Today

This morning we were meant to have a lecture from James but after a few cross wires with the timetable I took the opportunity to watch the film Requiem For A Dream. I absolutely adore this film & remembered it had some excellent filming effects which I thought would give me lots of ideas that I could incorporate in my own film.

Requiem For A Dream, directed by Darren Aronofsky, is about drug addicts & the way in which their lives spiral out of control following their problems. Two friends Harry & Tyrone decide to sell heroin to make money so they can escape their lives. Despite wanting to better their futures, their addictions overcome their sensibilities and their lives become progressively worse. Harrys girlfriend Marion, also an addict, prostitutes herself in order to get her fixes and the narrative also follows Harry's mother, Sara as she becomes hooked on diet pills in her bid to shift weight in a short space of time.

I found the filming techniques that were used interesting & very effective. I particularly like the semiotic codes the director uses for drug taking. Instead of showing the characters taking drugs, he uses single shot images with fast cut points and interlinking sound effects to indicate drug taking. I think this is imaginative & clever.

A split screen is often used, particularly when the scene is of two people talking. Another example of this is when one half of the screen focuses on either Harry or Marion depending on who is speaking & the other half shows intimate close ups of their body parts.

Head shots are frequently used during the film, as are extreme high and low angles to indicate vulnerability or authority. Extreme close ups are also often used, for example the text in a book or Sara tugging at the zip on her dress. Point of view shots are also used which I think are effective as the audience can see what the character sees.

Quick cut points are regularly used, to give the film a fast paced & edge- I would like to incorporate these into our film because they gave scenes a flash-like effect. The director also uses black crossfades into a memory which I thought worked extremely well & would fit our own concept.

A fish eye lens is also used in some shots which makes the film seem almost voyeuristic. The fish eye concentrates on a party & movement is sped up and blurred. In another shot, Sara is running down a busy street and all the civilians around her are sped up whilst she is slowed down. I would like to attempt this technique whilst filming for The Cut. In another shot you see Marion cutting up fashion magazines and re-arranging faces and bodies which has been sped up. I think this scene could apply to our own film, I feel as though it could apply to our self-transformation concept.

A scene during the film is of the camera panning 180 degrees round an empty room with a faint buzzing sound in the background. I thought this would be effective as a closing scene which myself and Hayley found inspiring for our own film.





Above is the film trailer which demonstrates some of the filming techniques used in the film.