Waiting Room: Cinematic Aims (Draft)

Waiting Room: Cinematic Aims

Waiting Room is a film portraying a satirical view on the concept of the afterlife and also the fragility of life; by satirical I am not meaning dark comedy but more presenting the cliché of the afterlife and in a way mocking its ideas. I am part inspired by Silent Hill 2006 Dir. Christophe Gans at the end of the movie the main character is dead and wonders in the space between, it is a very dark perception of the afterlife. It is misty dark, no sun or warmth and all looks very cold, although it’s not an amazing movie I really liked this portrayal of death and beyond. Visually I want my film to hold normal color and lighting in the beginning but after the death of our character I’d like to possibly take out a bit of color and contrast with more dark or bleak lighting but nothing too dramatic.
In my film our character takes a hard knock to the head when performing a simple home task, from this he gets back up rubbing his head after a brief moment of unconsciousness (possibly having a link visually to the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho where there are held shots Marion and a close up on her eye, but I would like to be a lot more subtle with mine as I do not want to give away that this is a death scene). A bit dazed and confused and most properly suffering some minor concussion the character stumbles his way over to the sink and drink a glass of water. The character has a small gash on his head but thinks not too much of it, after slapping on a plaster and recomposing himself he continues with general home living. Yet nothing is quite right, his family does not appear to be home in which he assumes he must have been out for a while and doesn’t make any effort to try and contact them.
The character feels the sense of being alone, isolated and this is also suggested through the use of camera, shots on a slight slant and shots from a distance showing the character small within a larger frame, high angle shots and such. When attempting to turn on electrics i.e. television there is nothing but static, on every channel and static noise from every radio. This is all very odd to both character and audience and starts to suggest that the knock to the head was something more or with greater consequence. Nothing is quite right and the absence of people; communication and character confusion I want the film (after knock) to have a dream like qualities with the camera and possibly lighting but subtle changes in these aspects.
Our character starts to hear a slight ringing, a constant high tone running through his head. He believes he’s just having an ear problem possibly from the fall, but this tone starts to gradually get louder and escalate till it is a loud ringing, he realizes that it’s from within the home and starts raiding through possible sources of the sound. As he searches it gets ever louder constantly progressing. He then finds out it’s coming from his attic, he runs to find a ladder and swings it under the loft hatch, he then bolts it up the ladder and pauses for a moment with his ear up against the hatch, the tone is now unbearable for audience also. After a brief breath he swings the hatch open where a white light fills the screen and the tone ceases in its climax. The film then ends. I want sound to be crucial within these last few sequences intriguing yet also unnerving. I believe that the sound will add this surreal feel to the film. What I have to be careful about and remember in filming and editing is to keep the changes subtle, as I don’t want the audience to catch on straight away that possibly the character has been dead since the beginning when the fall occurred and in this strange space between life and death, purgatory possibly, in deaths waiting room. I believe this film would be aimed at more of an older teenager onwards. I don’t think a younger audience would be able to cope with more the concept and also I don’t think showing them more of a bleak view on the afterlife idea would be fair.