Feel of the scene

Obviously in my scene I can't have the character hallucinating things, I wouldn't be able to pull it off without it looking absolutely awful, so I'm just going to have the character looking like he feels absolutely awful. I want the scene to be quite dark, I will film it in a dark room with lighting to highlight the characters face in a creepy kind of way. I like the idea of overlaying a colour over it, but maybe not such a good idea keeping in with the gritty reality theme of British films. I cannot decide whether now it would be a good idea or not.

What I want my character to look like is the kind of person you would call a 'yob'. I want him to be wearing a hoodie and looking quite dirty. My character has strong emotional ties to his family, is a pretty confused guy about what he does is right or wrong, but gets too caught up in having fun. In the scene I'm going to film I want to show him really suffering.

Synopsis

Addict

The film is about a young man in his twenties, his name is Leon. He lives his life addicted to drugs and alcohol, partying hard with his mates and scraping by.. just. He soon realizes he can't keep abusing his body like this when he witnesses his brother Andy killed by a heroin overdose. Emotionally stunned, he vows to give up the drugs and make his life better, and seeks help from his sister, Molly, who managed to become clean a couple of years ago. He attempts to go cold turkey, but finds it too difficult and uses up the last of his supplies. Desperate for another fix, he resorts to violence and robbery. Things turn on him though and he ends up battered and bruised. Molly helps nurse his wounds and bring him back to health. Leon feels that all that is left to now is to give up, and begs Molly for some money to buy more smack. Disgusted, she brands him a failure and how Andy would be ashamed to call him his brother, and throws him out. Crying, he realizes she is right. This time round he manages it, but feels like he has been driven to hell and back. The film ends with him in a job center, and then walking out smiling to meet his sister, laughing and joking.

Creative Ideas!

This is a scene from Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers (1994). It shows the two main characters in a drug store. These characters are cold-blooded murderers who kill for kicks. What I wanted to show was the green overlay in the scene. I really love the effect, it creates a more mysterious and tense feel to it, and of course in mise-en-scene terms, it portrays the sickness in the male characters head (Mickey). This shade of green has been shown in other parts of the film too, associating with Mickey.

It would be great to have something this creative in my film, but I will decide on this later on in the creative process.

Researching into the theme.. Trainspotting.

This is an iconic scene from the movie Trainspotting. It shows the main character, Mark, has gone cold turkey off heroin. Although this film has a strong comedy influence, and the film I intend to create holds nothing comic about it, I thought it was well worth showing this scene for how the character acts when cold turkey.

Aims & Context

I aim to create a short three minute scene from my imagined film which is titled . The scene itself will be a montage of the protagonist of the film enduring giving up drug use. The genre of my film is drama, it is a serious comment on drug abuse. The full story of my film is to be found in my synopsis.

I want it to look and feel gritty, in the style of typical gritty British films which are in the style of social realism, such as Kudulthood (Menjaj Huda, 2006) and Trainspotting (Danny Boyle, 1996), which looks back to the tradition of social realist films in British cinema, examples such as Saturday Night, Sunday Morning (Karel Reisz, 1960), Kes (Ken Loach, 1970) and more comtempory films, such as Sweet Sixteen (Ken Loach, 1999). It will appeal to a maturing audience that are of college age, - 18 onwards. The audience will have a mature intellectual level, to be able to appreciate that the film is a comment on drug use in a negative attitude. It will appeal to young men mostly as it's not often young women are attracted to realistic films about drug abuse.

I aim to use the skills and techniques learned in FM1 to create a scene from my film, fully demonstrating my capabilities and skills in mise-en-scene and cinematography. I will direct, film and edit the film myself. I will not be acting in it.

Final idea! What I want to film.

The scene I feel I want to film is a slightly paranoid, painful scene from this gritty drug-based film I have thought-up. The main character in my film will have come off drugs through a realization of some sort, a wake-up call you could say. So, this guy goes cold turkey and is sat in his room/flat drinking, and shows him being depressive, agitated and paranoid. He acts jumpy, breathes heavily and his eyes are wide. At first the camera shots will be longer, building the tension and nearing the end they will be incredibly short and dramatized and jerky.

I found this video on YouTube.com about someone going cold turkey. It's fictional, but shows it as real as possible. If you notice, the colours shown in some scenes are blue and red, possibly showing the 'cold' in cold turkey, and red for pain.

More Initial Ideas

I was thinking, instead of creating a film with very slight horror elements included, I want to create something to be taken much seriously, with a not so fantastical theme.

-Instead of focusing on paranoia, have something with more depth.
-Something with a meaning.
-Possibly with a serious theme, like drug addiction or alcohol addiction, with someone who is obviously suffering from this.
-A montaged scene?
-A scene with non-linear time?
-Loads and loads of close-ups of a face in distress. --- Emotion.
-Want the scene to look dirty, I want to film something do to with someone at their lowest.
-Have non-diegetic music?