Four stills (photographs) in the style of the selected period/movement.

The stills will be

reproductions of four scenes from the chosen film. In this assignment, you are expected to
pay attention to the use of light, colour, décor, costume, make-up, composition, and camera
angle – i.e. the components of film grammar that are covered in the class. The stills may be
related to each other in a storytelling line, or may be individual.

Each still will be presented with a reflection consisting of two paragraphs (200-250 words
each): In the first paragraph, you will describe the scene: What happens at this moment in the
film, and how is it presented? How is the film grammar used? In the second paragraph, you
will describe the choices you made to reproduce the scene. How did you recreate the film
grammar elements? Were there multiple attempts? Did the meaning change when one
component was different? How do you compare the meaning conveyed by the stills? Does
your reproduction give the same meaning? How and why?

Products: 4 stills + Reflection (2 paragraphs of 200-250 words each)

 The following still represents the mother's desperation, anger, grief and powerlessness
after she just found out that her beloved baby passed away. The young woman is completely
broken-hearted considering that she also has another sorrow: her husband cheated on her with
another woman. Her sorrow is presented in the film by her standing in a garden, in a black
dress, her hands covering half of her face, crying in pain after she just destroyed the flowers in
the garden. The garden is the same one we see at the beginning of the movie. It is made clear
that the woman has a sentimental attachment to it and that she loves the flowers. So, by her
standing there in such a heart-breaking moment could signify her attempt to escape the painful
reality and also search for comfort in the flowers she so much loves, instead of sharing this
moment with her adulterous husband. Several film grammar techniques were applied to portray
all these misfortunes. For example, the actress uses hand gestures and facial expressions to
show her disbelief and pain as she feels defeated and powerless. The iris shot technique making
the light fall on the character was used to emphasize this particular moment and person to
accentuate the importance of this scene. There is no camera movement as in the majority of
silent films and the camera is positioned at a straight angle, giving a two-dimensionality to the
scene and a theatre-like feeling.
To reproduce this scene we went to Kralingse Bos and searched for bushes or green
areas that would be similar to the one in the still, however, we couldn't find any bushes with
flowers as it is already October. In the end, we found the right place that would look to the
original. For the costume, the ''actor'' wore a plain black dress like the one worn by Lilian Gish.
She also wore an early Classical Hollywood look: a dark red lip that appears black in the film,
a pale face, and black eye makeup. The iris shot was recreated after the photoshoot by the
means of editing and the full shot was obtained by the photographer standing in a straight line
from the actor with a couple of meters between them. To recreate the emotions, the ''actor'' used
hand gestures and she closed her eyes like in the original. There were multiple attempts to get
the right picture, as it was quite challenging to nail the exact body movements, facial expression
as well as to get the same camera angle and position all at the same time. The meaning in the
recreated still is similar to the original: a sorrowing mother. However, it is impossible to have
absolute accuracy since we are not real actors. And since over 100 years passed from the release
of the movie, the acting styles are very changed and different from what we have today, so it
could be said that our reproduction is a more modern version of the still, but which still holds
the original idea behind it.