Short film research: Lucia ( drama/coming of age)

 

Lucia is a film about a girl in a foster home in which the children, a small group of them, run around unsupervised. It is a bit grey, but not colorless. Almost as if everything is clouded in grey brown fog. There is not always music. When it is present, it is quiet and twinkly around moments of the children being innocent, and during the climax there is more of a sinister tone reminiscent of a flatline than music score. The film includes lots of close ups and the camera moves around following and peering around almost as if it were one of the children, and often it IS with point of view shots. The film a sweet ending that makes up for the majority of the run time, in which the protagonist shares a moment with the other foster children. I took note of the tone. It was bittersweet but relatively gloomy for the most part. The actors are good, they really sell the emotions of the complicated situation. Their clothes and the children themselves are a bit filthy, the protagonist has unkept hair, showing their neglect. She has a pet toad, which makes you sympathize with her weirdly enough when you see how she loves it. A notable prop was in the background, how the one adult asleep upstairs has several pills at her nightstand, perhaps a reason for her neglect.  Not all coming of age films or dramas are like this one in terms of tone, so there is definitely variety in this genre. I noticed it depends on both age of protagonist and the problem the protagonist is facing. I don't want the tone of my film to match that of this one, I want something more colorful, but if need be I like the idea of the props furthering the story without being too in-your-face. Perhaps my next research film will have a more cheery tone.





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Short film research: Kiss Chase(drama/coming of age/)

Image
Clare follows a girl who is stated in the description to be about 11. However, the actor as well as the rest of the actors who are supposedly her age look to be about 14. She is left out of the activities of her classmates, who seem to share intimate sexual experiences they're a bit too young for. There are undertones of her being one of the only POC students there. She feels left out, until she shares an intimate experience with a male classmate she likes. That's pretty much it, this one was my least favorite. I thought the story was realistic but in terms of message and maybe morals I don't like it, it's an uncomfortable narrative, which may have been the intention? Frankly i'm not sure, regardless the story I thought was bad. The script was okay, grounded in reality to an extent. I say to an extent because the kids are a bit too openly mocking of the protag. The cinematography was okay, the camera doesn't tend to move too much, but it works. It would have ben...
Read more

Production blog: Prop construction

Image
 After buying all the supplies I needed, it was time to construct the actual puppets and props. I began with painting the paper bags. First I had to cut the handles at the end, so that I could out my hand in the bag and puppet without issue. It took more layers of paint than I imagined. It took several times to get my desired color on the puppets. This was probably the main reason it took a few layers. They took a long time to dry as well, which makes sense. I tried to mix in the white paint I purchased with my old acrylic pants, but it was of low quality, so I made do without it. The brushes worked out fine. To be fair, the sponge brushes were good, the normal paint brushes could have been better. Other than the bit of struggle with the paper bags, I painted the other props with no issue.  The elephant was wooden so it took several layers of gray, but it turned out nice, especially with the googly eye, it was pretty cute. I thought about making the bee puppet out of paper, bu...
Read more

production- even more setbacks

Image
 I got ready to record actual film yesterday, gathering all the props I needed. The glitter prop wasn't the color I wanted, but the texture was the way I wanted. I got a ride to pick up the person assisting I arrived at the park to film. I forgot a couple of props, as it turns out. A, B, and C were meant to sit on a blanket, and have little food props, but I forgot those two things. They aren't integral to the film, but I felt it as though it would give the film a whimsical aesthetic. I was disappointed but decided I would film without them. I set up the little plates with the stuffed animals which was super cute actually, but it felt strange without a blanket. I did struggle in where to set everything up to have the best lighting. There was only one picnic table with a view that wasn't distracting. It also happened to have pretty good lighting, which, at first, seemed like the prefect stop, so decided to set up to film there. Once I began to finish organizing props and set...
Read more