’t really have a specific demographic that I want my film to be showed to. Mostly, I want to make the film just for myself. To add to that, I didn't really pick a genre. I just wanted to tell a story and the closest genre that it can be categorized into was surreal psychological drama.

why did I choose this plot?

There was this dream I had 2 years ago. In that dream, my uncle left me at a beach and I saw an island in the distance. It looked like that island from the spongebob opening with the palm tree but it looked more alien-like while still being natural. Sort of like a backdrop in a photo studio yet it had scale and motion to it. The water level was the same and it never got deeper the farther you go. I have this image etched in my mind eversince because the feeling it gave me was something new. That feeling returned when I saw a movie still from Andrei Tarkovsky’s film, Stalker the ‘meat grinder’ scene. That scene was eerily similar to that of my dream. It is similar in a way that it was beautiful and natural landscape that doesn’t make sense like how the floor looked like a small desert and it was inside of a building that looks like a church. The photo here speaks for itself. I did more research about Tarkovsky and many have describe his movies to be dreamy. It’s easy to label something as ‘dreamy’ but this time it is unexpectedly literal. It took the word to a new place where no one can touch.

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A close word to describe this feeling is probably déjà vu. And that déjà vu is of a liminal space. Liminal space is a sub-genre of lofi-photography that grew popular during the Covid-19 pandemic. It consists of images of empty hallways, yellow tinted rooms, dark playgrounds and such. To me, these scenes give me comfort and give a feeling of childhood nostalgia. Some people find these photos unsettling and associate it with creepypastas but that’s a topic for another day.

However, that nostalgia is only for something real and already experienced. What I’m feeling is the opposite. From the internet, I found the word jamais vu – the feeling when a current circumstance is strange while objectively realizing that they have already been previously experienced which still isn’t it. Instead, what I remember feeling is a feeling of nostalgia for something that hasn’t happened [of the future] and also for something that doesn’t exist. It is like trying to imagine a new colour.

So, for this film opening, I want to somehow portray my obsession with this feeling and depending on how you perceive the character, that ‘feeling’ can also be a metaphor for other things like success or power. I have been thinking about this for years and this is an opportunity to realize my vision even if it is partially.

storyboard

Above is my storyboard and as you can see, it is quite short as I want to take my time with each shot to give more impact and not make it look like a montage. The shots that I drew might end up different depending on the location where I'll shoot it in as I'm still surveying for locations. 

screenplay

The burnt paper cranes can represent people he has hurt to continue his pursuit of the feeling. The Doppelganger is a physical manifestation of Protagonist's consciousness, in other words, the same person. The hand comforting Protagonist shows that he only has himself as his friend. Doppelganger tying the noose around his neck represents how Protagonist chooses to ignore that he's destroying himself. 

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Video feedback loop is when a camera is pointed at it's own video playback monitor and it creates this repeating effect similar to when 2 mirrors are pointed at each other. This type of imagery is common to represent moments of reflection and discovering oneself.

shot list

This is a summary for reference of the screenplay.

The closeup shots are used to focus on things and give more detail on the actions of characters. It is combined with a vertical roll to release the tension and to reveal information outside the shot. Then, it becomes a wide-static shot to present the characters composed like a painting which applies to majority of the film.

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Random movement shot is to reflect how hazy dreams are and how intense the trance is for the Protagonist.

plot structure

The film would start teasing the new equilibrium where Protagonist has accepted his end with all the paper cranes burnt (people in his life and possessions). His only friend, Doppleganger which is himself is the only one comforting him in the end. Doppleganger is the devil influence character in this story disguising himself as an angel. Before that, they were fighting (not shown) which symbolizes internal turmoil whether he should go on with his pursuit. He realizes all that he has done was not worth the sacrifices and the irreversible damages it had done to him and others.

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I made the film start from the ending because of the 2 minute limit and if I were to make this film linear, and just show the opening, it wouldn't make sense at all until you have seen the whole film. I have to tease the ending so the audience can somewhat imagine the journey that will not be shown.

 

Then, it cuts to the disruption, where he enters the trance that made him obsessed.

 

He wakes up from it and ponders. That will be the recognition of disruption. The state of equilibrium and repair wouldn’t be shown in the opening.

location

The 1st location I'm most likely going for is the cave at Meragang Beach.

There are 2 caves there and I will decide on the day of shooting itself on which I will choose to film in. I plan to go there at dawn because I want the place to look blue and dreamy and I do not want to film during sunset because people. The pictures above I got from a local photographer's Facebook.

The 2nd location will most likely be at my friend Haris's house in an abandoned room. As of now, I don't have a picture of it but I will put it in my Product Development page when I actually get there. Time of day doesn't matter as we are just going to close the curtains to shine a projector at the actor.

actors

I chose my friend Haris to play the Protagonist in my film mostly because he is a very determined person especially when it comes to creative media. Another reason I chose him is because he fits my clothes. In the film, he will be wearing his school uniform and a blazer to make it look like a suit as that kind of attire is universal and timeless. 

The Doppleganger would be my friend Hadi as he is also down for anything and always willing to help with anything. He is also going to be wearing the same thing as Haris when filming. He also has no experience in acting.

They both have no experience in acting. However, I specifically made the script to only have body acting and not verbal and facial acting so it would not be that difficult for them. They will both be masked to as to prevent other people from relating them to any national identity. This is for ambiguity as well as to prevent cultural cringe. Example of that can be ''when locals do it, it's not cool anymore''. 

props

For the masks, I made them using plastic plates that I found lying around my house. I purposely made masks that are like kindergarten arts & crafts as it gives it a creepy atmosphere when mashed together with the dark undertones of my film. I made multiple masks for each scene to reflect what the character is feeling. 

For the costumes, I told Haris to wear his school uniform with a black tie and a blazer which I will lend him, same as Hadi.

Noose. I tied it myself.

For the cranes, I just made some from A4 printing papers at home and will proceed to burn them at the beach during filming.

As to represent the 'feeling', I settled with the bottled flower. I made it using an empty glass bottle from a vitamin C drink and sanded down the branding. I used a flower someone gave me for appreciation day [an event held annually at my school where we show appreciation to one another by sending letters] to honour that person and some others that I hand-picked around my garden. 

equipment

  • I will be using the same camera I used for the magazine project which is my dad's Can0n EOS for normal scenes that require clarity and high definition.

  • tripod

  • fisheye lens for distorted scenes

  • Sony camcorder for dream sequences.

*this concludes research and planning and on to product development*

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