Week 5 - Response to Content

Screen studies and production:

5 essential plot elements:
1. Believable/sympathetic – lead characters & consistency in character
2. Create character in a way the audience can relate to certain traits – urgent difficult problem – Essential character may be bad but we still want them to succeed
3. Attempts to overcome problem – obstacles become harder for character
4. The last stand/climax – this scene lets us know if character will succeed
5. Resolution

Three Act Structure:
1. Setup
2. Confrontation
3. Resolution

Rubber is about a tyre that rolls along in the desert and runs over things that cross its path. It is a very unique film as the main character is an inanimate object. It starts off small, running over bottles to a scorpion until it realises that it can make objects explode through its psychokinetic powers. There is consistency in the character as the character grows throughout the 1st Act, starting by crushing things to making them explode with its mind. This could be related to the conflict expressed in the movie Falling Down where Michael Douglas’ character stands up for himself in a restaurant when they won’t let him order breakfast just minutes after they stopped serving it (Exploring The Meaning Of Movies 2004 – 2008). We establish a connection with the tyre and are interested to see where its journey takes it. Rubber shows us the tyre's attempts to evolve and we can relate when it reaches obstacles such as a glass bottle that it can’t quite roll over easily. As the tyre cannot speak we must imagine what it is thinking and this can be understood in the subtext, the emotions within the speech (The meaning behind the words 2008). We have to step into the mind of the tyre to get to be able to relate to it and develop a connection to it through its actions and also through the music employed ‘I just don’t want to be lonely’.
The set-up of Act 1 is not typical as it involves an audience in the movie watching the tyre’s journey through binoculars. It sets up the human characters in the movie (in this case the internal audience) and we see an understanding of the characters evolve. The characters range from a couple of film buffs who know all the movie terms to teenage girls who don’t really care about the movie, a kid with his dad who is just there because he has to be. The first 10 minutes has a Ferris Breuler interactive type feel to it as the policeman at the very beginning is talking directly to the camera; a way to get us on the other side involved. Rubber does a good job in setting up the characters and kept me interested in what was to come.

Here’s a sneak peek of the movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G5pyFhmAqE

References:
FilmScriptWriting.com, 2011, Subtext: The meaning behind the words accessed on 26 August 2011 from http://www.filmscriptwriting.com/subtext.html

Exploring the meaning of movies, 2004 – 2008, The Clapperboard accessed on 26 August 2011 from http://www.theclapperboard.com/view_posting.php?posting_id=129