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2 Day Movie Class Project - Silent Film - Ideas?
Ginzue
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hi all,
After spending 3 weeks solid on my last college video production class project, the next assignment is to make a no-audio movie that is shot in 1 day, and edited the next. The problem - for the life of me I can't think of any good silent film ideas, as my preference is kind of doing videos set and cut exactly to music...
I was throwing around ideas of a - silent handheld horror thing where the mic breaks off and a guy has to survive in the forest or something. Or maybe a Chaplin style 1920's silent filmy thing, or men with large black mustaches.. Other than that- I'm drawing a blank.
Any help with ideas would be really great. Thanks folks.
After spending 3 weeks solid on my last college video production class project, the next assignment is to make a no-audio movie that is shot in 1 day, and edited the next. The problem - for the life of me I can't think of any good silent film ideas, as my preference is kind of doing videos set and cut exactly to music...
I was throwing around ideas of a - silent handheld horror thing where the mic breaks off and a guy has to survive in the forest or something. Or maybe a Chaplin style 1920's silent filmy thing, or men with large black mustaches.. Other than that- I'm drawing a blank.
Any help with ideas would be really great. Thanks folks.
Ginzue!
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A situation where a person wakes up in a room that they can not escape from (like a cellar or Saw 1 like room. whatever.) and just have it be them trying to escape or cope with their new enviroment. To add some level of interest to it, perhaps use dark/light, abrupt cuts, or bright/dark colors to accentuate the noise with a lack of audio. IE- The subject pounds on a door, and at each hit the room flashes white for the viewer, or a quick cut to and away from the fist with each hit.
Comments on your ideas- I have a feeling that since the project is going to be a silent film type deal, that the silent film concept might be used by others. So that should perhaps be a last resort.
The Woodland fear scenario i like ,though. It just may be hard to convey the fear in an open world setting.
Also, I know nothing about anything so I accept the fact my ideas may be worthless.
I like E. Coyotes idea of shooting from the security camera view point.
Also, silent movies used music, provided live at the theater. Do you know a good improv keyboardist?
If you can do whatever you like, I would go with the suggestion above of a small, confined room with only one person left alone, but I would add a twist: the fact that the viewer can't hear any sound is that there's actually no sound at all to be heard! The person might try screaming, but you can see that they don't hear their screams either. They might bang on the walls, try all sorts of things to generate sound and draw attention, but nothing is heard. The person eventually goes mad in some way or other, and you can have the thing end on the person writing something on the wall with his or her blood.
For inspiration on how to deal with something like this, check out the "silent" Buffy episode (which won an Emmy, I think.) BTW, another series of movies to check out, for inspiration, if you like that sort of confined space-type horror/suspense, see the Cube movies.
Another possible ending would be for the door to the "cell" to open and have someone walk in, and at the instant when they open their mouth to say something, you cut to the credits.
For fun, you could credit John Cage's 4'33" composition as your soundtrack (it's 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence.)
PM me if you'd like to brainstorm more ideas, I'm getting more just writing this.
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Thats exactly what I came up with regarding the above ideas as well, awesome! Thanks for the help so far all.
The idea I have kicking around now is the cell idea, with a single black and white security camera watching a person in a cell with no sound whatsoever. They test out talking and clapping etc but are very confused.
The twist is that I want to make a song... with no sound. So I'm going to talk to a dancer person I know, and see if she wants to play the character. I was thinking that the person could try clapping and instead of sound, light flashes (like the lights in the room) and so she creates a visual beat that repeats, then layers over it with dance moves that might make light come from her or around her (I could try adding lighting effects in AfterEffects) so she makes a song with light itself, kind of like an iPod commercial. After she gets tired and ends, the door opens and there would be some kind of ending (don't know about that).
Wow thanks guys, this totally helps, any more?
You can even sequence all the bits to a real song (whether it's the same one you played while filming or a completely different one -- both ways have their merits) and then remove the audio, leaving you with just the moves.
Check out my new blog: http://50wordstories.ca
Also check out my old game design blog: http://stealmygamedesigns.blogspot.com
Plus, technically Cage's 4'33" isn't silent -- it's purpose is to have the listener hear all the other sounds in their environment, and how that could be musical in its own way.
Anyway, when I think of movies like this I think of more modern pieces like Pi or Eraserhead. They're not silent, but there's minimal dialog and most of the movie is set up through cinematography -- which, given the details of the assignment, is probably a more realistic thing to shoot for. If you've got 1 day to shoot and 1 day to edit, that means that lots of cuts or movement is difficult. But long, dramatic shots are perfect in the high-contrast of black & white filming, and dramatic without needing words.
For example, a guy sitting at a cafe by himself, a menu in front of him. he's not looking at it, he's looking out the window. You can do a close-up of his face to show his eyes just staring outside, not looking at anything. Waitress comes up, takes 2 tries to get his attention, he "says "not yet, i'm waiting for someone." He tries to focus on the menu but he makes it plain through his posture that he's not really interested in eating, but in talking to the person who's supposed to show up. After a few more minutes (he looks around this time), a woman walks in and sits with him. She makes eye contact and they both stop moving, staring for a short while. At that point you could have multiple endings to choose from -- he simply gets up and walks away; he pulls a gun out and shoots her, running out of the cafe; he smiles and looks at the menu, actually reading it; he looks back out the window, his expression unchanging. Or all of the above, as an artsy "what he's thinking" kind of approach.
It's just one option of many, but given your description of your past work (timing stuff to music), maybe you want to try something other than a music-video style approach. I've dabbled in some audio work and it's very tempting to turn things into music videos, since they often give you a mood or feeling either through tone or through vocals making it easier, and it sounds like you're taking the same approach to this project, even though there's no sound at all. It might be more fun for you to try something that is truly devoid of music or sound, without the audience thinking "there should be sound in this."
My only concern for the "person deprived of sound" is that it might be difficult to convey in a short piece. Having no sound is a requirement for the project, so people aren't going to wonder "why is there no sound?" So instead, you'd just have someone doing an activity; you'd have to fill in the detail yourself that the person is [suddenly] deprived of sound.
I dunno, to me this assignment seems about really expressing other elements in film... Colour, texture, light, shadow. Having no sound gives you the chance to really accentuate these elements. Depriving your body of one sense accentuates the others type of thing.
Is there a botanical garden or something you can shoot in? It could be cool to 'watch' a couple argue/make up in the backdrop of colourful plants/textures/dramatic lighting of a greenhouse.
Meh, just an idea. Bear in mind you only have a day to do it, so i'd say it's quality over quantity of footage.