(music with shots) (own song)

“I think creatively I’m fairly spontaneous I think you need to follow your guy instinct and your heart when

making something because if you are problematic in your mind you can kill the playfulness and

inquisitive energy to make something interesting. Making the film, my major method started off by

reading poems, articles and books, this followed by lists and watching videos and imagery related to my

ideas.

I was able to let all ideas come out in different mediums through out the whole process - I stripped the

layers back to create something different so that I could create part of my film and for it to be creative. I

was able to follow my ideas and these led me to somewhere new and make something different.

Within a thriller film, a major convention of the genre is that the film consists of a battle between a

protagonist character and an antagonist. In my opening sequence I built up the theory of this by showing

the unsettling atmosphere created between two women whose identity you are unaware of. However the

antagonist’s identity is left mysterious as it fades out towards the end, which results in questioning to

who the woman behind the mask was. I used low-key lighting throughout my work to create the

atmosphere, which a thriller evokes; the whole film is in black and white to recreate the time, which the

movie was set. In the midst of the film, there are quick/jump cuts to build up the tension and this also

created unique imagery, which added to the surrealism of it. The music was a big part of my work as this

was used to build up the tension and to allow the audience to grasp the storyline and idea of the film more

as the movie itself didn’t give much of the storyline out, I preferred to portray all my ideas within

symbolism in the film rather than deliberately showing the audience through speech. I wanted to focus

on the symbolism of women in 1945, in which the film was set; this is because of the growth in power in

which they were given in the war. Therefore the protagonist of my film is a brave female, which may

restore equilibrium. This goes against a convention of thriller horror movies as they men are usually

portrayed in more light as they are seen as the stronger, more dominant sex. A major technique I used

when directing was that I used a lot of close ups and extreme close ups to the woman’s face and body

features, this was to create imagery within my film and to show the mise en scene which I created

through the use of makeup to create my character. I wanted to show lack of emotion to symbolise the

different effects of what the war had on people and the destruction that it caused. I used close ups of a

skull to represent the death and loss which the people of Hiroshima (and the rest of world) had to go

through, the locations in which I shot my film were very ominous settings and they looked quite bizarre. I

took shots near a nuclear power plant to symbolise the nuclear atomic bombs, which were created and

were used in rivalry in the war.

In my research, I analysed opening sequences, The Shining directed by Stanley Kubrick and Se7en,

directed by David Fincher. I looked at existing works created by directors such as David Lynch and

Salvador Dali for the visual side of my work and the unique cinematic styles which they both used as they

were into the art side of directing. I was inspired by the violent, disgusting elements of David Lynch’s

work by using the images of the dead animal and how I dressed Rema in the film. I looked at experimental

videos on youtube to see what ordinary people had created using imagery and which effects they added

to it. A major movie I was inspired by was Eraserhead and alphabet directed by David Lynch. The people

Lynch used in his films influenced the characters I created. This is because you always question them with

their odd movements and lack of voice.

I used primary research to investigate my audience by doing this I was able to find out specific elements

of a thriller film people were interested in followed by their age and other details about them. This will

help me to promote my film as I have an idea on were to air my film and where.

Before I created the storyline I looked at information on Hiroshima so that I had an idea where I wanted

to set my film and what I could do to the actress’ in my film. I got a grasp of the convention I wanted to

create and based my character around these ideas. You can see my inspiration in my final film as I dressed

Sophie in a dress from the 40’s and a gas mask, which shows that something is wrong, perhaps to do with

a bomb. When I was dressing Rema I bought the clothes from a charity shops and burnt them and put

holes in them to show the heat of the bomb as it the atomic bomb penetrate heat out of it and the

surroundings turned to ash in a close radius. The dirt in the clothes shows she has been struggling and

may not have a home so she has lost all she once had. I looked at real photos taken from Hiroshima, from

the images you can see that the majority of buildings had burnt down so it was mostly baron lands

influenced the locations, this is why I choose Steetley to film the scene with the gas mask and Rema. As

the movies is also in black and white, the sea becomes a slight allusion and it allows the audience to

question the settings as it looks very un usual.

The opening sequence slightly foreshadows what the narrative is about, I used the radio broadcast at the

beginning to identify the situation so that the audience knew it was based on the atomic bomb, which was

dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, which initially ended World War II. The idea of the girl stood in various

places was a surreal idea I had to show the idea of loss, death and emotion based on the war, this links to

a sub genre of psychological thriller as it allows the audience to try and figure out the storyline

themselves which may contain plot twists.

I think ‘Little Boy’ represents a minor target audience as it is surreal; art films aren’t the most popular of

films, which is shown in my secondary research. I used young adults in my film to give the idea of the loss

of family especially with the older people, so the girl’s parents would have died in the war. I specifically

used girls to portray the idea of the power in woman at the time as the war gave woman the chance to

gain more power and control. I used the older females voice towards the end to represent the difference

in time, which the movie narrator is set. This is because the film is a woman looking back to the war, now

she’s older, the voice is the woman’s in the gas mask but I didn’t make this clear in the opening sequence

so that it created question and so that the audience aren’t aware of this until the watch the movie in full. I

used a girl from a different ethnic background to show the difference between the two nations which

were at war with each other, Rema portrays the victims of Hiroshima were as Sophie represents England

and America, the power in the gas mask and cleanliness of Sophie shows the differences in the two as it

symbolises the power which Sophie has in comparison to Rema, this shows the idea of the corresponding

sides in the war. This may attract audiences from these countries as it seems more realistic and they may

be able to empathize more with the character. I looked at pictures of the people who were affected by the

atomic bomb and based my characters on these, so I bought white contact lenses as peoples eyes were

affected in the heat and radioactive substances given off by the explosion. I made the clothes so that they

fit each character and were able to tell a background story to both characters, which shows the

differences of the two people. As it’s set in the 1940’s, this will attract the older audience as they may

have lived through the war, woman may wish to watch this film as they like the idea of power of woman

and the growth of equality at this time. Another major aspect of the film was that I choose to made it black

and white, this was so that it fitted the time that it was supposed to be filmed as they used black and

white cameras at the time, with the radio broadcast and speech, I used vintage radio (1945) which was at

the time which it was set which is appropriate for the narrative.

The main message of my film was that , Rema (a young girl effected by the nuclear warfare) is alive but

has major defects to her health and appearance after these events. The whole plot is to show us how the

environment and how people were affected by Hiroshima, Chernobyl and Nagasaki as a whole and finally

how war destroys us. It’s set in various locations so that the surroundings all contrast with each other and

to show all the different imagery of the aftermath of these disasters. Rema is in the baron land to show the

loss of the disaster and how she was physically affected. You get ideas of her having nausea, vomiting, loss

of weight, appetite, and bleeding and discoloured spots on skin from the clothes and acting of the film.

The lack of facial expressions show us how different people were effected as when many people become

depressed they show a lack of motivation and emotion so she will have a blank face to show loss, death

and illness which surrounded them. Not only were they affected in the short term but also in the long

term, which led the people to be tested on for years after. This full plot is to show the horror of the real

world and to show people what they didn’t get to see from these disasters, which took place. The idea of

the woman in the gas mask was to show that she will be telling the plot of the storyline and may or may

not be the ‘villain’. “