evaluation v3

Guy Nitzani Evaluation

My film, The Amazing Spider-Man Fights Substance Abuse, is about a 13 year old boy who attempts to fulfill a desire to be like his older brother, by smoking cannabis. At its core, the film scrutinises the bearing bad role models and societal influences have on young impressionable minds, whilst touching on a subject pertinent to non-diegetic audiences likened to Roman, the protagonist of the film. It is the objective of the film to change the attitudes of these audiences regarding the film’s subject matter, through a preferred reading of the film.

Taking inspiration from Cuaron’s Children of Men, I structured Roman’s character arc as such: A protagonist is introduced, flawed by a lie they tell themselves – “I’m old enough to smoke” – enforced/encouraged by the diegetic world, that being Joseph and society. The former aspect is conveyed through multiple close-ups of Roman looking onto Joseph, as well as a hostile tonality in their exchanges with Joseph constantly ridiculing Roman, which has developed into a need for Roman to prove himself. The latter is conveyed through the film Roman watches, where the characters act as bad role models for Roman. The audio from the film is heard faintly in the background throughout the scene. I was influenced by Little Miss Sunshine with this technique, which also used TV as a medium that influenced an impressionable child in their aspirations. Other hints of how society has influenced Roman is displayed when Joseph’s friends mention a child star who was found to also be smoking cannabis. For the resolution, I adopted an approach similar to that of The Dark Knight, where an external force (the spider) creates pressure for the character to make a decision (to not smoke), and this decision reveals to the spectator, and the protagonist himself, the truth – Roman is still a child and accepts his own adolescence. This pressure is amplified by quick cuts back to the spider in the shed scene, to portray Roman’s stressed mind to the spectator. The shots gradually get closer and closer to the spider to create a suffocating feeling.

The three act narrative structure is also applicable to my film. Similar to Lynch’s The Grandmother, the opening shots of my film in the first act summarise character traits and relationships, as I found opening shots are chief to spectator response, much like a first impression: the child on the fence of being a teenager symbolised by drinking milk; the stoner brother conveyed through the bong; Roman being shadowed by Joseph, portrayed by the camera taking attention away from Roman onto Joseph. I found Apocalypse Now’s use of prolepsis to be a fascinating creative choice, and a good way of utilising enigma codes as per Barthes’ theory, and so the opening shot of my film is also an example of prolepsis. I used a cut to black to signal the end of the first act and that time has passed, which was initially not clear enough. Now that Roman has found an opportunity to pursue his desires, the second act/confrontation follows. This can also be read as the disruption in Todorov’s equilibrium theory. The second act being the point of greatest tension, I used many jump cuts, handheld dramatic camera movement and shake (inserted in the edit), and took the chaotic strings soundtrack from Kubrick’s The Shining. I wanted Roman’s failure to deal with the spider at the end of the second act, and by extent failure at passing the rite of passage into adulthood, to have an impactful feeling. I achieved this with a long take lingering on Roman to allow the spectator to absorb his defeat and give it a feeling of importance. The slower pace it creates carries onto the third act/resolution to convey the calm that comes after dealing with inner conflict, as well as juxtaposing with the prior fast pace so as to show Roman’s overreaction at what turned out to be a rather small spider. This twist hints at the idea of an unreliable narrator, taken from films such as Fight Club and Shutter Island. For the final scene, I felt that music would play a big part in conveying that the protagonist has come out with a new sense of who they really are, which is often the resolution of character arc in a conventional hollywood 3 act narrative. I would do this through emotions of peace, conclusiveness, and optimism/victory (which specifically comes with the drums that I edited to start as Roman closes the door on Joseph).

