For this project our group met a total of three times for filming as well as scheduling over facebook. On the first meeting we planned our project and Sean wrote out a storyboard of the scenes for that day. We collaboratively came up with a general script for our project, utilizing improvisational acting for added comedic effect. We also filmed a few preliminary scenes to get a feel for what the finished project would eventually look like. The second day we reshot some scenes and got the majority of our footage for the upcoming rough cut due date as well as extra B-roll. Sean edited the footage together. Once we received feedback from the class for our rough-cut, we polished and finalized our vision pending the final due date. The final project reflects our hard-work over the past few weeks in bringing our production to life. In this project my main role was as an actor however I also contributed ideas to the storyline and set design. Overall I would say that group chemistry was very good, all of my group members were very professional and knowledgeable in regards to filmmaking and generous with their time, I would gladly work with them again.
This scene could be called a microcosm of the entire movie, as it depicts Llewelyn Moss being pursued by the violence his own greed has brought upon him, a violence which ultimately becomes personified by the disturbing and enigmatic Anton Chigurh. The scene begins in darkness with a long shot that shows the blue light of the pre-dawn horizon and the bright contrasting yellow headlights of a truck alone and framed by the darkness; coming closer. The next shot is another long shot of Llewelyn as he narrowly avoids being shot, focusing the tension and showing just how dangerous the situation is, but still from a distance. