Reflective Analysis

For my A2 film coursework, I decided to write a screenplay based on short film. It centres around a protagonist, Ezra and an antagonist, Sven. The first part seems like a mystery but encorporates the martial arts genre.

My storyline was inspired by Jo Nesbo's scandinavian novels as I envisioned what they would look like look if they were eventually filmed. One theme I was particularly interested in stretching was European crime, so I set the scenes in Germany. The motifs of the Berlin setting and the fox were inspired by my favourite film 'Hanna'. The fox was a symbol from the Grimm's Fairytale as it foreshadows the fact that Ezra will be seriously hurt, but will survive. The Grimm's fairytales are also prominent in Hanna. Some of the shots in Scenes 1,2 and 3 are taken from 'New Wave' cinema, I wanted mundane tasks to juxtapose with the eventual climax of the rising action. This creates a nice balance for the audience as it isn't throwing them straight into the action but starting them off comfortable to eventually explode into the climax. The short scenes in the exposition are showing everyday life but the moment Ezra is trapped in the car wreckage, the tone of the script changes. I emphasised this to show the dangerous possibilities of life; anything can happen in a second. This was inspired by the French film La Haine.

The characters of Ezra and Sven are binary opposites, one is good, one is bad. This turbulent relationship is highlighted when Sven tries to torture Ezra twice in the hospital and the car crash without actually killing him. Ezra represents Redemption whereas Sven represents Injustice, 'There is a way to be good again'. This is a theme in one of my A2 subject films, Fight Club, as The Narrator wishes to be everything Tyler is even though he is corrupt. The idea of their 'brotherhood' being disrupted for a foolish, thoughtless action may be relatable to the audience. Another inspiration was Clive Owen and Vincent Cassel's characters in Derailed, another inspiration for scene 9. The fighting in Scene 9 was meant to be reminiscent of the Indonesian film 'The Raid'. The fighting descriptions are realistic, so the audience are more likely to become involved if they're given visuals which they can better respond to. I think the fight scene in particular worked particularly well and would be constructed for a cinema audience and not an on-demand movie that goes straight to TV, however due to the general narrative, I think it would work better as an art house/film festival movie. Director's that would bring it the screen well would be David Fincher, Joe Wright and Dennis Gansel. The narrative followed the structure of David Fincher's 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo' in which the audience had to work out the mystery for themselves. Elements of the fighting in the penultimate scene were inspired by the TV show 24 not only because the fighting is dramatic but also more realistic and gritty.

If I could change an element of the screenplay it would be to make it a short extract of what the screenplay would be and not a whole short film. I had a few problems such as too much dialogue and spelling the narrative out, a convention of typical Hollywood movies and not Foreign independent dramas. The clues had to be spelled out in the visuals, this was something that appeared more difficult as I went on. The short mundane scenes in 1,2,3 and 4 are also there to dupe the reader into thinking that a small clue will be left to progress the mystery, however there was not. Most of the mystery derives from the car crash and the fight scene. It's possible that the reader feels unsettled by the rising action and therefore receives the film as an indie flick. All the scenes are conventions of independent dramas and the male antagonist fits the stereotypical family man archetype who must save his family and himself etc. This can be seen as a convention of Hollywood cinema but to intertwine them both would unsettle the audience more as there is no sense of consistency. My target audience would be predominantly 23-30 male and females in an A,B socio economic demographic.

In the mise-en-scene in Scene 1 and 8 there is a lot of derelict language to explain how dark and dingy the settings are, I set the film in Berlin, Germany because it's not only my favourite place but a highly used setting in foreign dramas. The setting adds to the 'unsettling' feel as it's not a paradise. The wife, Cara is described as having red nails and lips to show a more sexual side. Ezra has a seductive wife which he loses, this causes him to react more to the antagonists threats. Another mise-en-scene element running throughout was the constant use of green and emerald to show an illness, a sickness that links to the derelict settings and language. The fox on the sofa had the contrast of ginger and green, just like Marissa Wiegler in the last scene of Hanna where she is also bleeding and wounded. The short bouts of dialogue gave the film a 'New Wave' feel as the actions speak louder than the words. The dialogue itself is specific to the genre, there is a jargon used for the crime aspects in Scene 7, this not only makes the dialogue more subject specific but allows the reader to know exactly what kind of film they're watching. The name was originally going to be 'Ash Tree Lane', the lane where Ezra finds the wounded fox but I later changed it to 'Traces Of A Fox's Kill' from the Snow Child story in the novel The Bloody Chamber, another inspiration of mine.