COMPLETED:
premiering Friday, June 20, at 8:15 pm
filmmakers will
be present for Q & A following the movie
[project
diary] [production stills] [movie
clip]
Kevin Lee
Also Like Life Productions
Astoria, NY
USA
project title:
On Guard
producer: William
Comerford and Kevin Lee
director: Kevin
Lee
writer: William
Comerford
tagline: Nine views of a security guard on his first day of work at
an office building as he deals with external threats. . . or are they internal?
treatment:
STORY SYNOPSIS
AND EXPLANATION OF CONCEPT
We are looking at two men, one black, one white, arguing in the lobby of a
corporate building. The white man, dressed in a suit and increasingly aggressive,
is trying to enter. The black man, dressed in a security guard’s outfit,
is calmly telling the visitor he can’t come in. The black man is so calm,
in fact, that he seems to think the situation is a joke. The “visitor”
starts to give the guard advice. We realize that this visitor is actually
the guard’s boss. The situation was actually part of a training exercise
for the guard on his first day of work. The boss is full of corporate spirit
and tries to instill in his trainee the philosophy of the position: to keep
order and security while preserving the smooth corporate face of Parallex
Industries.
Throughout the movie,
we will continue to see this new Guard, in 10-minute glimpses, as his first
day of work moves along. Each scene is a stand-alone mini-drama in which the
guard learns a new aspect of his role as guard. A larger narrative will also
build throughout the day.
This larger story
(and, of course, several of the smaller ones) will concern an act of vandalism
to the building lobby, next to the security guard’s post. The company’s
corporate logo is defaced in an obscene way. Because of the gaps in the film
(every 10 minutes the film jumps an hour ahead), the viewer will not see this
vandalism happening. The viewer will even be uncertain, at first, about how
it could have happened—did the Guard allow it to happen? Did the Guard
do it himself? Is he competent? Subversive? The larger narrative will follow
the investigation of this vandalism conducted by the Guard, his Boss, and
others in the building. We will also see the impact of the vandalism (which
escalates later in the day) on the regular flow of people, mostly employees,
who enter and exit the building. Is it a threat? Is it commentary, by someone
with inside information, on trouble coming to the company?
This structure of
uninterrupted 10-minute shots will allow us to shoot and edit our scenes within
the time restrictions of the project. The form, however, is not a simple scheme
to make production easier; it is also central to the narrative style. The
built-in gaps engage the audience: what happens off-screen is often just as
important as what is shown. Viewers must piece together the story based on
what they see and what they imagine has happened between scenes. These gaps
are critical to the concepts of security and terror. Not everything is seen—there
is simply an understanding that everything could be seen by someone, be it
the Guard onscreen, his superiors watching him, or the audience watching the
screen. Like the Guard, his Boss and the passers-by inside the lobby, the
audience of the movie must cope with an incomplete awareness of what is happening.
Rather than simply frustrating the viewers, however, this project seeks to
engage them and raise provocative questions. The 10-minute mini-dramas will
highlight several themes that particularly interest us about security, including:
- What is security? Is it merely
a cosmetic feature to provide psychological reassurance? Could anyone
tolerate a security system that was actually tight enough to be effective?
How has 9-11 affected our fears and perception of threats vis-à-vis
our sense of individual freedom?
- The idea of surveillance. The story is about a security guard who watches,
but is also being watched (by the lobby security camera, which will shoot
certain scenes of the film). He has authority, but at the same time he
is also subject to authority. How does an environment of constant surveillance
affect behavior and judgment?
- Class conflict. In the office lobby, two critical aspects of contemporary
America intersect: the fear of terrorism, and increasing economic despair
and class rift. The security guard literally and figuratively occupies
the bottom of this company, and yet he is entrusted with the safety of
all its occupants. Through his interactions with the office workers, we
see how their treatment of him reflects pervasive and conflicting attitudes
towards security guards as low-class people entrusted with the thankless
role as their protector.
- The working situation for a security guard. Everyone sees him and knows
him, but hardly anyone spends more than a minute interacting with him.
How does it feel to be exposed to so many people, to be seen by so many
people, and yet have such fleeting interactions with them? How does it
feel to be standing watch for any sort of threat or disturbance, and yet
to have nothing happen all day? The job is excruciatingly boring, and
yet can an incident could erupt at any time. What does the Guard do to
pass these endless moments of nothing until something does happen? And
does their self-amusement distract them from carrying out their duties?
