One week Brief - Celebrate the Invisible (Brain waves)

An awkward meeting after a bad first date

My response to the brief is a short film experimenting with visual representation of thought processes. The subject of the film is a conversation between two people with a previous history that affects the way they now perceive each other on a conscious level. The style of the film is influenced by my research into the work of Michel Gondry and music video director Ace Norton. The visual representation of thoughts reveal the characters’ true emotions through words, colour and symbols. One of the most easily recognizable symbols of thought is the ‘thought bubble’ made popular by the representation of interior monologues in comic book artwork. For this reason, I developed a visual style heavily relying on the depiction of the monologue rather than the commonly used voice-over. I elected not to focus on the dialogue between characters in order to emphasize the things that would not usually be seen in film-based media.

The advantage of focusing on thoughts over words is that the narrative is not hidebound by the social niceties of day-to-day interactions. The characters are free to express their real feelings and motivations and in turn the audience is liberated to comprehend the realities of complex social situations. In addition, an interaction which would have otherwise been mundane becomes visually stimulating as the invisible becomes visible.

Finally, I have tried to push the concept of visual thoughts further to suggest that if thoughts can somehow leave the safety of the thought bubble they then become a physical entity, now visible to the characters, which in turn demands action.

Please let me know what you think of the work...