Plot:

The plot in this short 30-50 second film clip will revolve around the protagonist hiding from a creature inspired by Nosferatu and will take place within the first hour of the film and it is he creature’s first appearance. As the creature comes closer to finding the protagonist, their heart will beat harder and faster and. eventually  the creature will walk in the opposite direction that the protagonist is at and the heartbeat will slowly start to decrease. The protagonist will then move from their hiding space after thinking the creature had left and then come face to face with it. The scene then fades. Finally, the protagonist will be played by (not chosen) and the creature will be played by (not chosen, preferably a taller person, however since only the creature’s silhouette will be seen, it doesn’t really matter). 

Outline for Portfolio

Film Roles Portfolio

(will be updated)

Cinematography and editing are presented in Breathless, (1960) by Jean-Luc Godard, by using multiple techniques. This includes jump cuts and making scenes longer than standard. Godard creates this unconventional timing in the scene where the characters, Michal and Patricia, are driving in the car and several jump cuts are used.

These jump cuts are inconsistent and appears to be unconnected and random. This creates the Brechtian technique, used in theatre, which reminds the audience of the fact they’re watching a movie. This was also used in the scene where Patricia waits in the taxi while Michal gets out to speak to a man. The usual way of presenting this scene would be to have the camera follow Michal and allow the audience to hear the conversation however instead, Godard had the camera remain inside the taxi and have the conversation appear as a mix of ambient noises to show it from the perspective of Patricia because she, nor the audience, can hear what’s going on.

The “pointless” jump shots were unusual because although Michal was continuously talking, and Patricia hadn’t changed positioned, the jump shots still persisted. It is strange due to the purpose of jump shots being to cut to the next scene, although the scene still took place normally. By disconnecting the audience from the film, it allows them to understand it better and observe from better outlook. By being emotionally involved in a film, you allow your emotions to distract you from the real message behind the story. By feeling what the character’s feel, your reliable outsider’s perspective is gone. Another reason for these random jump cuts was because Godard was told to make the film a bit shorter.

Due to audience’s during “The Golden Age of Hollywood” becoming used to films ending with the protagonists having a happy ending, Breathless stood out even more because of Michal’s death, showing the opposite of what you would expect out of the film. Another way that Breathless was so different was that, due to a low budget, they replaced the idea of a constructed set with a real street in Paris in the final scene. These features, among others, were all reasons as to how French New Wave changed cinema.

The use of editing in Strike (1925, Sergei Eisenstein) was heavily used in order to tell the tale of the factory workers and it used Soviet Techniques like Montage heavily in it.

One of the main themes from the film, comes as the form of a clear social divide. The workers are seen as worlds away from the bourgeois, perhaps representing the widening gap between the classes at the time. Audiences would relate to this, regardless of their class because this idea was actually happening within the society at the time of the tsarists regime, which was with living memory of the majority of people  A parallel montage is used to show a happy scene of the proletariat eating. This shows how the proletariat work together and a bond which works well particularly with the proletariat at the time of the film’s release. Although they did not have much money, they had love which is shown by their clear happiness.

Next, we are shown a similar scene where the bourgeois  also eat breakfast. However, they are shown without family to represent their selfish greed leading to a lonely life of isolation. This shows of how greed is evil and that it corrupts people, leaving them by themselves, isolated. This montage is significant because it shows a clear divide, this is more important for the audience at the time because their emotional investment in the film would increase because they are understanding and first-hand experiencing this social divide.

Whiplash Task

The Kuleshov Effect is a technique used in film that was started by Soviet filmmaker Lev Kuleshov in the 1910’s and 1920’s and essentially what it means is that the relationship between two shots can relay more emotions and feelings to a reader then two isolated shots. The most common example used in this the man with the bowl of soup, a child in a grave and a woman lying on a couch. The man is carrying a neutral expression that on it’s own wouldn’t tell the audience anything but when it is put with the other shots the audience infers various feelings and tones depending on the shot, for example when the man was paired with the soup it looked like he was hungry.