Drive - Research

Drive (2011) directed by Nicolas Winding Refn is a stylish crime drama starring Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan.

A a Director this was a film I intended to look at, due to the fact that it is a stylish piece and it has numerous car scenes which will feature heavily in our film. I had seen it before and recommended to my team that they all watch it too, we looked extensively at how the driving shots were framed during scenes and how we could do this ourselves.

I learnt that in this film and other films with driving scenes that there is a lot of cuts from inside the car to outside and back again. This helped us so much when we were filming as we could always relate to what we had researched.

This scene was very useful and an inspiration to how we framed the driving sequence in our film.

The Grey - Research

The Grey (2011) directed by Joe Carnahan is another film I have looked at, visually it has a very gritty feel to it and is a look I would like to try and pull off in our film.

There is also a flashback sequence in this film which is gradually shown throughout the film before the reveal at the end, we are also planning on doing this kind of thing in our final film so again it was very useful to research this film. It is shot differently to how the rest of the film is and gives a warm, satisfying feeling.

This shows a brief extract from the flashback sequence and how it contrasts so much from the style of the rest of the film, it has a very warm feel to it and this is what we want ot achieve with our own flashback sequence.

Final Script

Drama Script – Outcome

Here is the final script prepared for the shoot, it gave us a base to work from and we would change a few things as we went along so it made the film better and the actors more comfortable.

ACT 1 – From Summers Viewpoint

Summer is walking down the street, present in hand, she is walking briskly, clearly distressed and upset about something. Out of focus and in the background we see a man peel away from the scene…

 The camera cuts to a note on the present it reads…

“To Nick…”

Summer is rushing now, we can hear a voice shouting…

“SUMMER!!!!”

Summer begins to cross the road she is looking down at the present (letter), she drops the present in the road.

She hesitates as she is clearly bothered by something that has happened, as if in shock the sound drains from the scene and Summer is disorientated (shellshock) as she goes to pick it up.

Then suddenly we hear loud car screeching and BANG, she is hit by a car.

Cut to black…

ACT 2 – From Nicks Viewpoint

Nick leaves a house through the tunnel passage… rearranging his clothes, pauses has a puff on his cigarette and flicks it on the floor. A woman shouts…

Woman – “YOU’RE A FUCKING BASTARD!!”

Gets into his car he begins driving, no seatbelt, he is clearly distracted and irresponsible…

Nick’s phone rings…it’s Tom

Nick – “Hey, man”

Tom – “I’ve done it mate..”

Nick – “WHAT DO YOU MEAN?!”

Tom – “I’ve told her.”

Nick – “ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS!?”

Tom – “She had to know…”

Nick – “BOLLOCKS SHE HAD TO KNOW, YOU’VE HAD YOUR EYES ON HER SINCE THE FUCKING START!!”

Tom – “DON’T BE LIKE THIS MAN, YOU’RE IN THE WRONG AND YOU KNOW IT”

NICK – “I’M COMING UP TO YOURS NOW, LETS SORT THIS SHIT OUT…”

Nick hangs up, swearing under his breath, clearly annoyed and is not paying attention to the road, he flips out, hitting the steering wheel…

“FUCK, NO, NO”

Nick looks at the phone again, and tries to scroll to Summer’s name to ring her…

As he is looking down at the phone we see he is not looking at the road, as he looks up he is shocked and we see his reaction through the windscreen.

ACT 3 – From Tom’s Viewpoint

Tom and Summer approach in the street and hug, we see Tom’s face smiling slightly, he clearly likes her.

Summer – “Tom, you okay?”

Tom – “Yeah I’m fine Summer… special occasion?” (looking at the present)

Summer – “Oh, this…no it’s just a little something I picked up for Nick”

Tom – “Yeah…I’ve been meaning to see you about that, there’s something you need to know…”

Summer - “What, why what’s wrong.”

Pause – 5 seconds – Close up on Tom

Tom – “It’s Nick… I don’t know how to say this… so I just will… he’s been cheating”

Summer - “…Shut up Tom…don’t mess about”

Tom – “I’m sorry…you don’t deserve this Summer…”

Tom reaches for Summer’s hand

Summer – “TOM, GET OFF ME…”

Summer turns away, shocked

Tom – “SUMMER, I’m trying to do the right thing…”

Summer storms away, Tom starts to follow but then stops and turns away, he pulls out his phone and rings Nick.

We now see the conversation from ACT 2 but from Tom’s perspective.

Nick – “Hey, man”

Tom – “I’ve done it mate..”

Nick – “WHAT DO YOU MEAN?!”

Tom – “I’ve told her.”

Nick – “ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS!?”

Tom – “She had to know…”

Nick – “BOLLOCKS SHE HAD TO KNOW, YOU’VE HAD YOUR EYES ON HER SINCE THE FUCKING START!!”

Tom – “DON’T BE LIKE THIS MAN, YOU’RE IN THE WRONG AND YOU KNOW IT”

NICK – “I’M COMING UP TO YOURS NOW, LETS SORT THIS SHIT OUT NOW…”

The phone goes dead, Nick has hung up… Tom pauses is in thought for a second.

Tom hears a roaring car go past, he recognises it as Nick, as he turns he sees what is about to happen, the car collides with Summer. (this will be slowed down to see Tom’s reaction”)

Cut to black

ACT 4 – Whole viewpoint

From ACT 1 – the scene will start from when Summer drops the present (letter) in the road.

Nick looks up and sees the woman in the middle of the road about to be hit, Summer looks around and sees the car about to hit her.

We will see the crash from a side view.

Tom looks around just as the crash happens, we see his reaction

From the floor under the car blood is dripping from the grill, Nick falls out of the car door, sees a body motionless on the floor.

He stumbles, we can see the car hazards flashing in the background, she is breathing very slowly. He realises it is Summer…

Tom runs over to Summer as this happens.

Tom tries help her as Nick lies in shock.

Tom (to Nick) “HELP…NICK…HELP”

Cut to a flashback of Summer and Nick (maybe)

Slow low pan up the body, with Tom lying with her seeing the chest breathing…slowly… then stops… (if it is the letter she dropped earlier we will see this and a sonogram next to the body, suggesting she was pregnant)

Cut to black.

Research on Interlinking Stories

The film we are making is 3 viewpoints of the same scenario leading to an incident at the end, it felt right that I should do some research into films that feature an interlinking plot.

Magnolia (1999) directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and starring Tom Cruise is a powerful film about a group of interrelated characters, this is the perfect example of a powerful film where characters stories collide into one. This is useful for character study and to see how people are gradually linked together by slowly revealing more. Given our 5 minute time constraint we will have to be careful when we reveal more information to the audience

Babel (2006) is part of director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's 'Death Triolgy' which also includes 21 Grams and Amores perros. This is probably my favourite movie of this type with interlinking stories, it takes place across Japan, Morocco and USA/Mexico. It shows 4 interlinked stories all connected to one gun and how one shot has a ripple effect on all of their lives.

This film is very useful research as our story feature 3 charcters all linked to one event, we want to show how  each persons actions in the film are the cause for one big incident.

Crash (2004) directed by Paul Haggis and won an Oscar for Best Picture, is a story about various Los Angeles citizens who's lives collide interweaving stories about race, loss and redemption. Another powerful film which I have seen a few times was perfect research as it helps to show how various people can link emotionally and touch the audience.

Research - Le Miroir

Le Miroir (2010) directed by Ramon & Pedro is a short film that shows the life of a man through childhood to an old man. I really liked this film as it is so simple yet so effective in what it conveys. The life of a man shown through a single shot in a mirror could have been boring but this is excellent.

How the frame only looks away and then back at the mirror again is so successful in the transition of each age jump.

The colouring is quite dull and gritty and this feel is something I have always been interested in, I will be looking at using this kind of style in this project.

Final Idea

The final idea came about when we were trying to develop the life/afterlife story, it came to me that we could use the accident part of this story but show it through 3 different viewpoints leading up to the event.

This method of film-making has been seen in such films as Crash, Babel, Magnolia and Pulp Fiction where each act links with the others, we developed this idea further to show how each persons actions within the film has an effect on the final outcome.

We will have 3 characters all linked together and through each act we will see more of the story which will feed information to the audience as to what actually happens. The journey of each character will be shown leading up to the crash and we will also show the aftermath of the crash, this we hope will have an emotional impact on the viewer as they come to terms with what has happened.

Sound will play a massive part in this film as we will plan to show the crash but also if this does not look good enough to show fully then we will make contingency plans to alter this and use more suggestive shots.

Characters:

Summer - will be played by Heaven-Leigh Oughton
Nick - will be played by Joe-Elliott Hobson
Tom - will be played by Joshua J. Wilsdon

Full Storyboard.

An example of the storyboard created so when on set we had an idea of how it was going to look.

Myself, Lucy and Paul devised a shot list which Lucy could work from on set.

My Role As Director

This will be my first experience as a Director on a project, I am keen to develop my skills as a leader and organiser of a group whilst demonstrating my creative side into the production.

Having the responsibility to develop an idea and script scares me slightly as I have never really been given the chance to have this much responsibility, however I am also excited to make key decisions during the production.

My main passion is Cinematography and I think that this experience will help me to develop skills such as motivating and collaborating with others throughout the production process.

I am happy working with the people in my team as I know each persons strengths and weaknesses, allowing me to prioritise certain roles to each person. Finalising an idea and contacting actors is the next stage of the process and I am looking forward to doing this project.