DREAM
by Hoang Nguyen and Giang Hoang
For this assignment, I was put into group 2 who were assigned to analyse the short film “DREAM”. This story is about a boy who dreams about becoming an astronaut but is hit with critics and humiliation which causes him to loose hope. Until he realises that giving up is not an option and eventual reaches space as an astronaut.
The first time the group met up we wasted no time and began discussing our plan towards this assignment. To begin with we re-watched the short film to refresh our memories. During this the team and I pointed out certain uses of cinematography and art direction that stood out to us, and bullet pointed all our ideas so we could select 5 subjects for each member to complete further research. This included, light, Colour, Camera and Editing, Art direction and Sound.
I volunteered to analyse the use of light because it was the first thing that stood out to me. I instantly took notice of the placement of certain light sources and the obvious darkened room at this beginning which I found strange.
Before class had ended, we started to look at presentation using Canva, we specifically wanted a space themed presentation with the addition of orange and blues colour scheme to represent the boy’s vibrant orange hair and the use of both dark and light blue shades throughout the story.
During the next week I watched YouTube videos and looked back on the lecture slides to learn more about lighting and it’s use to enact a certain emotional response to the audience. Ultimate Guide to Cinematic Lighting — Types of Light & Gear Explained by studio Binder (StudioBinder 2022), was a video I watched, It provided a detailed overall explanation of certain light techniques used in film and explained why they are used. Using the knowledge from the video, I re-watched the short film and saw it in a new light.
Below are the points I came up with.
Ambient light is a practical lighting used in the establishing shot created by an artificial light source, the lamp on the desk. This forms a ghostly atmosphere in the room due to the absence of a strong vibrant light that you would see in a child’s bedroom to show a child’s youthfulness but instead we find a sense of grief or loss created by the environment. This lamp is the only light source present in the bedroom and helps to highlight the space theme objects in the room. As a result, this creates an idea that the sense of loss has something to do with a child’s interest in space.
The introduction of a harsher light source from the hall after the boy opens the bedroom door, changes the light contrast in the scene to create low key lighting. A technique used for dramatic effect. Furthermore, the placement of the light not only gives the boy the focal point of the scene but can be interpreted as the boy leaving his dream behind him as he walks into a darker room filled with objects that remind him of a broken dream.
We then our introduced to a spotlight created by the same lamp on the desk during the establishing shots. This is a motivated light source to help the drawing become the focal point of the scene. This technique is used to highlight another visual representation of the boy’s dream, in the form of a drawing. As a result, this emphasizes the importance of the drawing that radiates ambitious and dreams, but this is short lived as the boy throws the drawing into a bin which is surrounded by ambient lighting causing the feeling of hope to diminish and allow loss to sink in once more.
Lastly the time sequence at the end of the film has a complete turnaround in the relation to lighting when compared to the beginning. The low-key lighting is no more, and high key lighting is present. High key lighting is a technique with a low contrast ratio meaning the difference of light and shadow is minimum. This implies a sense of hope and optimism. Which also reflects the boy’s emotional state as he is achieving his dream.
Below is the word document script I used during the presentation
In regards to working within a group, I had no issues. We mostly used discord to communicate which allowed us to provide updates on each other researching progress and add suggestions or ask for help Overall I think that each group member had a similar vision for the final presentation which as a result made a smooth process into the presentation day. Using discord the group and I familiarised the order the PowerPoint slides were in, this allowed us to use our small gap of time efficiently and finishing our PowerPoint within the 10 minute mark. However during the presentation I feel like I could have spoken more clearly about the points I wanted to get across to the class audience but due to my lack of confidence in regards to public speaking I didn’t achieve this. This will be something I want to improve on in the future. In conclusion I really enjoyed analysing “dream” because it made me aware of the smaller details films contain and has made me appreciate the work that goes into making a film.
Bibliography
(StudioBinder 2022)