Scene II — The Phonebox Scene

In this lesson we continued to draft out some shots using Post-It Notes, and decided to develop further scenes involving our femme fatale, Robyn. 

 

(in chronological order from left to right)

1. Slow zoom establishing shot of Robyn, our femme fatale, in a telephone box. [Location: Cambridge] As this scene is principally involved with characterising Robyn as somebody not to be trusted, we have attempted to maintain a certain distance between her and the viewer in a number of ways. For example, she is talking on the phone to one of her contacts involved with the drug scandal she is involved with; the fact that we are outside of the phone box and looking in at her through the glass means what she is saying is muffled.
2. Mid shot on Robyn from the phone box interior. The last few words of her conversation will be clearly audible to the viewer, but she speaks using slang and codewords (taking inspiration from Brick) before quickly hanging up the phone. The shot lingers on her face, looking contemplative and malicious to further establish the type of character she is.
3. Cut back to exterior shot of Robyn in the phone box, picking up the phone again. Again the nature of the shot leaves it ambiguous to the viewer as to who she is calling.
4. Close-up of a telephone ringing. The viewer still does not know who Robyn is calling; we may experiment with the disruption of compositional balance here to jar the viewer, drawing further attention to this. (Sidenote: We found a phone befitting of the ~90s time period we want to set our short in; see right.)
5.  Straight cut to mid shot of Scott in the newspaper agency. It is now clear where Robyn is calling; the phone that is ringing is on the boss's desk, and Scott stops in his tracks as he is about to leave, considering whether or not to answer as the boss is nowhere to be seen.
6. Cut back to same shot of phone, still ringing. This repeated use of a deliberately 'awkward' or 'claustrophobic' shot we plan to use multiple times throughout our short, as it creates an intangible tension key to the atmosphere we want to create. The shot remains still (in-keeping with the long, static shots of classic noir) and Scott's hand tentatively enters the shot to pick up the phone.
7. We have yet to fully structure the conversation between Scott and Robyn, but will experiment more once we have done so what sort of shots we will use to portray the conversation best. This long shot of Robyn leaving the phone box to meet Scott will track backwards as she walks down the path, before she leaves the shot.