THE COOL ELEVATOR SHOT

Emma Rees

HONR101

Prof. Sinowitz

December 15^th, 2017

The Elevator Shot

            For a moment, assuming you watched the film before reading this, think back to our old seminar classroom in Peeler. The fluorescent white lights with a small, oval table that was filled with books, notes, and bagels. Sitting around in our usual seating arrangements with a couple of variations from time to time. Talking over one another with laughter and long tangents. Those were the days. The days of naïveté for young Emma Rees who did not fully understand that making a film is actually, quite difficult. Even though the prompt did mention the difficulty of coming up with an original plot for a neo-noir film with the limited amount of time, Emma thought nothing of it, I thought nothing of it. My roommate enjoys films and the making of them, I enjoy acting, WE CAN DO THIS. And we sure did! Sure, there were several instances when we thought about giving up because we couldn’t figure out a plot, sync schedules with other actors, create the right effect, etc. All of those may seem like very important factors to creating this neo-noir film, and, okay, they are, but the point is that Abi (my roommate) and I managed to overcome those obstacles and present to you, Night Terrors. I do wish that we could have come up with a better title than that. It just sounds so short and pretentious to be the title of a short film, but Abi pointed out that was the point. Anyway, this commentary will explain the making of this film and how it was inspired by neo-noir elements as well as my understanding of the course.

            Well, let’s begin with the concept as that is what a movie usually begins with. Let me tell you, that was extremely difficult! First, I had nothing. Zero, zip, zilch, all the nothings that begin with the letter Z! I soon realized that I had absolutely, no idea what a neo-noir film was. I knew the examples from our class; Taxi Driver (1976), Memento (2000), and Chinatown (1974). Yet I did not understand what the elements were, unlike my experience with classical noir from the first part of the semester. We had the hard-boiled detective, femme fatale, and crime. The only similar thing I found, was crime. Going back through the movies and readings, I compiled a list that helped me narrow down what I needed to incorporate into my film. It needed a tragic hero, somehow going against the system, betrayal, an unreliable narrator, complex plot, and most of all-a crime.

            That being said, my initial idea involved a girl gang (#GIRLPOWER) fighting a guy gang. It had the complex plot and all the other bits and pieces as it ended with the leader being killed by her own friends. Abi and I were extremely excited for this film, we would include a chase scene, montages, an awesome cast, and the Nature Park! But that meant getting several people on board who had similar schedules during the week before finals and during. That factor ended up being the reason for us to throw away the awesome girl gang plot concept.

            Because of that, we tried to make a story that had less characters and, therefore, less actors. We had an idea of a doctor trying to help this woman out of an asylum because she didn’t belong there. However, she ends up killing him at the end because she is a nymphomaniac. That idea was scratched because it was difficult finding a guy who was willing to play the doctor. Also, I wasn’t too keen on the idea of biting on blood capsules as I pretend to bite his neck.

            And that brings us to the idea that is, Night Terrors. I first thought about this idea from personal experience with weird dreams. While I haven’t killed anyone, or seen a red light, I do talk in my sleep (and sometimes hum), while have weeeeeird dreams. One time, I thought it was snowing but it turned out to be just rice. It hits several plot elements of the neo-noir film such as the tragic hero. My protagonist is a college student who, in the midst of finals, is having difficulties sleeping because she is having night terrors. We feel sympathy for her because that’s no fun, but then we find out that there have been people dying in Greencastle. And that’s where we have the crime and going against the system come in to play. Crime, for obvious reasons, and going against the system because more precautions should have taken place. Sexuality isn’t very present here because there’s no romantic storyline, the closest we have is that it looks like I’m wearing no pants in the last part of the film. Anyway, I am a very unreliable protagonist because I have no clue what is going on, no thanks to my psychiatrist who is controlling my mind when I sleep. She betrays me, like any other femme fatale, by steering me towards a violent path of destruction instead of security. After watching the film, I’m sure there are many questions and plot holes to point out. Well, most neo-noir movies have complex plots (Memento and Chinatown were super confusing) and Night Terrors is no different. It just gives you a full twelve minutes of being confused because of how rushed it is, instead of an hour and a half. If you didn’t understand the ending, well, here’s a short explanation. The screaming scene occurs because she realizes that she was walking again, her roommate is gone, and she doesn’t know what actually happened. She doesn’t know if she killed her roommate or not, but knows that Sarah (movie roommate) is gone.

            On technical terms, Abi and I tried our best to incorporate shots and camera techniques into the film. We had a couple of instances where there was a frame inside of a frame (psych office and elevator exits). One dutch shot exists at the end when I am lying down and screaming. The angle is horizontal instead of vertical. There was a long tracking shot from when we exited the building and crossed the street as well as when I came inside the room and talked to my roommate about my appointment. Obviously, darkness plays a huge factor in the film, and the last scene is full of obscurity. Usually, smoke and fog are present in obscured scenes, but the dark can provide the same effect as it conceals the character’s intentions and facial expressions from the audience. I discuss the dark shots with an air of nonchalance but the work that went into the creation of such scenes required a large amount of effort. First, we had to wake up at 4 am in order to start filming for several reasons. One, we needed the undivided attention of the elevator. Two, we needed the entire basement to ourselves without people coming through doing their laundry and whatnot. Three, we had to turn off all the lights and create a mask for one of the stair lights. That was fun- we used two movie posters, a lid from a plastic tub, a rug, and lot of Hello Kitty duct tape.

Now that I think about it, the entire movie was based around that elevator shot because Abi really liked the contrast in lighting and symmetry. This movie may have been a tad more thriller-like than a neo-noir film, but many neo-noir films (and noir in general) are thrillers. The entire twelve minutes are packed with the intention of showing a neo-noir film (minus the credits). All in all, I hope Night Terrors was enjoyed by everyone. I had a lot of fun making the film as neo-noir as possible and I hope it showed.  

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