BSA 206 W14 : Shyamalan Experimentation

I filmed a skit for my Screen Arts - trying to incorporate some of Shyamalan's techniques. This went quite well as we managed to beat out quite an interesting and funny story, the final product is very entertaining to us - albeit a bit long. I am going to try to show the whole thing off in my presentation but we'll see if Traci pulls the breaks on me. I think it'll still come in at around ten minutes as I've tried not to waste too much time on the talking bits.

I also made my presentation for this class, here it is, completed with the attached notes:

Hi my name is Bo Myburgh and I am an aspiring filmmaker in New Zealand, for BSA206 this year I decided to look at the work and stylings of M. Night Shyamalan, director and writer or films such as the Sixth Sense and Signs and The Village, amongst others we’d rather not name. Most of ya’ll might know him from Split (2016). I like the unique way his work reads and thought that he would be a good practitioner to take inspiration from, especially with his focus on storytelling – which is probably my main interest, as I am not much of a technically proficient filmmaker as you’ll see later in my experimentation. 

Earlier in the year I did a breakdown and analysis of Shyamalan’s work and style, the first thing I looked at regarded what his intention as a director is. From various interviews and the work itself I concluded that his goal as a filmmaker is to subvert expectations and tells stories wherein normal people find the extraordinary in their lives. He strives for a sense of grounded realism wherein audiences can get immersed, making the magical elements seem much more extraordinary when they do make an appearance. I found that most of the way he makes films and tells stories is related to what the audience knows and what they don’t, he likes to show that things aren’t always as they seem. 

 I looked at what techniques he likes to implement into his work, I found at he likes to utilize the following: all related in some form to his main intentions as a filmmaker. 

I broke down the opening scene of his 2000 film Unbreakable, this was an in depth exploration, here I have outlined some of the techniques and elements of that scene that I have decided to experiment with in my own work.

This is my final experiment, I made a conscious effort to try and implement the following techniques:

I felt that I wasn’t able to emulate his style as closely as I was hoping for, but the final product is quite unique in how it blends certain techniques of his work with out own unique brand of storytelling. The movie itself turned out quite entertaining and I am happy with what it is, the biggest take away from this experimentation was how the presence of music can change the tone and effectiveness of a scene. Shyamalan uses music a lot and I had to incorporate that as well, but I was surprised by how big of an affect this had on how I perceived the story itself – initially I was worried that it was too boring and not easy enough to follow but once I worked in the score it really elevated the piece to something that I now feel is quite coherent. The subversion and use of reflection at the start of the short is probably the closest to Shyamalan’s work, I tried to make the audience think the two were robbing the place but they actually just returned from a robbery – this and the mirror following it are probably the best job I managed to do in copying my chosen practitioner. The hardest part of this process and something I respect Shyamalan for is his careful blocking and rehearsal, we made it up as we went along and were not working from a script, but it is still interesting to note how difficult it was to block out these long takes with the actors and have them hit the marks that the camera needed them to – especially in regards to pacing out the dialogue so that it works well with the camera movements. Definitely something I would like to explore more in the future. I am definitely happy with the final product and enjoyed the experience, a desire exists to do this story with more precision.