The Idea....
The sequence will be in rewound. It will begin with breaking glass rising from the ground and from a sink. The glass comes together into a mirror. Which a character is punching repeatedly and screaming spitting. Then the character is grabbing and shaking the mirror. Then the character is staring at the mirror. Then his eyes constrict. the artistic drugs taking shots. Then he takes the pill out his mouth and puts it into the prozac bottle. He then puts the prozac bottle back into the mirror draw. TITLES. Then the character is sitting in a doctor's waiting room, with his mum by his side. FADE TO BLACK
When I initially shared my idea with the group and my media teacher, Adam, he did not like it. He thought it was too short and wouldn't fit the 2 minute criteria. So he suggested that after the titles appear, that the opening titles would continue with the main character sitting in a waiting room. Which I thought was awesome! So I added it too the idea, and the group was convinced.
However one of the biggest and most complicated elements from this piece would be the broken mirror. I mean of course we couldn't have our talent breaking his knuckles in attempt to smashing a mirror, so what I thought we could do to keep the shot somewhat effective, but still sells the idea of the character breaking the mirror with his fist. Of course since it is in reverse we must of course have the glass returning back into the mirror frame because that will look sick, so how this should be done is by filming the bottom few inches of the mirror and then smashing the mirror at the top or middle with a hammer as the talent pretends to punch the mirror (for the reflection), then we will have the mirror glass cracking and falling down. Ok sick so we have the shot of the glass breaking, but how do we make it seem that it broke from the brute force of the talent? Editing, of course! So from the shot of the glass returning back into the frame, we can then have shot from the side of the mirror pointing at the talent acting out violently smashing the mirror while in fact he will be safely punch something... safe. But we will never see exactly what his punching do to the position of the camera, and the audience will assume it to be the mirror. Cools now finally to wrap it all together we will have a shot of him screaming and grabbing/punching the mirror from behind his shoulder. Now through the powers of editing we have a pretty sick looking scene... in theory.
Ok so now the research begins... How do we accomplish the look of the cracked mirror and then as well have shattered glass. Well this is what my group partner Haydon found.
On a filmmakers forum I came across here. They suggested to by a "candy glass" mirror.
However after researching and finding the price of this product.... It would be cheaper to use a real mirror, so that was the process we went with.
As well what we have to keep in mind when thinking about smashing glass is not only keep our talent safe but the safety of everyone on set. When we film the broken glass scene it must be done in a safe controlled environment. That is our next mountain we are going to need to conquer.
