We stuck straight to the shooting script with the first scene as I feel it sets the whole mood of the film. We decided to give the film a very unassuming title of Isolation as this is very ambiguous and the film could have splattered off in any direction from this first scene. We also used the very basic font and placed it at the bottom hand of the title slide. We used white font on a black background to give the opening coherence with the fade to black transitions we used all the way through the film. This gives our film a certain mood, adding to the effect of calm and eeriness. The transitions not only give the film its personality but also give the film a certain smoothness and finesse to the editing, as I wanted this film to be to a great extent artistic as well as drama based; its dual purpose was to get across the story entertainingly and also to get across a good looking, flowing film.
For the opening music I used the band Massive Attack as most of their songs have mysterious and eerie tone. I also put in the sound of the graveyard, with the crows and wind over the top of the title slides because I wanted the sounds of the graveyard to be heard before you saw anything. The song also starts of low a quite. For the first couple of shots I used an establishing 180-degree pan of the graveyard to set the scene. This was followed by a fade to black transition and a close up shot of an interesting sculpture in the graveyard, just to give a detail and beauty to the film. All of the shot in the graveyard where shot in black and white giving the viewer a hint that something isn’t right, whereas the flashbacks and thoughts are in colour. This is one of the minor clues in the film, hinting that this man is actually dead. The black and white also gave the film this more artistic look and gave a good comparison between the flashbacks and the present.
After the shot of the statue there was a fade to black and then we have the first shot of the man sitting by his gravestone. It is medium/ slash long shot with the man to the right of the screen. This is to give the legs of the passer by in the shot the emphasis, using the composition to show the insignificance that the dead man is feeling. The song is quiet at this point with just eerie notes from a piano, but as the passer by exits the shot the bass kicks in highlighting the importance of him being ignored. There is then a fade to black with just the music the it cuts of and the shot changes to the first close up shot of the film. I then changed the song to another massive attack song 'Butterfly Caught' a very apt theme song name; this song has a 30 second quiet intro with no base and lots of tiny weird sounds. It was perfect for the backing track to most of the film.
As most of the talking in the film is done in the mans head and we are hearing his thoughts most of the film has a voice over. We found this difficult and thought at first as we could just record straight the computer, but had to the read the script out in perfect harmony with the acting. This also led to some scenes being cut, as we just didn’t feel they worked. Putting the sound bytes onto the film was far easier as we just had to plug the camera in and separate the sound from the clip (this resulted in many clips of same shot of a chair and jack talking). On the whole I believe that the voice over came out well after we had leveled the sound off and I think we achieved to a great extent the effect we wanted.
The first scene has two flash backs; one is very minor just the man walking down the streets alone and the other far more interesting with him about to kill someone. This first flashback was to show the audience how average the mans life was, he was just a normal guy. This shot is also meant to contrast with the other flash back, which is a thought he is speaking about in his head. The second flash back has two shots, one of the man holding a gun to the screen and one of him holding someone hostage. I got this idea from films such as Fight Club and Requiem For A Dream were the thoughts of the characters are shown in a violent and darkly humorous alternate world. This scene was to give the film a darkly comic side and also to liven it up, which I aided with the use of loud high-octane music and the faster cut to the shot.
For the whole film I wanted the audience to get into the mind of this man, as his autobiography is the plot line, so I wanted them to feel as he does and in doing so blind them to the twist at the end. They are supposed to realize the truth when he does; no soliloquies or skipping to the last page here. I reinforced this idea with the camera shots as well as the gaze of the man. His eyes are almost always looking at the camera in the first few scenes. He follows the cameras position in some shots, like the left high angled shot after the 2cd flashback or the camera follows his gaze in the shot with the cigarette. This was all done on purpose to create a link between the man and the audience.
The first scene end with the man saying he sits around doing nothing then he gazes of shot in thought, followed by the inevitable fade to black to round the scene off. I am very pleased with the first scene and it came off almost to how I envisaged it. The only negative part was the shot straight after the shooting flashbacks were Jacks face is just staring emotionless at the camera. I had a fear that it might make the audience lose interest so cut some of the length of the speech, and now the dead stare is only a short incident in the film.
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