I think everything needs to get simpler here. I'd like to see you try this as a film that is literally divided in two. We see the same action, but from alternate perspectives. Consider this:
Take one: we see a sweet old woman enter her garden; she has a trug on her arm, and a pair of secateurs. Bees are buzzing, the sky is blue. It couldn't be more lovely. There's some music playing, something like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUyxCP5Rvco
We watch her cut a bouquet of flowers, including a large sunflower. The flowers are put in the trug etc. Next we see the same flowers we saw picked in a vase in a village hall; the old woman is standing beside the vase; there's a '1st prize' sign against the bouquet. The old woman is smiling. A man from the local newspaper has his camera and is taking photos; as we hear the click of the camera, we see the photographs appear on screen; colourful, lovely, the old woman smiling; we hear one last click, and this time the screen goes black.
Take Two: we see a sweet old woman enter the garden - the camera is exactly the same, but suddenly it pans backwards and downwards and suddenly we're in 'plant world'. The action plays out as it did before, but now it's like something from a horror film - decapitations, slashing, blades flashing (and I think you should absolutely take a leaf out of Hitchcock's book on this one, using montage editing to convey violence); the sun flower is cut; the trug is like one of those wagons filled with corpses; everyone is groaning etc.
Now, we're back in the village hall and it's the same sequence of shots exactly, only this time all we can hear is the low moaning of the flowers in the vase, sobbing, crying; the photographer takes the pictures as before, only this time when his pictures fill the screen, they look like black and white crime photos, and the old woman looks like a monster, like some monstrous grinning caricature; the final click of the camera and we're left looking at a black screen and then we hear again
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUyxCP5Rvco
I think running the action through twice like - with certain scenes matching exactly will work more effectively and more disturbingly - and carrying the story on with the old woman 'not winning' is unnecessary. It will be more effective without.
OGR 21/01/16
ReplyDeleteHey Sam,
I think everything needs to get simpler here. I'd like to see you try this as a film that is literally divided in two. We see the same action, but from alternate perspectives. Consider this:
Take one: we see a sweet old woman enter her garden; she has a trug on her arm, and a pair of secateurs. Bees are buzzing, the sky is blue. It couldn't be more lovely. There's some music playing, something like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUyxCP5Rvco
We watch her cut a bouquet of flowers, including a large sunflower. The flowers are put in the trug etc. Next we see the same flowers we saw picked in a vase in a village hall; the old woman is standing beside the vase; there's a '1st prize' sign against the bouquet. The old woman is smiling. A man from the local newspaper has his camera and is taking photos; as we hear the click of the camera, we see the photographs appear on screen; colourful, lovely, the old woman smiling; we hear one last click, and this time the screen goes black.
Take Two: we see a sweet old woman enter the garden - the camera is exactly the same, but suddenly it pans backwards and downwards and suddenly we're in 'plant world'. The action plays out as it did before, but now it's like something from a horror film - decapitations, slashing, blades flashing (and I think you should absolutely take a leaf out of Hitchcock's book on this one, using montage editing to convey violence); the sun flower is cut; the trug is like one of those wagons filled with corpses; everyone is groaning etc.
Now, we're back in the village hall and it's the same sequence of shots exactly, only this time all we can hear is the low moaning of the flowers in the vase, sobbing, crying; the photographer takes the pictures as before, only this time when his pictures fill the screen, they look like black and white crime photos, and the old woman looks like a monster, like some monstrous grinning caricature; the final click of the camera and we're left looking at a black screen and then we hear again
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUyxCP5Rvco
I think running the action through twice like - with certain scenes matching exactly will work more effectively and more disturbingly - and carrying the story on with the old woman 'not winning' is unnecessary. It will be more effective without.