Research for 2 Minute Character Study - Dream Sequences

As the editor of this project, it's my role to create a sequence out of the footage that we record on set and turn it into a comprehendable and entertaining film. As the film we want to create out of this 2 minute character study is a dream like sequence that shows the emotion of grief, I have done some research into ways that other films have done this successfully so that I might be able to adapt some of the conventions used in them into our own film, as well as to gain more knowledge on an experimental film form that I am not too familiar with.

My first piece of research was on a scene in a film called Woman in Chains/"La Prisonnière" (1968) by Henri-Georges Clouzot.

This dream sequence also depicts negative emotions like our film intends to, but in a slightly more abstract and ambiguous way as it uses a lot more visual metaphors and media generations to alter and warp images to create emotion. The media generations such as this one:

are used quite frequently as visual metaphors for denoting inside a camera lens but also connoting a spiralling of anxiety or pain, which when used in conjunction with flashing images of a woman chained up and a man taking pictures of her, makes a very interesting and somewhat uncomfortable sequence to watch. Having said this, it is also very clear what is occurring within the scene due to this juxtaposition of the flashing images, as the audience is somewhat drawn in to the mind of the two characters and gets an abstract view on the situation. This relates to our film in the sense that we are also using abstract visual  metaphors to connote emotions of pain and grief but in a slightly different manner. We will be using string as a replacement for other objects of significance to show the characters loss of control of the situation he is in as well as of his own mental state and how this effects him emotionally. We want to show the audience that a second character, his daughter, has died and all the other objects that are shown in the film bring up memories of her to him until he finally remembers her but then is taken away and replaced with this metaphor of loss and corruption. What I have learnt from the scene in Woman in Chains is that you don't need a smooth and clear sequence of shots to show the audience what is occurring narratively in a piece as experimental and ambiguous as ours, and I will use the flashing images and jump cuts used in this film as a convention in ours to show the distortion and uncertainty that the character himself is feeling.

The second dream sequence I looked at was from a film called Blood and Roses/"Et mourir de plasir" (1960) by Roger Vadim.

I looked at this scene because the use of colour in it is very powerful and effective at driving the narrative as well as showing significance of certain actions within the scene. The scene starts out in colour with the main character within the scene wearing bright red lipstick laying in bed asleep. Then as the start of the dream begins, the colour is drained out completely for the rest of the scene apart from the red of blood being shown throughout. This is to show the significance of terror and death within the scene and make the impact of the blood more shocking as it is the most noticeable thing within the frame whenever present. This relates to our film, as the lighting and colour is a major aspect of the connotations we want to be obvious to drive the narrative as well as giving the audience a good understanding of what relevance each object has within the film. We want to use a red filter for the lights to show a sense of dread and danger, which will carry on throughout the piece until the end where the light will be more white and more natural, to give the sense of the fragility of the main character, over the loss of his daughter.

The codes and conventions used within both theses scenes will help me when it comes to editing our film as I already have a strong idea as to what works well and what would work for our film, through the analysis and consideration of these scenes.