Source of Inspiration: (500) Days of Summer

 

Opening Titles:

The opening titles have a ‘vintage’ look. There are two film reels next to each other showing the character (either Tom or Summer) growing up. This helps with the audience connecting to the characters as well as seeing the characters at the same age throughout their life - connecting the two.

 

The soundtrack of the film is one of the main elements for my inspiration. I feel as though the music is one of the most effective features of the film and adds a lot of depth. All of the songs are similar genres and compliment the scenes and feelings portrayed by the characters.

Two artists used quite a few times in the film are The Smiths and Regina Spektor.

The Smiths are the band that the two characters share an interest in, parts of the band's songs are used in lots of scenes within the film. I believe the lyrics in the songs used summarise the scenes.

For example:

 

 

 

The song is diegetic and as the song is played through his computer speakers, background noises can be heard, for example people talking quietly and chairs moving. But when he turns the volume up, the song becomes the only sound that can be heard.

It is effective as the song is being incorporated into the scene, and the audience and characters can hear the same thing. The lyrics also add to the scene, the lyrics that can be heard in this scene are:

"the luck I've had
can make a good man
turn bad

So please, please, please
let me, let me, let me
let me get what I want-"

The song is stopped when the character, Tom pauses the song.

The lyrics are meaningful in this case as Tom is trying to attract the attention of Summer. The lyric "Let me get what I want" is abruptly stopped when he fails to capture her attention, which summarises how the character feels.

Expectation vs. Reality:

 

This scene is a source of inspiration as the editing is really good. The scene is set over an evening in which Tom visits Summer's house.  His expectation of the evening is set next to the reality of the evening.

I like the subtle differences between the expectation and reality as the evening goes on:

• When Tom walks into the room and looks around, both reality and expectation are the same footage.

• Others are slightly different i.e. when there is a mid-shot of the two on the balcony for expectation and mid-shot of just Tom for the reality.

• The final part of the expectation/reality is completely different to the rest, as on the expectation side, the pair can be seen kissing, whereas the reality is a close-up shot of Tom's hand squeezing lime into a drink.

A strong inspiration for editing is the part when the door closes on the expectation which causes the reality to fill the screen at the same pace. I think that it looks very good and we could use it in our trailer. I don't think the whole expectation/reality could be used for a trailer as it isn't a common convention, but parts of the idea could be used.

Voice Over:

During the film opening there is a voice over. The voice doesn’t belong to either of the characters so comes across as a narrator. He explains the life story of the characters and how they meet. The voice refers directly to the audience “This is a story of boy meets girl, but you should know up front, this is not a love story”.

This could be an inspiration for our film trailer as a voiceover with non diegetic music would reduce the difficulty of recording diegetic sound.