Simular Film Analysis - Total Recall (2012)

Rating: PG 13

Genre: Action, Adventure, Mystery

Date of Release: 3rd of August 2012

Running Time: 118 minutes

"The film centres upon an ordinary factory worker who accidentally discovers that his current life is a fabrication predicated upon false memories implanted into his brain by the government. Ensuing events leave no room for doubt that his true identity is that of a highly trained secret agent. He then follows a trail of clues to gradually recover more suppressed memories and reassumes his original vocation with renewed dedication." - Wikipedia


How is 'Total Recall (2012)' similar to our film?

Throughout the film, the protagonist, Douglas Quaid, struggles to identify what is real and what has been programmed into his head to be real. He is lead to believe he has a wife, a nice home and a decent job, but as his dreams seem to become more realistic and trigger memories from his former life, he begins to doubt the world around him. In our film, the protagonist is oblivious to the fantasy world in which he lives him, he too believes everything is normal. Although our main character does not figure out that his world is make believe, both the audience and the teenager playing the game slowly become curious as to why the his world is falling apart and glitching. Louise already knows its a game, so the hooded figure is trying to hide David's captivity from them, but to the audience, they firstly believe this person is a normal, everyday man, right up until the very end of the film. When we reveal the fact that David's life is a video game, they believe he is in fact an unaware character from a social experimental game, but the hooded figure will make the audience question wether he is fictional and non existent as a person, or wether he has been manipulated and trapped inside a virtual world.

Additional Information:

 

Problems to Consider When Filming

Having now filmed for three weeks on the films, there have been several problems and issues that we have had to address and sort whilst filming 'A Truncated Parable of Complete Normality'. However, for some of this, we have been able to be prepared for the worst and see how we could overcome this problem.

Animals

In the film, we decided that David would own a dog (Tim) as a companion, helping to create a sense of loneliness. We decided we would use one of our group members dog to play this role, however, before filming, we had to be prepared for problems when working with animals. Although well trained, Tim was young and would be extremely active, meaning he may struggle to concentrate causing the scenes to become difficult to film in one day.  Because of this, Tim's owner ensured he was calm before each scene, and made him follow commands to try and get him to go into suitable positions. By doing this, we were able to be successful whilst filming the opening scene.

Office Related Scenes

When we were filming the main body of the film, we decided to use Barnsley College as our location for the office scenes as we understood that whilst it was a learning facility, it was also a working building and we felt this would be right to film. However, like the other problems, this was a problem that would cause us for concern on the sound quality on the film. The first issue was a small room that we used which was next door to the Vocational Performing Arts/Drama and Dance students and they were loud causing problems as the camera could pick up their voices. We tried to avert this issue by telling them to be quiet and respect that we were filming causing their voices to be minimal as we were able to be prepared for this issue. Another issue that caused major problems was the lift sequence as we decided to use the student lift that both staff members and College Students can used. This was a problem as we wanted the lift to be empty and we had to end up waiting until it was. Because of this, we could only film for about 5-10 minutes as we knew this could cause major disruption. Whilst we were successful in filming the office sequence, the lift sequence was not as successful because we were not as prepared for the filming of the sequence.

Props

One of the massive problems that occurred was the use of a prop we accidentally broke because in the office scene we wanted a part of the film where David went into the room looking at the clock which said 5 O'Clock and then David would walk out of the room. We chose to therefore use a clock which we accidentally broke as we needed to put it on a white wall to get decent lighting with the use of Blu-Tac. This unfortunately resulted in the clock's glass smashing as we were not prepared for that to happen unfortunately.

Overall, after experiencing these problem, there have been several things we have now learnt from and we are hopefully intending to avert these problems, should we need to re-shoot.

Actors

Because one of our actors was due to have her hair cut shorter than usual at the beginning of December, we needed to ensure all of their scenes were filmed prior to the appointment. Because of this, our filming schedule had reduced flexibility, however we were able to get the majority of our filming done in plenty of time, with room to re-film if necessary.

Music Research

After having worked on our audience research and finding out what would suit our film, there were several things that we felt needed to be in our film which had been highlighted by the market research that we had used via the Web (i.e. Facebook) and also by a filmed version of the audience questionnaire. One of the big things we felt needed addressing was the type of music the film needed in order to portray certain themes and concepts such as isolation, entrapment and also not being able to use something or control something. By doing this we used this question as our research from music:

There were several things we were given after having done this questionnaire. Some of the answers resulted in Classical and Punk Rock as they felt they would portray the character in the right way and it would show his confusion. However, a few said electronic and rock to show the genre which is a mixture Psychological Drama and Science Fiction and by doing this it would make the genre easy to understand to our audience.

After talking about the music, we decided that we would use Classical music as part of the film as we felt that the genre of music would not only give an emotional depth to David Jones as a character but it would also bring across a sinister tone to the film showing that David is helpless and couldn't control anything. We chose not to use the other genres of music as we felt that they wouldn't suit the film and its emotion we want to bring across and as well as that, our questionnaire was posted on Facebook so because of this, we had some irrelevant answers which we have chosen to ignore to make sure our film is made to the best of our abilities.

Title Sequence Research Possible idea

For title sequences, I feel this is something that has to be well done and executed giving a sense of excitement. Whilst these are not direct to the film we are making, there are some ideas that might work with the film in a different way.

Psycho Opening Titles

Even though we are a sub genre of this genre and this has no relation to gaming, I feel there may be a way to interpret this into our film as during the film the titles they either move with the lines and with the full title of psycho it moves to the side and then back into position. I feel with this, it could represent the glitches if we did the same and to give a little clue that this is occurring. Whilst we don't want the audience to realise the truth, I do think we could get away with this as a little clue to what happens later in which David's world starts to glitch.

Location: House

Bedroom:

Although the bedroom we will be using is a girls room, we only need it for the scenes in which the protagonist sets and turns off his alarm clock, meaning the only part of the room the audience will see is the bedside table. The room colours aren't gender specific, therefore this room is easily adaptable should we choose to include more of it, for example, the floral bed sheets can be changed to a darker, more masculine colour, or even a plain white sheet.

Essential props for this location: alarm clock

Kitchen:

Again the kitchen isn't gender specific, nor is it obvious that the house is in fact a family one, and therefore helps create the idea that the protagonist lives alone with a well supported home for him and his beloved pet. Any personal picture the actual house owner has included can easily be removed, so can any items that a 20 something year old man may not have.

Essential props for this location: Kettle, mug, spoon, dog bowl, dog food. 

Doorway:

 Although this area of the house is quite small, it is a great place to film any shots we wish to include of him entering and exiting his home to and from work.

Essential props for this location: Dog basket, keys

Filming Diary - Set Days

Whilst this filming schedule is something that we are intending to stick to, there may be occasions where we will not follow the schedule. If so, we will arrange other days to film.