Discuss ‘WANL’

The seminar session was about the ‘vision’ of film-makers. We watched several versions of a short film made by different students and were asked to answer a set of questions for each.

1. What was the vision?
2. What are the underlying themes?
3. How are these ideas / themes are visually represented?

4. Are there contradictions or faults present? If so what are they?

The main plot of the film was about a script writer working on a project. After watching the films and doing the exercise I learned that although the plot was the same, and almost all of the dialogue was the same, each film was very different in its own way. Each version had a different approach in terms of mise-en-scene, mood, environment, atmosphere, framing and direction. In addition to this, even though the actor was playing the same role, he was a completely different character and personality in each film. Therefore a story can be interpreted and portrayed in various ways, which can be dependant on the storyteller and the techniques used to illustrate it in the form of a film. It will be interesting to see how the scripts that our year has been given to produce will be developed into different versions.