Key Frame Ideas (First Draft)

Key Frame 1:

The first shot in the story, this would be of Jake waking up from his sleep in a blank, minimalist room, with a monotone colour scheme. This would be an aerial close-up shot, placed above the character, to show his eyes opening suddenly and the order of the room. This takes inspiration from the following shot from feelgood romance Garden State:-

Key Frame 2:

This shot shows Jake standing all alone on the bus stop, with cars whizzing past in a blur. This would be achieved by setting the focus on Jake and then adjusting the exposure of the camera to a long exposure and have our actor stand as still as possible for the longest time that they can.

Key Frame 3:

A shot of Jake holding on to a rail of a public transport service, his head down and earphones in. This shot is also a close-up to introduce the intimacy we can gain with this character through the emotion of empathy. The shallow focus sets Jake apart from the scene, showing his isolation from everyone and the idea that he is alone. The colour scheme is very monotone and sets the scene to be quite bleak, a metaphor for how Jake’s life is.

Key Frame 4:

Another shot set in shallow focus, a close up placed upon of the left side of Jake’s face, showing the oncoming car in the blurred background. The shot also shows Jake with his headphones in, giving away the cause of his distraction.  His head filling one and a half of the two thirds, the car in the last; right most third.

Key Frame 5:

Extreme close up of the shocked eye of Jake, the car being relatively close in the reflection of the iris. The car is has some motion blur indicating the speed as to which it was travelling. This is a very intimate shot, showing the fear in his face due to the use of an extreme close up and emotiveness of the eye.

This is based on the MC Escher painting “Eye.” – seen hanging in Donnie Darkos’ room. The eye has a skull in it, alluding to thee subject being about to die, much like in my key frames, with the car being reflected in Jake’s eye.

Key Frame 6:

Extremely shallow focus on Ezraeil’s hand reached out to Jake, done in a POV style. The closest part to Jake’s face, the hand, is in focus whilst the rest is not.

Key Frame 7:

Jake and Ezraeil are facing eachother, filling either side of the Rule of Thirds, Ezraeil has her hand on his face. Jake looks confused whilst she stands looking warmly at him.

This is based off of the when “Grandma Death” whispers to Donnie in Donnie Darko, alluding to Grandma Death being Ezraeil and Donnie being Jake.

Key Frame 8:

The bed he was asleep in from the first frame is now messier, the sheets scrunched up and laying underneath him. The shot is taken from a high point above him. He appears to be in discomfort and is tossing and turning in his sleep. (Potential long exposure blur of him tossing and turning?)

Key Frame 9:

This is a shot of Jake sitting in an armchair in his house, asleep with a lit joint still in his hand. The time displayed on the digital clock is overlaying the bottom of the screen, transparently -  showing the time at which he finally slept (1AM). See reference below, compiled of two pictures.

Key Frame 10:

A Dutch (canted) angle on Jake, clasping onto walls either side of a corridor to support him, heavily based on the 360° rotation shot in Donnie Darko’s party scene, showing psychological unease.

Key Frame 11:

This frame shows an over the shoulder shot of Jake, looking at the two boys sitting in on the floor rolling the ball to each other. They’re wearing clothes from their period in time and dark rings around their eyes, obscured by the darkness and blue-y tone of the room. This tone is taken from Donnie Darko as the supernatural events in that film often have the same colour association. The scene is shot at a ‘Dutch Angle’, which demonstrates “psychological unease”.

Key Frame 12:

A shallow focus close up of Jake lying on the floor, face down after he’d fainted. He looks very confused and is in a little bit of pain. This still could be skewed to add the uneasy feel to the scene.

Key Frame 13:

Jake is shown walking through the office, amongst a sea of cubicles, no one is paying attention to him as he’s keeping his head down low. The office is very monotone and everyone is wearing darker clothes, suggesting that they’re mourning, without being too obvious with it.

Key Frame 14:

The cubicle divider, often found in offices, divides this shot. On one side, is Jake; sat at his keyboard, the other side has a man and a woman co-worker having a discussion over coffee; immediately on the other side of the wall. This divides the screen in half and therefore becomes a metaphor to the isolation of Jake as a character, whilst also associating him with them due to the context of the co-workers’ conversation, as if almost juxtaposing them.

Key Frame 15:

This key frame is a long shot of Ezraeil and Jake talking, obscured by those passing by in front of them. This is done through a time-lapse method, similar to that of Key Frame 2, where it uses the movement of cars, rather than people. The long exposure in this would make the crowd blurred by motion, meanwhile Jake and Ezraeil would remain in focus as they’ve remained still. This is taking reference from the picture below, which displays my desired effect.

Key Frame 16:

This shot is an over the shoulder close-up of Jake reading the plaque within the doctors office. Rather than create a real plaque, a photo is taken from either side of Jake. The one of his front is used for the reflection in the plaque whilst the other is the shot itself.

Key Frame 17:

The next keyframe shows the doctor reaching out to Jake, passing him a small bottle of pills. Once again, the scene is set about in a POV shot and is from the perspective of Jake. Dr. Hewitt’s fingers and the pill bottles are in focus, with the rest of him (and the background out of focus). This would involve a pull focus from one depth of field to the other if the shot were in a movie.

Key Frame 18:

This shot shows Jake sitting on the end of his bed, his head in his hands to show he’s still tormented by the nightmares. The room is even more of a mess and he sits alone in the middle of the dark bedroom once again. This is a long shot with deep focus to show all of the mess within the room, Jake is found on the left side of the rule of thirds, amplifying the fact that he is alone.

Key Frame 19:

This shows Jake standing next to himself, in a hospital bed, in a coma state. Jake is shown standing with his back to the camera, as if he’s hiding his emotion. Ezraeil is shown also with her back to the camera, but standing farther back, nearer to the camera and off toward the wall more. This shows the importance of Jake in this scene and how Ezraeil allows Jake to be alone to recollect his thoughts toward the situation. - The light level in this scene is high key and the light is bloomed to almost replicate the imagery associated with Heaven. Long shot of the room.

Key Frame 20:

Extreme close up of Jake kissing Ezraeil’s lips. The light from behind their lips (directly opposite to the camera) flares up in the shot as it’s so high key, representing the journey to Heaven or escape from limbo. The lighting is white and very soft, like the bloom effect mentioned in Frame 19.

This soft lighting effect can be achieved with a polarising filter. Seen above in The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, the same effect can be seen.