OTHER INFLUENCES

PARIS, TEXAS

This film is a drama made in 1974 about a man who wanders out of the desert after 4 years not knowing who he is. It is my favourite film of all time and is directed beautifully by Wim Wenders who uses colour, perspective and mise-en-scene to create a film that is stunning to look at. I wanted to use quite a few elements of this film as a basis and inspiration for what I could do with my film, such as the way different coloured lighting is used so often to create a certain atmosphere. For example in this shot the different parts of the room are lit in different coloured lights to create the obscure yet warm feeling Wenders wants the audience to feel. The colour red is forever present throughout the film ranging from Travis' red baseball cap to the red radio in the Laundromat waiting room, this red emphasises Travis' emotions throughout the film until his final scene with Jane where they are both dressed in black - an iconic moment. I would like to bring Wenders' use of colour into my short film as I believe that it adds so much depth to the characters and their story and makes the film far more visually aesthetic for the audience to watch.

Paris, Texas also makes use of its wide open shots by adding perspective. For example in this shot the telephone poles snake off over the horizon adding depth-of-field to the shot making the vast expanse of desert look even more timeless and empty. The majority of my locations will be indoors, however even when inside I would like to use perspective in such a way that makes spaces look larger or smaller than they actually are. This can be done by certain camera angles and movement, and can be used especially from the child's perspective to make them either feel alone in the world (wider shots)or closed in and claustrophobic (closer shots).

THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHTTIME

This book is from the perspective of a heavily autistic boy. I will use this book as a reference to the personality of my main character, for example the boy in this book is obsessed with prime numbers because a common trait of people with autism is to become very attached to certain things and create obsessions.

ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND

In this film there is one scene in which everything is extremely abnormal and distorted, and some special effects are used for this. However this scene is also filmed from the character's point of view, and therefore could be similar to the part of my film in which the main character loses his temper. The scene is in the dark but is lit well so that the things that are supposed to scare you are the only parts that stand out.

Another way of making the scene more abstract would be to overlay different shots using with the top one being translucent. With the framing of the shots being slightly different it would give the appearance of the character going slight crazy as everything would appear distorted.

THE BLACK BALLOON

The black balloon is a drama about a family with an extremely heaving autistic son who makes it very hard for his brother to fit in. The film portrays autism as a very difficult disability to deal with, and shows how it affects everyone else as well. I hope to take from this film the way that the other family members interact with their autistic relative. I also hope to take away some of the behaviour and personality traits of the autistic child as it shows how difficult life is for an autistic person. For example Charlie can't help but always want to behave differently from how he is told to behave.

At the beginning of the film the graphics used in the opening sequence also reflect Charlie's personality, for example the name of some of the objects in the shot are on the screen, it is as if it is from Charlie's point of view.

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