- The unexpected roles of a security guard. He is an enforcer, a processor
of human beings, but because situations are often gray instead of black
and white, he also has a capacity to make judgments. He has a social function,
and in emergencies is viewed as someone who may have privileged information
or special authority. He is also a black man, whose race affects how people
perceive him and interact with him: patronizing friendliness, condescension,
fear, respect. But above all he is a human being. The film will focus
on how his humanity manifests itself in the course of his job duties.
- Image and vandalism. This building, with its single company, is the
physical embodiment of the strict corporate hierarchy it houses. As in
America, most members of this community have little idea of what is happening
at the top. Their concerns tend to gravitate toward their own sense of
security. Vandalism could be both an external act of aggression or an
internal act of defiance, both potentially unsettling to the stable image
of the corporation. Though no individual is physically injured by vandalism,
its effects are interpreted as a manifestation of spite and resentment.
How do the office workers react when the image of their community has
been vandalized? Why is funny to some and frightening or upsetting to
others? Is there any validity to the theories (embraced by Rudy Giuliani)
that graffiti contributes to an “environment of crime”?
statement of style:
Many potential movies
could take on restrictions which would allow them to be produced in 72 hours.
In a lot of cases, the work would suffer. We feel that the stylistic “restrictions”
of the timeframe are actually well-suited to our narrative.
It is nearly impossible
to shoot and edit a movie on film in 72 hours, so we plan to use digital video.
DV has a harsher picture quality, with harder lines, less contrast, and a
difficulty shooting extreme light or dark. It doesn’t prettify as much
as film; it can be more garish or murky. In other words, it has a rawness
and a hardness that often gives the impression that one is seeing an image
of life that is less “filtered” or “aestheticized” than
film images. This could be a matter of association – home videos or surveillance
videos are considered products of “real life” instance rather than
“art.” This is a good match for the slice-of-life/documentary aspects
of this movie.
Since the themes of
the film include the security and surveillance of a building lobby, the style
we will employ will be fundamentally inspired by, but not necessarily restricted
to, the security camera aesthetic. This aesthetic has a uniquely voyeuristic
quality: there’s an implied distance between the viewer and the subject
(one is watching something happening in another location), but also an immediacy
(it is happening in “real time”).
However, we don’t intend to tape the entire movie with this simple “security
camera” aesthetic. If we open with that style in the first scene then
it establishes the idea of “surveillance” for the viewer, and we
can build from there while taking a less literal version of the “security
camera” technique. We’ll open with a simulated black-and white security-type
image. Then in the second scene the film will go into color and show a different
but similarly wide fixed perspective on the action. But with each scene the
camera will get closer to the security guard; as we become increasingly absorbed
in the action, we increasingly take on his point of view; the technique will
reflect this development. As the story proceeds, the camera will go closer
to the action and become more mobile, using handheld techniques to get an
increasing sense of subjectivity. The final scene will bring a return to the
security camera point of view.
This movie will employ
minimal camera movement, in order to emphasize the feeling of framing and
the space of the lobby. We want to create a simple and clear space and show
how this setting affects this security guard and the other people on the set,
how they interact with it, how it is affecting their perceptions of things.
The movie will explore cinematic narrative using ellipses, to let the audience
fill in the blanks as best they can. The reality of incomplete or missing
information, of facing the voids of one’s awareness and of one’s
experience is part of most people’s job experience, and more recently
part of our experience of terror. The audience is left to actively piece together
what is happening based on what they see.
We plan to improvise
scenarios with the actors. The actors will be non-professionals. We want to
simulate real human behavior with as little “actorly” effects as
possible. We want the drama to come from the realism of the situation and
the rhythms in which it is played.
In summary, we are
striving for a film aesthetic of “vigilance” – one that forces
the actors to make vigilant decisions as performers in a real-life situation,
and one that forces the audience to vigilantly observe, question and interpret
what they are and are not seeing.
These effects, or
“limitations,” will all affect the immediacy of the film. The greater
the immediacy, the more the questions raised by the narrative will be able
to touch a nerve with the audience.
Influences include:
- Abbas Kiarostami – We
are profoundly influenced by this filmmaker’s ability to make films
of such quality as CLOSE-UP, TASTE OF CHERRY, THE WIND WILL CARRY US and
TEN, given a long list of formal and topical restrictions that he has
to face in his country. His playful technique always asks the questions
of how much information can be left out in a story for the story to function,
plays with audience expectations and assumptions. In exploring the difference
between fiction and documentary.
