Bittersweet film

synopsis

Our film tells the story of a woman who lives the same, boring, ordinary mundane life every single day with the same patterns and organisation, until one day a strange man stands at the opposite platform to her, and becomes a regular in the mornings, just like her. They begin to create a special sort of bond, almost speaking to each other through facial expressions and gestures across the platforms, never saying a word to each other. She noticed that every morning he carries  the same asda bag containing his breakfast, a drink and a granola bar/piece of fruit. The woman starts to become infatuated with this man and the audience is led to believe that she falls in love with him, as he does her. She begins to take a more forward approach by leaving sticky notes on his side of the platform, leaving a cute message very now and then, always leaving a smiley face at the end. On one sticky note she leaves her phone number, and the man starts to text message her, but she never replies to him on the phone, she only talks to him through the sticky notes. As she becomes more infatuated and slightly involved with his life, she begins to start buying his Asda breakfast for him, even though she has only seen what he had in the mornings from a far away distance. Both characters will have something distinctive about them, for example, the woman may always wear a ed shade of lipstick, and the man will have an asda bag with him - this can help differentiate these two characters from everyone else. In each and every sticky note, it always counts down to one particular date, and even though the man repeatedly asks her what the date means, she would always shake her head, or refuse to tell him. As the day arrives, she leaves a note telling him to meet her on her side of the station platform at night to catch the last train together, so they could finally meet properly. Once they finally meet at the end, we see the man and woman walk into the passageway of another platform, where the woman hides a knife behind her back. She then leaves the station, where we are taken back to her bedroom where she sticks up a photograph of this newfound lover on her wall, surrounded by many other photographs of men and women, fading into a black screen.

Cinematic ideas

Mise-en-scene

• Lots of red - This links to the genre of both romance and thriller, red links to romance as it connotes with love, and hearts, valentines day. Red also links with thrillers as it is the colour of blood, and danger, and warning. The meaning of red within this film is significant especially to the woman, as it is her signature lipstick look, and also gives her an aura of lust, romance and danger too.
• Newspapers - Inside the newspaper or on the front page, it usually contains a murder or killing of some sort  - this is ironic within the storyline as she is reading about murder, and is supposed to shock or scare her, but in fact she may be planning a murder herself.
• Based around time/clocks - The clock links into the storyline as it is always counting down to the day that the man dies, and is a sense of realism within the story too as clocks are seen around us all the time.
• The aesthetic of a train station, primary colours, trains - The trains remind the audience of the woman’s day to day life, and it is also a constant reminder of how the two meet. The fast rushing of the train can also link to the thriller genre, as thrillers are usually fast paced and dangerous, like a train.
• Asda bag - This is significant to the man, as it is his signature item. He seems to carry this bag whenever we see him, and by seeing this bag, it will constantly remind the audience of the man.
• Post it notes - This links with the narrative as she begins to get involved with the man’s life - it is her way of communicating with him indirectly.
• Eyes and lips - These extreme close ups of the eyes and lips allow us to show the audience the characters reactions without giving away the entire face - this creates a sense of mystery which links with the thriller genre.
• Polaroids - This links in with the narrative at the end, as it shows the audience how many victims the woman has potentially murdered.
• Lipstick - This, along with the red lips, are a convention of the romance genre as lips and red connotate with kissing, and love. This is alo a key signature of the woman. 
• Heels - The heels show the womans maturity and sense of style. This links with the romance genre as heels are usually used to make a woman look sexy.

Shots

• Begins with a montage
• Lots of over-the-shoulder shots
• Extreme close-ups and close-ups
• Tracking shots
• Behind shots

 

evaluation

During the film task we decided to make a film which started out as a love story but ended with a murder. We essentially tricked the audience into thinking one thing was going on when in reality it was something completely different. Our setting was at a train station which I thought was very suitable because there are other famous love stories set in train stations like “Brief Encounter” but also train stations are associated with deaths as they are dangerous places. We chose to have Evie wear smart clothes and red lipstick, our choice of costume worked really well because we could deceive the audience into thinking she was well put together but also give clues like the red lipstick to signify danger and death. I also think our choice of both diegetic and non-diegetic sound was successful because in the beginning when the montage is taking place we kept diegetic sound which made the film very real and gave the effect of a “normal” daily life. However the introduction of the 1940s famous wartime piece “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” sung by Glenn Miller began to change the mood of the story into something almost dream-like and the melancholy lyrics really fit in with the story and made it even creepier. As well as this our decision to keep the shots showing the full face to minimum and do extreme close ups of parts of the face and body made it really effective and the fact that we didn’t name the characters. This made the whole story a lot more anonymous to give it an ominous effect.

I think what we could have done better is the use of lighting especially to reflect the time of day, for example some shots were filmed in the evening when they were supposed to happen in the day and like parts of the montage and some were filmed in the day when they were set in the night time like the murder scene. I feel like this form of consistency would have made the story a lot more really and the twist of an ending a lot more hard hitting. As well as this some of our shots were slightly shaky where we could have used the tripod to steady them, this would have made the film look slightly more professional and would have given the audience a better idea of what was going on.