First Post on our Making Of Blog!!

Matchstick Women and Man

A man impatiently enters a budget drugstore. He cuts in line and demands pills that his shrink gave him. Without those pills he wouldn’t last until next week. After a brief struggle, the apothecary asks for the package, but in the end the seemingly important pills are nothing but ordinary vitamin pills. 

A good start for the second year at Media and Culture, don’t you think?

In our first seminar of the year our group got the assignment to make our own version of the scene from

Matchstick Man (2003) we just described. During a brainstorm session all kinds of ideas came up.

The theme of making someone believe that he or she needs something or someone, seems the most

interesting theme from the scene. We all agreed that this theme would take place in a dystopian setting.

This could take shape in the form of a placebo or the indoctrination of a group of people. One of the ideas

that we had was of a diegetic commercial. The commercial tries to convince the protagonist that he or

she needs something so badly that the protagonist wants to buy the product. Another idea that we had

was to place the scene in another genre, specifically Western. We could all imagine a scene where a group

of robbers would want to rob a bank for gold or a gun store for a ‘special gun’. Something straight out of Winchester '73 (1950)

Quickly we realized that the mentioned theme was more interesting than the scene itself. The idea that we

all thought that had the most potential was a Atwood-esque idea about a dystopian society where women

are indoctrinated that they have to have children. Our protagonist would be a loner who doesn’t want to get

pregnant. The pills make a return in this concept, because our protagonist uses anti-conception. In the end

the pills, like in Matchstick Men, are revealed to be a placebo and our protagonist gets pregnant.

We also had our first camera tests this week. On Thursday we shot a small scene about a bag robbery on

the corner of a street. The ‘script’ and shotlist were provided to us. This was our first time working together

as a film crew. In the end we had 10 shots and after a review with our mentor Tom we learned that continuity

and especially the axis of action are things to keep in mind at all times. We also realized how much

coverage you need for a simple scene, which was a real eye opener. Tom also advised us to begin

storyboarding and to think ahead to the editing stage of production. 

 

We also discussed the idea for our fiction film. Tom told us that the idea was on the big side, so in a second
brainstorm session we made the idea more concrete. We decided to set the scene in a psychiatric hospital,
where our protagonist arrives to receive treatment for her disease: not wanting to get pregnant.

We want the audience to see our protagonist as a lonely and alienated person from society, which
reinforces her view on pregnancy. To this end we chose to film our short in the style of Andrea Arnold, who
often shoots in a 4:3 aspect ratio, which in our opinion enhances the loneliness of the protagonist. Her films
deal with loneliness and feminist issues like our protagonist. 

Finally, we made a first draft for the role division in our group for both the fiction film as the documentary film.
Coming Monday we will hand in the final roles. The first draft is as follows:

Fiction film
Director: Cathy
Camera Operator: Jürgen

Sound Recordist / Editor: Julija
Production / Acting: Pien & Leyla
Editor in Chief of Making Of / Acting: Rosa

Documentary
Director: Leyla

Camera Operator / Publicity: Pien

Sound Recordist / Editor: Cathy & Rosa

Production / Editor in Chief Making Of: Jürgen

Editor in Chief of Research / Press Junket: Julija

We’re all looking forward to what the rest of the semester will bring for us!

‘Till Next Week!
The Matchstick Women and Man