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Night is Day: Dusk
A man has inadvertently acquired special powers that mean he cannot
touch anybody without electrocuting them. If someone touches him, however,
he will see their violent death. He acts as a lone vigilante to correct
fete.
Production
Sci-fi drama by writer/director Fraser Coull. Our
hero (Jason) is the victim of an accident that gives him the power to foresee
the circumstances of someone's violent death. He spends he time preventing the
death he foresees which inevitably leads him into gang-land Glasgow. During
these encounters he inevitably gets injured. His sanctuary is Sophie's flat,
where somebody he saved years ago helps him heal in time for his next heroic
act.
Post-production is now completed and premiere and
DVD release are expected in October 2005.
Description
The film opens with a street fight, where Jason
saves a girl from being attacked. He then goes to Sophies flat to get patched
up. This is quite an emotionally charged scene.
Sophies Flat mp3, 1 min 27 secs,
3,034KB - Jason, wounded by his earlier rescue, is in Sophie's flat. She patches
him up but warns him she won't be there to help him every time. The theme used
here is also used with different treatment in an earlier scene to tie the
un-named stranger to the guy in the Sophie's flat - Jason.
Later on in the film, Jason bumps into a stranger, electricity starts to charge
through his body, through his pain his sees the violent death of the girl he
just bumped into - Karis.
Jason's Vision mp3, 1 min 7 secs,
1,577KB - Jason is walking along a street when he knocks into a stranger, Karis.
Electricity runs through his body as he has a vision of Karis' imminent murder.
The opening bars of this clip are also used to open the film.
Composition
This film posed quite a few problems from a compositional point of view. The
opening monologue was pensive and thought provoking. The accompanying video was
quite sprightly. My first attempt was a deeply moving slow item to maximize the
impact of the monologue - when the edited footage came through, my guess didn't
fit very well. What was worse was that the two scenes out of three were also
slow and loaded with meaning. Once I'd produced what felt like "yards" of
melancholic sounds, you were a third of a way through the film - it was too
much!
The film is supposed to be thought-provoking - yes, but it is also supposed
to have action and suspense. To help this I wrote a much more animated opening,
which I then re-used and built on as the film progressed.
I supposed my anchor point for the entire film was the scene in Sophie's
Flat. This was the emotional pivot around which the rest of the plot revolved.
This was the scene I wrote first and spent the longest on. The interaction
between the two actors was at a slow tempo, lots of meaningful pauses between
dialog. It was my job to help with the meaning of those pause to support the
acting without getting in the way of the dialog. My first attempt described the
emotion of the scene well enough but distracted from the dialog - so in the bin
it went!
The other important role for the music in this scene was explain that the guy
who rescued the girl at the beginning was the same one as on the screen in this
scene. At the end of the film, I use the music again to explain that Jason is
again hurt and is returning to Sophie's flat once again.
Another difficulty is that the good guy had a predominance of deep and
meaningful scenes, where as the bad buy was all action, decisions, authority.
Initially I gave him his own theme, but he ended up being a bigger character
than the good guy. So I chose to only give thematic support to the good guys.
The film ends with music that isn't mine. In some ways it is a shame to sweat
over every nuance in every scene, carefully crafting the interaction between
themes, keys and textures - only to have somebody else's music played at the end
and they get to have their music remembered by the audience. But in this case,
the music chosen for the credits fits perfectly, it took me a few goes to be
able to handover to it properly but I think it really works well.
Despite the difficulties of this job - I have grown quite fond of the film,
it certainly has a special place in my heart. |
