Drama research begins!

Its not all practical so here is a little bit of my research for my upcoming drama project.

The first big thing to research is the whole backwards thing, because that is a big big thing to attempt. I have been looking into it and I haven't found that many films that use it without it being a narrative jump backwards in time. Some things I have found that use it, a lot, are music videos, while researching I found this page specifically http://www.urlesque.com/2010/09/21/backwards-music-videos/. It shows 10 videos (although a few of the links no longer work) that use the reverse film technique. From watching these I get the general impression that the effect is often used to achieve interesting visual effects. This is at odds with our film, we have not yet discussed the visual advantages of reversing the film, our use is purely narrative. We want the audience to be confused as to what has happened and why, at first demonising our protagonist until all is revealed and we can begin to empathise. I think this has a few positives, firstly the emotions we are trying to portray, anger and jealousy, are universal but negative and when it results in violence that act by itself out of context is awful, we want to show that some awful things have context. I also think that this way round the narrative will make the audience empathise with Tom, who gets beaten, whether he knows about Jenny's boyfriend or not is unknown and so it is possible our experience is in line with Tom's, he gets beaten up and then the reasoning is explained.

Anyway back to the music video's from http://www.urlesque.com/2010/09/21/backwards-music-videos/ They show some interesting visuals and I am going to pass them onto Joe to look at from a camera perspective so he can get a few ideas of things to add in. I would personally love to put a Strike (Eisenstein 1925) reference of a backwards step into a puddle, just because I'm a fan, also its an interesting visual. All I could find anywhere else was the use of backwards time for a cheap special effect, obviously this isn't very helpful. I will continue to look for some better examples within films.

A few things to start research on are blood recipes, backwards editing and general drama research. In that vein I am currently reading "Poetics" by Aristotle translated by S.H. Butcher for my Narrative and Time module however the narrative elements of the document apply to drama or as Aristotle would have called it Tragedy. I also want to look at some "stalking scenes" to see how in a short time we can get the situation across in interesting and emotive ways.

Finally I had a good idea to frame the story today, as the situation seems a little extreme, if Dean was planning to propose it would explain the extreme situation. That could nicely be tied to the narrative end/ actuall start of the piece when he is washing his hands as there could be a ring of blood around his ring finger, washed off by water, a symbolic end to the relationship. Its something I will bring up on monday along with storyboarding and location hunting.


Filmography
1. Strike (1925) Eisenstein S., Soviet Union, Goskino

Websites
1. Top 10 Backwards Music Videos of All Time by Newman J., Date accessed: 05/02/13. URL http://www.urlesque.com/2010/09/21/backwards-music-videos/

2. Poetics by Aristotle Translated by S.H. Butcher. Date Accessed: 05/02/13 URL http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.html