Watching short films to prepare my idea, I found that perspective in High Maintenance plays a key part in spectator response. As it's from the woman’s perspective, character alignment makes the final twist unpredictable. For my film, I was considering Joseph’s perspective. I feared that the film from Roman’s perspective would result in an oppositional reading due to a character alignment that endorsed his actions rather than understand, but not condone them. I took into consideration the ideological approach of the film, who is rewarded/punished and for what, and what this says about the film’s stance. It was too unnatural, however, when the perspective switched once Roman entered the shed, and I therefore kept it from Roman’s perspective. In Night Fishing, the director uses the Kuleshov effect as a method of implying someone is watching from the lake, which made me realise I could employ the same method to imply the film is from Roman’s perspective. When Roman looks out to Joseph and his friends, these shots are sandwiched with shots of Joseph from Roman’s position,implying a POV. To prevent an oppositional reading, I changed Roman’s age from 16 to 13, with the aim of making a more emphatic disapproving response from the spectator. I came to this solution on viewing City of God, in which the youths who commit crimes look very young, and this in turn manipulates the reaction of the spectator. I utilised elements of mise-en-scene and cinematography to paint this picture of Roman as a child-like teenager: the milk he drinks; the asthma pump, which also shows how unsuited he is to the environment he’s trying to adopt (smoking); and taking inspiration from Pan’s Labyrinth, shooting Roman using high angles, especially when in comparison to Joseph, who is shot from a much lower angle. To clarify the film’s stance that what he is doing is unsavoury, I used a canted angle when he enters the shed, which creates a feeling that something is wrong. Another short film I watched that influenced my film was Stutterer. In the film, the protagonist is portrayed as someone who attempts to confront his issues. Blocking is a way this is conveyed, with a shot in which he faces forwards, looking just off camera. I considered Roman’s mental state and how this should be reflected in the blocking of his character. Before he enters the shed he feels as though he is going to confront the issue of still being considered a child, and so is similarly blocked to face just off camera. Films like Silver Lining show how introducing a character facing away from us makes them seem as if they’re hiding their issues. The shot I created also had Joseph in the background, to visually portray him as an influence on Roman in the back of his head, or like the devil on his shoulder.

The comic book has symbolic significance in the film. It is first seen buried under a pile of miscellaneous papers to represent how Roman is suppressing qualities of his younger self (reading comic books) in pursuit of becoming someone else. I decided a neat way to conclude the narrative was to end the film with him reading the comic book, as a way to show his acceptance of his adolescence. The contents of the comic book summarised in the title is also apt to the story, The Amazing Spider-Man Fights Substance Abuse, relating to  themes of drugs, spiders and teenagers (Spider-Man is a teenager with responsibility) in the film, and is therefore also the title of the film. Another prop I used for symbolic meaning was the potted plant. Here I took inspiration from Fish Tank, which used a fish as a symbol for two characters’ relationship, and what happens thereafter to the fish mirrors what happens to their relationship. Similarly, the plant is a symbol for Roman’s growth. What happens to it, that being it dying as Roman isn’t giving it sunlight, reflects how Roman is misguided in his efforts for growth. I found when Joseph references the plant, it originally wasn’t obvious enough what he was referring to. I therefore made the plant stand out from the other introductory shots in the scene by making that shot longer, as well as repeating the shot after Joseph leaves the room. Another point in the film where I used the edit to make my point clearer was when Roman sees the cannabis pot. I artificially inserted a zoom on the last shot, which follows the shots of Roman getting closer and closer, so as to imply something important is happening, the character is making a pivotal decision. 

An aesthetic choice I made that affected the films entirety was the motif of blue and red’s contrast. While they aren’t opposites on the colour wheel, they’re contextually seen as opposites in film, for example in The Matrix or Star Wars . To show how dissimilar the two brothers are, and by extent how unsuited Roman is to Joseph’s lifestyle, I attached red and blue to Roman and Joseph respectively, through stylistic lighting in each of their rooms. The motif is also carried through colour grading. Roman is initially conflicted by the duality of his young self and older desire, and so I pushed up the reds in the highlights and the blues in the shadows. At the peak of enacting the desire to be like Joseph, only blues are present, and upon acceptance of Roman’s true self, only reds, which also work to make the scene feel emotionally warmer to elicit a positive response from the spectator. In hindsight, perhaps the aesthetic discontinuity derived from changing the colour scheme twice brought too much attention to the artifice of the colour grading process, unsuturing the spectator. However, on test screenings I found this wasn’t the case, and responses to the colour grading were generally positive.

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