cinematic rain

well, it's happened.

i knew taking all these film classes would finally catch up to me at some point. but rather than ruining the experience of watching films, which is what i was warned against first, i've been thinking of everything in super cinematic terms.

for instance, i was walking home yesterday after class, and it was raining, and i was holding my now-broken umbrella over my head and listening to the pitter-patter of the rain as it fell on my head. and a song, "the owls go" by architecture in helsinki came on my ipod and it was just perfect. there are all these little claps and salt shakers and bubbly effervences in the song and it made me think of how perfect it would be for a film score.

and then i started thinking of how i would use the music, and how this would translate into a shoot of the opening sequence for a movie.

and this translated into little stylistic considerations, ideas for images to pair with each new sound on the song, the type of character it would focus on, his characteristics, his job, the events of his day.

this soon developed into a focus on a nameless man on an average friday morning of his life, and shots of the routine moments that would otherwise seem mundane: alarm off. bathroom. brushing teeth. faucet drip. coffeemaker b-bb-br-brr-bl-blupp-ing. egg on skillet. breakfast. chewing. walking to work. rain.

it was weird, but suddenly, this 3 1/2 minute song had inspired a whole story and a character and an aesthetic for a potential film. i knew exactly how i wanted to set up each shot, and which shots i wanted to edit together. i knew the color of the bathroom tiles (light green and yellow), the placement of the toothbrush and soap on the edge of the sink, the kind of eggs he would eat and how yellow the yolk would be. and i knew how all these images would pair with the changes in the music and how utterly fantastic it could be!

and as i was thinking on this and walking home in the rain, i thought about how wonderful it might be, to see all these umbrellas from the view of a raindrop, just endless circles of color moving in all different directions. and then i thought of how neat it would be to film from an overhead wide angle, all these moving colors in the rain. and then, if you had one person without an umbrella, your nameless protagonist on his way to work, looking up to the sky and anticipating rain, and if you could capture the indifferent look on his face in the midst of all these umbrellas, how great of a shot that would be.

...

it was the most fabulous walk home in the rain i have ever had. and then i sat in my room for an hour just sketching all of this out.

that post forthcoming...
-stephanie