Report

The whole of the film revolves around the character of Sam and his mental
break. To make this mental break believable we had to make the build up
feel genuine. We decided the most effective way to make this believable
was to have it due to stress and overworking. To show this to the audience
i decided to have plenty of close up shots and some extreme close ups.
Having the camera be invasive makes the audience feel his stress. I also
decided to use one point lighting from the computer screen to add up on
the stress of the protagonist. At the point of his mental break i decided to
use a long dolly shot to exaggerate his mind wandering and to show its
decline to madness. I decided to show that he had mentally snapped by
using editing. I had a quick cut while he was holding tissue to give the
illusion that he was never holding any. Doing this makes the audience
question if he is sane or not.

I also decided that an effective way to portray his mental decline is through
rotoscoping. I had multiple pieces of animation appear throughout his
mental break. I had rotoscoping over his clothes and had the costume
change, this was to confuse the audience. If the costumes constantly
change then the audience confuses the audience to what is real and to
what's in his head. To rotoscope i used photoshop, went through the whole
film and drew in the frames i wanted images in.

I decided to have the beginning of the film parallel the end with the shot
types to show that this was the end of his mental break. The last shot of the
film is a cliffhanger as to if he is still sane or not. The reason i chose to do
this is because it makes the viewer think about how reliable the narrative of
the film. The whole film follows the perspective of this person who the
audience doesn’t know is sane. At multiple points within the film i decided
to break the 180 degree rule. This was intentional and the purpose was to
again disorientate the audience. Making the audience confused makes
them understand what's going through the mind of the protagonist.
I also decided to parallel two shots. The first shot being the steadicam shot
of sam walking down the hallway, the camera is very still to show how his
mental break hasn't fully developed yet. The second shot is him walking the
opposite way down the hallway, this time i didn’t use a dolly this time, i
used a camera rig. This means that the camera was more shaky this time,
showing how mentally unstable he is compared to the first time.
To show Sam’s mental decline i decided to have him enter one location,
and when he exits it’s another location. This is a clear and simple way to
show how he is confused. I then had him enter the bathroom and the lights
turn off. This was to show the snapping point of his brain. That all of his
sanity is gone.