The Meeting (Re-written)

I started thinking about the possibilities of the single shot film. Under Einstein’s theory of montage, stories can be told through the juxtaposition of uninflected images, binding a contrast, which will in turn create a narrative. We were given hard limitations to work through and due to this, the single shot film had to be very simplified. Anything over complicated would be somewhat pointless and would have a rather stale and boring look to it. Or, it would look amateurish and very studenty, so to speak. After thinking a lot about possible ways to overcome the limitations I decided that instead of trying to ‘cheat’ my way around said limitations I would just simplify. The so-called ‘cheating’ would be to increase the speed of certain pans to give the illusion of a cut being made in the shot. This would still maintain the single shot film idea but it would appear to have blurred cuts and then agree with the montage theory.
Maintaining the simplicity idea, I thought that having a small amount of movement would accord with the simplicity idea. I thought of a few simple stories to work with, all including 2 ambiguous protagonists. The one I stuck with was the ‘breaking down the door’ story.

Description of shots:

00s – 45s aesthetically correct shot of door (handle 2 thirds both ways top right)
45s – 47s pan 30 degree pan
48s – 90s end shot Bottom left 9th filled with corner of bed and F. M walks into shot, filling 2 vertical thirds.

Description of meaning:

Someone is outside the door asking to be let in. No one answers. The person entreating entrance starts to become more irate and hits the door with more ferocity, the door handle starts to turn as the door is pulled towards his direction. He starts shouting and swearing more. The camera pans and a young woman is seen, her eyes open, scared but maintaining an aura of calmness. She frowns. Lifts her head up and backwards. She shouts, “It’s a pushing door, not a pulling one”. The doors opens with a backwards slam and the unseen male walks into shot only his lower torso and just above his knees are seen. He stands, silent above her. Fade.

Deliberately names are left out of the dialogue to keep a slight ambiguity about the situation. Husband and wife. Boyfriend and girlfriend. Father and daughter. Unknown by the audience. It is up to the audience to work such things out. The story is actually based on two of my friends who are together. Who were both pissed and one of them couldn't work out the door.

However there is a temptation to go along the American ‘steady-cam’ option. Just following around the protagonist with boring literal narration. Something along the lines… “oh, he’s drunk again”

Again, this I felt this would lack any mystique and ambiguity.