Character Distortion
All in all, today wasn't a bad birthday day.
In film class, I showed off my Martial Arts video to high praise. Then I passed in the proposal...
Red Right Hand
Genre: Experimental Narrative
Estimated Running Time: Approx. 3 min.
Film Stock: Plus-X, Tri-X, Ektachrome
Concept: This film aims to take a song, particularly “Red Right Hand,” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and translate its lyrical content and atmosphere into a series of silent, moving images. The song itself is based loosely on images from Milton’s Paradise Lost, and contains no coherent meaning, but instead uses its vagueness to invoke a feeling of irrational fear and dread. I will attempt to use a loose narrative structure made up of both external and internal images that will have a similar effect as the song mosaic like structure and will inspire fear by forcing the viewer to use their imagination in piecing together what they see.
Structure: The film will be divided into two main parts: one filmed outdoors on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, and one filmed inside in the UPitt dorms. The first part will suggest a young man traveling on foot to a familiar, yet somehow alien, place as suggested in lyrics like “Take a little walk to the edge of town…past the square, past the bridge, past the mills, past the stacks.” Eventually, he meets up with a dark and seemingly unsavory character hidden beneath an overcoat (“On a gathering storm comes a tall handsome man in a dusty black coat…”). The shady man extends a hand full of money (“Stacks of green paper in his red right hand”), but when the youth reaches for it, he is suddenly struck by vague and somehow disturbing images that quickly appear and disappear (“He’ll rekindle all the nightmares it took you a lifetime to destroy”). The young man drops the money and runs away in fear. This part of the film will be shot on Plus-X film, with the exception of the internal images, which will be shot indoors on Ektachrome film to make the contrast between the two types of images more striking.
The second part of the film will show the young man at night trying to sleep and forget what he has witnessed, but the images will be too strong for him to ignore (“You’ll see him in your nightmares, you’ll see him in your dreams”). Unsure whether he is awake or not, the images start to bleed into his reality (“He’ll appear out of nowhere…You’ll see him in your head, on the TV screen…). Finally the film becomes entirely within the young man’s head (and in color) as he sees himself become the man with the red right hand. The world external to the young man (his bedroom, his bathroom) will again be shot in black and white, this time with Tri-X film, while the images inside his head will again be shot with Ektachrome.
for my final project: a silent music video.
Ironically, it was my neighbor's birthday too, so a total of 18 kids from our floor went out to eat at 11pm (when everything in the resturant is half price).
But then it happened: I broke a string on my guitar. Ah well, I guess the day was destined not to be perfect. : )
In film class, I showed off my Martial Arts video to high praise. Then I passed in the proposal...
Red Right Hand
Genre: Experimental Narrative
Estimated Running Time: Approx. 3 min.
Film Stock: Plus-X, Tri-X, Ektachrome
Concept: This film aims to take a song, particularly “Red Right Hand,” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and translate its lyrical content and atmosphere into a series of silent, moving images. The song itself is based loosely on images from Milton’s Paradise Lost, and contains no coherent meaning, but instead uses its vagueness to invoke a feeling of irrational fear and dread. I will attempt to use a loose narrative structure made up of both external and internal images that will have a similar effect as the song mosaic like structure and will inspire fear by forcing the viewer to use their imagination in piecing together what they see.
Structure: The film will be divided into two main parts: one filmed outdoors on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, and one filmed inside in the UPitt dorms. The first part will suggest a young man traveling on foot to a familiar, yet somehow alien, place as suggested in lyrics like “Take a little walk to the edge of town…past the square, past the bridge, past the mills, past the stacks.” Eventually, he meets up with a dark and seemingly unsavory character hidden beneath an overcoat (“On a gathering storm comes a tall handsome man in a dusty black coat…”). The shady man extends a hand full of money (“Stacks of green paper in his red right hand”), but when the youth reaches for it, he is suddenly struck by vague and somehow disturbing images that quickly appear and disappear (“He’ll rekindle all the nightmares it took you a lifetime to destroy”). The young man drops the money and runs away in fear. This part of the film will be shot on Plus-X film, with the exception of the internal images, which will be shot indoors on Ektachrome film to make the contrast between the two types of images more striking.
The second part of the film will show the young man at night trying to sleep and forget what he has witnessed, but the images will be too strong for him to ignore (“You’ll see him in your nightmares, you’ll see him in your dreams”). Unsure whether he is awake or not, the images start to bleed into his reality (“He’ll appear out of nowhere…You’ll see him in your head, on the TV screen…). Finally the film becomes entirely within the young man’s head (and in color) as he sees himself become the man with the red right hand. The world external to the young man (his bedroom, his bathroom) will again be shot in black and white, this time with Tri-X film, while the images inside his head will again be shot with Ektachrome.
for my final project: a silent music video.
Ironically, it was my neighbor's birthday too, so a total of 18 kids from our floor went out to eat at 11pm (when everything in the resturant is half price).
But then it happened: I broke a string on my guitar. Ah well, I guess the day was destined not to be perfect. : )