500 Word Evaluation

 I think the film is successful in how it portrayed the protagonist as an anxious and unstable character. We started thinking about experimental ways in which we could convey the protagonists discomfort, anxiety and structure of life. Repetition of locations, scenes and sounds (tapping noise) are repeated throughout to establish the repetitive nature of her life, journeying on trains, lifts and through the urban environment on a daily basis. The narrative in nonlinear and cuts to flashbacks, such as in the lift. The sound remains in the present yet we see somewhere else, showing the protagonists mind wandering and allowing the viewer a glimpse of her minds eye. Sounds bring her back to reality, conveying her anxious mind. The camerawork also reflects her mental state: At the beginning, and in her flashback in the lift, her calmness is reflected through static and slow tilt  and pan tripod camerawork. Elsewhere, shouldercam footage Creates a loose, slightly uneasy aesthetic, and in the train station, train and street, handheld and handheld 'lens whacking' Camerawork is used. I borrowed this technique from Mulholland Drive (2002, David Lynch) and the TV show This is England 90 (2015, Shane Meadows).

This created a rushed, unstable, anxious and drunken image. In these scenes we used faster cuts and sped up some footage to 500% to further heighten the pace of the scene. 

We shot on a Canon EOS 70D and 550D, giving us good depth of field and low noise during the night scenes. We used an 11-16mm f2.8, a 50mm f1.4 and a 58mm f2 lens. The former gave us distorted wide angles and the ability to zoom, and the later 2 allowing for narrow depth of field and lens whacking. We created and applied a digital filter to resemble the bleach bypass effect, used on films such as Seven (1995, David Fincher).

As Natalie was acting in the film, I did most of the camerawork, but we both planned, filmed and edited together. Because we used a very loose narrative structure, the film was quite confusing and didn’t seem to flow too well. The range of camerawork styles and locations also made the overall aesthetic quite inconsistent. If I were to film it again, I would make the colour scheme and camerawork more consistent to give the film a clearer aesthetic.

The film taught me a lot about filming in busy public locations; we had to acquire permission to film at the train station and not use lighting, tripods higher than 6ft or film 3-4ft from the platform edge, which thankfully didn’t effect our film.

We took inspiration from Amélie (2001, Jean-Pierre Jeanet) in how it characterizes the protagonist Amélie Poulain, however we gave our film a much darker, grimmer aesthetic. We were also inspired by Fish Tank (2009, Andrea Arnold) in it’s use of colour and camerawork.


















I was also inspired by the short films Salaryman 6 (Jake Knight, 2002) and Beat (2013, Aneil Karia) and how they conveyed the protagonist (with little or no dialogue from them) as a social outcast and potentially struggling with their mental health, and how they portrayed the urban environment visually.

'Down' film Vimeo link
'Down' film audio piece soundcloud link