My group and I were tasked with creating a scene in three shots. This was honestly my first taste of what directors, editors, actors, and anyone who works in the film industry go through to create a film. It was not pretty… but we got it done and it came out semi-decent. The activity which should have taken one class took us two. This was when I first realized that making a film was not easy nor fast. It is a slow and painful process that will lead to, hopefully, success.
First, we began brainstorming about what we wanted the basis of our scene to be. This is when we came up with various ideas all having to deal with comedy. This is when we came up with the idea of a blind person walking into the wrong area at the wrong time without supervision. And the effect of being on your phone and being unaware of your surroundings, especially when you are tasked with taking care of a person. With these ideas in mind, we worked on the storyline of the scene. The scene will begin with the blind man sitting impatiently with his caretaker. The caretaker will not be paying attention to the blind mam rather be paying attention to his phone. This is when the blind man decides to get up and leave. However, rather than leaving through the safe exit he enters a dangerous area. Only when the blind man slams the door and is far from him does the caretaker realize that he has entered a dangerous area and chases him into the restricted zone. As the blind man gingerly walks through the dangerous hallway, the caretaker is forced to run and hope to save him. This is when a flying bag comes out of nowhere and is about to strike the blind man. However, the caretaker takes the hit whilst the blind man continues walking. As the scene continues the blind man remains untouched while the caretaker is recovering from the tremendous hit he took for the blind man. When suddenly, some flying notebooks appear from nowhere. However, the blind man luckily bent over to tie his shoelaces dodging the books. the blind man dodging the books caused them to strike the downed caretaker instead. The following shot shows the blind man still untouched and gingerly walking. However, there is one more dangerous obstacle that he must conquer to exit safely. This was a power line stretching the length of the hallway. Again, the blind man safely cleared it and continued walking.
To create this scene we used a mixture of mainly over the shoulder shots, two shots, close-ups, and medium shots to create tension and suspense, as well as allowing the audience to experience the scene with the protagonist. The over the shoulder shot allows us to show the audience what the protagonist will be walking into and feel as if they are following him in real time. The close-up shots allowed the audience to determine the emotions of both the blind man and the caretaker without having to directly tell them through dialogue. The medium shots allowed us to show body language and expressions without showing the distracting background, forcing the audience to focus on the subject. And the two shot allows us to set the scene and show the connection between the two subjects.
Function Films 