Cinematography Sheffield Hallam : Production Report

The outline for our cinematography project is as follows .
A young female writer, is stuck for ideas on what to write for her next book. She gets a lot of fan mail, and one particular piece of mail is a postcard of a wooded area 'Grindleford'. on the back it reads 'if you ever need to relax from your super fan'. Though creped out by the postcard, she decides to go to Grindleford to try find some inspiration. Outside the train station, she passes a young man, the view then switches to the young mans POV (point of view), and he follows her to Grindleford. Once they get their, the writer begins to explore occasionally sitting on a rock or standing by a stream, taking notes on different things she could use in her book. The young man follows her this whole time hiding behind trees and logs as to avoid detection. He is nearly caught twice due to twigs snapping and knocking stones into a stream. We see that this fan is incredibly nervous from his facial expressions, terrified to meet his hero. At one point the super fun trips and falls in such a place where he can see the writer but the writer can't see him. The writer hears the fall and turns, but cannot see anything. She turns and leaves, which from the super fans POV, his hero has just blatantly ignored him and blanked him, and is visibly distraught. He manages to get himself back to Sheffield by himself, yet is bitter over his idol. Some months later, the writer has released her new book. the super fan, scarred by the incident doesn't read her work anymore, however a family friend has sent the new book to him in the post. Out of curiosity, the super fan opens the book to find this written in the dedication column. '...and finally to my super fan, who helped me relax and set my ideas free'. This establishes that he sent the postcard, and the writer has unknowingly made him a happy man. He closes the book with a satisfied smile.

In this project, it is required that we use the following four elements: Colour, lighting change, a sequence shot, and a POV sequence in Grindleford. The group has verbally agreed on aspects of the piece, and I will now go through what we intend to do to incorporate these four elements.

Easiest to start with is the sequence shot. This is due to the fact that, our group has chosen to open the film, with this sequence shot. We will be doing this by having our Female writer in a study or a lounge, sat at her desk or table, which is covered in loose bits of paper. We can stretch this for up to two minutes I believe, if we have the character visibly struggling with ideas,. Maybe she will be throwing screwed up paper into the trash or scrawling out notes. It will get to the point where she literally lets out a frustrated yell, and with her head in her hands, she notices something in her fan mail. This will be where she discovers the postcard. We will be showing what it actually says when she leaves the building, but for now all we see is that the postcard has driven her to do something. This, as a sequence shot will help establish the mood of the piece.

For the colour scheme I have several ideas. The opening shot, I feel should be moody, and claustrophobic, emphasising the writer's block of inspiration. I believe that poisonous green and murky brown would suit the piece, as they have a duel meaning and Grindleford is filled with green and brown autumn colours. The murky brown which can be used for the writer mainly, may symbolise their bland imagination range, hence needing help, and the character could wear basic dull colours, as a writer basically sits indoors and writes, so they are very isolated. As for the super fan, green can be used effectively; the right shade of green can come across as poisonous, and unhealthy. Seeing as this character has dropped everything, to follow this writer, shows that their infatuation with the writer has indeed become an unhealthy thing. Their nervousness can also be emphasised by the brown bark of the trees for the scenes where he hides. Brown is a boring colour, their is nothing bright about it, and it is widely unnoticed when trying to dazzle others. Therefore the colour brown, we can use to emphasise the characters need to be hidden from the writer but also underline the writers obliviousness to his presence. The colour brown will then become a double edged sword, having both ends of his psych profile analysed. This can also be effective when he falls into a ditch, as that's when the bitterness will creep in, and if brown is on their face then that makes him even more unnoticeable.

Changing the lighting will be simple, and I believe we have a clear idea of what to put forward. The opening scene will be dark and claustrophobic, but from the writers point of view it will brighten as the story progresses, as the ideas begin to flow for her. Meanwhile, our super fan we will start off brightly lit, as its a dream come true for him to be in the presence of his idol. As we proceed through Grindleford, the light will become darker as he aims to remain hidden, and when the writer apparently ignores him, he becomes troubled and upset, and by this point his world is very dark indeed, so moody lighting (which we can alter in camera) will emphasise his sense of dejection . Our big, obvious on screen lighting change, will come at the end where the bitter fan reads the thank you note in the book. I think it would be great to have it suddenly dawn on him visually, by brightening the light, before closing the book , to show his escape from bitter resentment towards the writer. For that we can have it start off dim and dark, but then brighten the light just enough to show change in the character.

idea for light change at end

Finally, Point of View (POV) will be used heavily, mainly during the scenes where the super fan is following the writer, and especially to emphasise that the writer is unable to see the super fan once he falls by having one shot from the writers POV then have a shot from the super fans POV making it appear the writer has left him. This will emphasise the key incident of the piece, and will move the story further than it would in another style of shot. The POV can also be used at the end where our stalker sees the little mention of him in the book, hence we see it when he does, and get that sense of heart-warming ending we desire.

With these aspects analyses, I feel confident in our ability to execute these styles during production, below are some stills of the Grindleford location and some shot designs.