For my latest video assignment, I want to incorporate more visual pleasing scenes that coordinate well with the overwhelm storyline of doomsday. In preparation for shooting, I studied two films which seemed opposite but still visually pleasing; The Beguiled, and The Florida Project. Content wise, I wanted to explore the idea of what someone does in their last minutes on earth as well as satirize our society in a sense. The opening scene would consist of a girl sitting on the floor with roses around her legs. Her lover will come up behind her, kiss her cheek and lay his head on her shoulder as the camera dolly’s closer. I’m interested in different styles of photo so for this I will be using two differing color gels, red and blue, that will give the scene a moody feel. Doomsday is often connected with Christianity’s “the Rapture,” religion being a common theme I exemplify in my work. So, to bring in this notion of religion, I’ll have a reinterpretation of Jesus’ last supper where there have shots of the table filled with food as well as the main person (Jesus) will raise his arms to indicate the commencement to eat. At this point, I was considering using the sound and score from American Beauty, a movie that thoroughly goes through the idea of a clock. The next scene will be of “No Seconds”, a photo series by photographer Henry Hargreaves which shows the last meals of prisoners on death row. Another idea I was toying with was having the creation of Adam finally touch. Similarly, I’m quite interested in astrology and space and would like to include a portion of that within in my film in some sense.
For the overall appearance of my film, I want to use reference of the new film Woodshock. These psychedelic shots look like daydreams with an uncomforting twist. Another aspect I anticipate including is T.S. Elliot’s The Hollow Men specifically his quote “this is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.” I would also like to overlay songs such as The Trial of Ed Crane by Carter Burwell, the man who wasn’t there OST (2001) as well as the words of preachers discussing the rapture with some folly. Similarly, I want to record some video on super 8 or VHS as an ode to reminiscing however, I am unsure of how long the film may be to develop or switch over to DVD.
