My Final Project

My Final Project

                            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h28lUxTTfc&feature=youtu.be

                                                               Spoken explanation
                                         http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3Ivm7zOTkc

My final piece is based on the idea of palm reading which fits in perfectly with the topic of story telling as it involves telling someone else the story of their future. I feel that this is quite a delicate issue as if this news is bad, then the person may be affected badly and feel frightened and anxious if they choose to believe what they have been told. Due to this negative feeling I decided to attempt to make the video feel eerie and as uncomfortable as possible, I did this through the use of uncomfortable music in which I had actually first heard the songs in horror films (this means the songs naturally are likely to be uncomfortable to tie in with the horror). I also made the background very dark by having my only light source as one candle and placed the tripod on a table so the light was only shining on my face which directs most attention on my face and adds as much darkness to the scene as possible whilst still being able to see my face. I got this idea from a film I had seen in which the camera is only on John Malcovich, in which the scene depicts the visual idea I was looking for (link to scene = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE9zhfUpYW0).
 My Version

John Malcovich version.

The story I created for this short film was for it to be about a teenager who had gone to get his future revealed to him with the outcome being that he would find out he was going to be murdered. The main moment in this whole video would be the realisation of the boys future in which the palm reader has a vision ( which palm readers say they sometimes get when palm reading) which reveals all. To make this work I attempted to make the vision seem as dream like as possible so there was no confusion about what was going on. I did this through using countless special effects and by alternating between picture and film by adding flashes of my palm reading experiments into the film as they included the boys hand and the moments of his death which was the key realisation of his future.

 On example of a flash which I used was the picture of the boy dead, in black and white with a hand covering some of the photo, this was to give a hint of what was coming up but so the viewer was still unsure of his future if they noticed it. It also included the story telling art of subliminal messaging in which a story is told to influence a thought or desire.

The vision also includes the boy introducing himself in spanish then changing to english in the space of a second, this is to make it seem less life like and to show it is indeed the boy which will die. After this vision the palm reader then springs up looking shocked, disorientated and scared. After a few seconds realisation kicks in and all he feels he cannot tell the boy and can say is the words "I'm sorry" before ending the palm reading session and blowing out the candle. The dialogue at that point is very quiet as I wanted the audience to interpret it in any way they wanted to. I also didn't want it to sound too cliche and seem like a horror movie in which the very ending is the realisation of the twist which is said out loud with no background noise in which the movie then comes to an end with one sudden sound of an instrument as I feel that could seem quite cheesy. To avoid doing this I kept some backing music to keep up the tension with a growing loudness of a climatic sound effect. I purposely made the film quite short as instead of going into great detail, I wanted there to be a feel of mystery and for people to cast their judgement on what was going on at the end as a story may have a different meaning to everyone who reads it and I also believe everyone has a right to think what they want to think and I'm against there only being one way of seeing something.

Overall I am extremely pleased with my final piece and feel what I set out to do was achieved. I hope it makes the viewer think and maybe even feel uncomfortable with the things being touched upon as although this would be a negative mood, it means that the film achieved something by getting into peoples heads.