EVALUATION - Director's Commentary

This is a link to our trailer Runaway:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P70hIAhZ5Hg
If you watch the trailer and the read the commentary or watch and read at the same time (with pauses) then you will see in this text I have tried to explain our thought processes when filming in the form of a typical Director's commentary:

We chose to start with a close up shot of a bag as we thought it would be a good narrative indicator as it shows someone bag packing. It also adds enigma as no face in shown. The varied angles which we have next used show the confusion of the character and they keep the trailer moving at a fast rate. As shown we have used fade to blacks between shot, we thought that this made the trailer flow and we could also show the difference between the present shots and the flash back sequences. We changed the colour contrast of each flash back so that they almost look like a dream as we thought this is how the character may feel about those past times; they were too good to be true. We chose the school setting from the first flash back sequence as we wanted to use everyday settings, these settings would make the audience feel comfortable at first but also scared as these are places you should be safe. This is the first time we show the male character, he helps the female character pick up her books; the audience will mostly likely be confused as these scenes are a big contrast from the panic of the last scenes. Also the music suggests he is bad or something bad will happen, but he is helping her, our aim was to have the audience feel this confusion.

We chose the caption font carefully and we liked the red glow as it symbolised danger and that there could be bloodshed in the film. The mention of dreams relates to the past flash back scene and the colour contrast. In the next scene we only use two shots, the high angle shot shows the female characters confusion and that she is in a very vulnerable situation. In the other shot she’s her getting her passport, this tells the audience clearly that she is planning to run away. To show the difference between the flash backs and the present time we have also used a fade to white instead of a fade to black before each flash back and at the end of each one. This almost looks like a flash and warns the audience that they are ‘jumping around in time’. The long shot of Eric and Megan shows them having fun and it makes the audience feel as if they are watching them, this may make them feel slightly uncomfortable even though it is a happy scene. The next caption is in the same red font as before and it again mentions dreams, the ... at the end tell the audience this sentence is not over and the ‘but’ at the beginning will make them already think that the rest of the sentence will be negative.

In the next shots we keep the editing extremely quickly as the tension builds in the trailer, the high angle shots again show how vulnerable the female character is. We chose to have a high angle shot here as it would link with the voice over, this shows to the audience that it is the male character that has power over her and it almost looks as if he is looking down on her. The audience might also feels as if they are more powerful than her and therefore that they need to protect her. Using the voice over we have linked the past and the present parts of the trailer, the bodily language of the characters demonstrates that she is hearing the voice over as well and so they audience can ask the question; is it all in her head? The next caption mentions nightmares, all of the captions have something linked to the subconscious, this correlates the genre of the film as a psychological thriller and also makes the audience ask questions about what parts in the film are ‘reality’ and what are ‘fantasy’. The costumes the audience have seen the characters in we have thought carefully about, the female character wears bright colours and is in one scene wearing white this shows she is an innocent happy character whereas the male character is always seen in dark colours. This tells the audience that he cannot be trusted.

The sound track builds to in climax as the knife is pulled out of the draw, we were careful to match the soundtrack with the shots so we could get the most dramatic effect out of the shots. The way the knife is held in front of the camera shows its holder to be calm and understand compliantly what he is doing, this may unnerve the audience. The long shot shows the female character running down the stairs, throughout the trailer the pace in which this character moves shows her panic and need to get away this is a big genre and narrative indicator. We chose to show her getting a pen knife in a similar way to the male character getting a kitchen knife as we thought it would show the audience how even thought she is trying to defend herself she cannot win. We did not use a high angle shot like we did with the kitchen knife, this shows that the pen knife she has will not have as much impact as the kitchen knife.

We found the sound effect of a door knocking, made it faster so it sounded more urgent and repeated it a number of times, we used a shot reverse shot to show the audience where the sound was coming from. The female characters reaction to the door knock show how on edge and nervous she is. We times it show at first the phone ring and the door knock did not over lap and then we repeated the door knock again for dramatic effect. There is a shot reverse shot with the mobile phone again to show the audience where the sound is coming from. We chose to have one coming from the left and one from the right as it would make the character feel as if she was surrounded. The last shot shows her at the side of the screen, we did not want her in the centre as we thought having her to the left would reflect her off balance feeling and tell the audience that something is not right. We continued the sound of the phone and we faded the soundtrack out. The font we used for Runaway is different from the captions as we wanted it to stand out. It glows white to show the innocence of the female character, it is also slanting to the right and therefore looks as if it is 'running away'. The '2011' is in the same glowing red font as the captions to remind the audience that there will be danger in the film.

Rach.