NOTES ON A SCENE
Type: Independent Project
Instructor: Matthew Solomon
Year: 2020
Duration: Two weeks
Location: Xanadu, Florida
Team: Independent
A ‘reshoot’ of the classic film Citizen Kane. Where the main character throws all of his things across the room more like prison in his mansion more like castle and completely breaks down his own towering figure upon seeing his wife’s bags packed. The virtual reality of dead eyes, clunky movement, and expressly 3D modeled space lends itself to a new interpretation of the scene, backed by building soundtrack and shot almost like it was surveillance footage.
Film directors in the traditional sense have the ability to adjust the action of scenes in different takes. The challenge here was an immovable action and set of happenings that the camera can only react to. Posthumous reinterpretation with only some of the information available. Two dissolve cuts start and end the scene. A heart shaped mirror to Kane facing himself in the same mirror. A snowglobe awkwardly rendered in hand to the flatness of the head of the figure in space. The singular man is treated as a case study and trapped within the confines of the reality he created.
The camera simply observes the absurdity of the original scene and the added layer of the uncanny recreation. Doubling down on the oddity of virtual reality, I ‘shot’ with handheld format allowing for camera shake on top of motion capture shake and objects clipping through each other. In the same way, outside sound is overlaid upon the original sounds and mistimed to further the effect. Yet the scene has a clear plot which the soundtrack respects and follows.
Distortion - it is uneasy, it grinds and shudders, wants anarchy, abrasive, mean - makes simplicity seem somehow disingenuous. Maybe Kane is finally just being honest with himself.