It's Cuckoo

To brainstorm ideas for my own video, I figured that watching other examples of drama film openings could help as a sort of template. Because drama is such a large genre, many different types of storylines fall under the category. Filmsite.org is a wonderful website that offers reviews, posters, quotes, individual scenes, etc. on the "Greatest Films" created. While it was helpful by presenting the variety of drama films, it was also fun to just browse the website and learn the history behind some of my favorite movies, or even recommend different pieces that I may be interested in watching. 

After clicking on the page linked above, http://www.filmsite.org/dramafilms.html, I scrolled down to where it talks about mental illness related films. 

The second film mentioned in the excerpt, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, is also a novel which was mandatory to read during my sophomore year of high school. While my English class only read the book, part of some other students' curriculum was watching the film, whether it was for their English or Psychology class. Having never experienced the movie version, I've been wanting to watch it, though I've prolonged the idea for about a year now. 

I started by watching the first four minutes of the movie on YouTube. By watching the opening scene, I felt as though there'd be enough content so that I can use some of Milos Forman's (the movie director) techniques for my own film opening. Here are some of my notes:

• Establishing shot
• Cursive font
• Eerie/Folk/Acoustic music
• Three-point lighting
• Neutral colors
• Pan of characters
• Woman dressed in black walks through corridor; red light above her
• Employees in white, some-what formal attire
• Patients behaviors: strapped down; anxious; talking to themselves; exhausted; sluggish
• Mostly medium and wide shots; heavy camera movement
• Classical music
• Seemingly scheduled activity in the psychiatric hospital

Watching the opening scene to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, I felt as though Forman's purpose was to establish the tone for his viewers. I found this interesting because it is different than my original idea which was to create a film opening that introduced the main character. It's clear that this film example was establishing tone by the use of classical music (sets time period) and how a variety of characters are introduced, rather than focusing or hinting towards one important actor. However, I want it to be clear that my film is about one woman, so I will stick to focusing on my main actress. 

Before any characters are introduced in this excerpt, an establishing shot is used to set the scene, and graphics are in a cursive font. Immediately, this choice reminded me of another movie Moonrise Kingdom, (directed by Wes Anderson) in which cursive font is also used in the film opening. In Moonrise Kingdom, the font was much more exaggerated, which I corresponded with the overall sense of disturbance that came with the rest of the first scene. 

http://d172rgb28xoegf.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/moonrise-kingdom-balaban.jpg

Because mental illnesses can be disturbing, I'm leaning towards using cursive font for my own opening credits as well. Cursive also indicates handwritten notes, sometimes used when trying to write rapidly, and many doctors write in cursive (maybe it's for this reason, I don't really know... I'm not a doctor). However, I do know that doctors help those with mental disabilities, so the connection still makes sense to me.

In addition, when I was watching the actors who played patients in the asylum, they all portrayed the personality characteristics listed above. After doing previous research on PTSD, the illness I chose, I noticed that some of the behaviors are similar to the ones expressed in this movie. Therefore, I know that it is an absolute necessity for my actress to act similarly-- anxious, tired, self-conflicted. 

Some notes that stuck out to me most are the use of neutral colors, three-point lighting, and camera movement. I would have to invest more time to watching drama movies in order to detect whether these are techniques heavily used within the genre, but for now I'm going to make a safe assumption based on previous exposure to drama films that, yes, these are important assets. 

Using neutral colors in both background location and costume choice makes a bold statement that this isn't necessarily a happy film. Furthermore, the most common lighting technique, three-point lighting, also expresses that this is not a sing-song movie (high-key lighting; i.e. The Wizard of Oz) nor is it going to give you nightmares (low-key lighting; i.e. The Exorcist). Finally, I noticed that wide shots and medium shots were most used. This could've been boring, but the use of camera movement (such as panning left to show patients sleeping in their bunks, or having the camera follow one of the nurses as she walks towards patients) helped to make it more interesting visually. These movements were done very smoothly, yet slowly which also caused the editing to be slow. 

I very much enjoyed the techniques used in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and I'm thinking about utilizing some of these techniques in my own film. For example, I will use cursive font for graphics, neutral colors for wardrobe, and rely primarily on camera movement and slow editing. I think slow editing will also assist in creating that suspenseful feeling I mentioned in an earlier blog post. 

Overall, analyzing this excerpt helped me tremendously, and I'll be watching more drama films for further instruction. 
~Tomorrow I will watch the full movie of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest so that I can finally scratch it off of my list of films to see~










Drama Films. (n.d.). Retrieved March 18, 2017, from http://www.filmsite.org/dramafilms.html

V. (2013, April 08). Retrieved March 18, 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCLOXsMWbFM