There have been quite a few similarities between this film and what I have been writing - which has been quite the surprise.
These similarities include:
Father and Son relationship that has tension.
An older hopeless looking man as the main character.
An overall tone of hopelessness.
Particularly long held shots.
I felt like I also learned a thing or two about film theory by doing this activity.
One thing I noticed was that the colour was there to describe the mood in a very particular way. I noticed the usage of red and green in particular. At the same time I was noticing the relationships of the characters and how there was an aspect of connection vs separation going on. All I knew was that these were different components of the film and went far enough to establish that they were tools being used. I felt like I wasn't making all of the connections just yet while I was watching the film. It wasn't until after I made the tension chart I realized that these two particular elements, amongst the other elements I was tracking, were being used in relation with one another. What I learned was that this film used the colour green to describe the aspect of connection happening between two people, whilst contrasting with notes of red when indicating a certain separation occurring.
I got a pretty good review of my tension chart, my teacher said the points were more or less where they should be. So here is an image of my tension chart separated into 3 Acts.
Act I
Act II
Act III
In looking back I realized there were more benefits to watching this film other than getting fairly good character reference for my farmer. I looked at the different components that I used in the tension analysis and everything except for the dialogue aspect are tools I can potentially be using.
I structured my tension chart around what I did for Paris, Texas. It was interesting finding where there were similarities - but there was one particular one that was more of a surprise. I wanted to record the act of removing the house and tornado and thought that it would be similar to the row I recorded the 'Mystery' in Paris, Texas. So I began plotting out the mystery behind my protagonist's psychology. This meant indicating things like the storm cut-ins at the beginning, the house disappearing, and the fact that he's imagined to be dead for a moment. As I wrote it out, I found some slots would be written simply explaining what the shot was... thus kind of taking away the value of having this be an aspect of tension that I am charting. I resolved to chart it a different way. I charted the thoughts behind it, conveying an inner dialogue that's directed to either the audience or just me. This opened up more detail for me to fill out for some scenes that weren't previously involved with this row of 'Mystery'. On top of that, it wound up serving as a parallel to the 'Dialogue' section I have in my tension chart for Paris, Texas, where I filled it out as both the actual dialogue and my inner dialogue.
My main critique is re-thinking how I filled out the climax of my film, so expect changes there. Until then, here is an image of my tension chart separated into 3 Acts.
Act I
Act II
Act III
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