- Tsai Ming Liang – His use of long-takes that help the viewer absorb
the atmosphere of the scene. Emphasis on characters' body language and
behavior over expository dialogue. In films like VIVE L’AMOUR, THE
HOLE and WHAT TIME IS IT THERE? he is one of the few filmmakers today
who can uncover the extraordinary and sublime moments and emotions within
the most banal settings.
- Charlie Chaplin – Often criticized, in opposition to Buster Keaton,
for his simple camerawork, he nonetheless found effective ways to throw
off the viewer’s balance. In some sense, the essence of his comedy
was the appearance of the Tramp in unexpected places—he constantly
interrupts the gaze of the viewer. When one expects to see a millionaire,
one instead finds the tramp; when a stage curtain, or a veil over a monument,
is lifted, the tramp unexpectedly appears. We are interested in how the
gaze of surveillance has a certain expectation – of disorder, or
trouble—and how that expectation is seldom met.
- Robert Bresson –Bresson is one of the most masterfully economic
filmmakers of all time, concentrating on a minimum of elements to create
a deep impression of a personal worldview, a world where faith in human
systems inevitably leads to injustice and chaos. With our minimal camera
movements, we seek to pack as much into our frame as possible—every
time something is opened or closed, it is for a reason. Also, his use
of non-professional actors and minimalist expression.
- Chantal Akerman’s JEANNE DIELMAN, 23 QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1860 BRUXELLES.
Three days in the life of a Belgian housewife are chronicled with painstaking
attention to her daily routines: cooking, cleaning, washing, errand running…and
prostitution. Like the films of Bresson, this movie builds carefully and
inexorably to a conclusion that is nonetheless brutal when it arrives.
- Jacques Tati – Highly sensitive to environments, particularly in
his masterpiece PLAYTIME. Is also attuned to how work is a part of performance.
We are also interested in how Playtime, as opposed to Bresson’s work
and Jeanne Dielman, finds an escape from dystopia—specifically through
the cracks that emerge in his dystopia.
- Elia Suleiman’s DIVINE INTERVENTION – another film about terrorism
which uses a fragmented narrative to keep the viewer off-balance and in
constant anticipation as to what’s to come.
It isn’t coincidental that these filmmakers have generally worked
on a small scale of production, which is why we think they suit our own
objectives for this project, in conveying our vision and telling our story
in a small scale of time.
timeline:
Upon notified of acceptance, we will place a casting call for non-professional
actors in __ and on on-line bulletin boards, and we will finalize our choice
of location among several contending sites. We will begin acquisition and
construction of any additional elements required for our set, including a
corporate logo (already designed) and a sign on which it will be posted in
the lobby on set. We will set the weekend date of filming, and notify our
crew of extras.
A week after our casting call,
we will schedule our auditions. We hope to meet with more than 10 people,
from among whom we will pick the two most critical actors. We will immediately
begin exercises with the script and develop the characters with the actors.
We will meet on two additional occasions, along with key extras, to rehearse
key scenes.
On the weekend before production,
we will do camera tests on the site of our set, along with our final rehearsal.
We will begin our 72 hours of production
on the morning of Saturday, May 31. We will meet our actors and extras on
site. Beginning in the morning, we will shoot our first seven scenes in order.
Each scene is a single-take, ten minutes long. We are allowing 90 minutes
for the taping of each of these scenes.
DAY 1
8 am – 9:30 : scene 1
9:30 – 11 : scene 2
11 – 12:30 : scene 3
1 – 2:30 : scene 4
2:30 – 4 : scene 5
4 – 5:30 : scene 6
5:30 – 7 : scene 7
Actors and extras break for day.
9 pm to midnight: review of footage; creation of titles.
DAY 2
8 am – noon: re-taping any necessary scenes.
1 – 6: scenes 8, 9 and 10
6 – 7 : review of last three scenes.
7 pm to midnight: Any emergency retakes.
DAY 3
Final takes selected and sequenced on computer. Titles completed, all necessary
filters or effects added (particularly the security camera effects rendered
to scenes 1 and 10). Final tape reviewed, errors addressed.
7 pm: final tapes brought to FedEx.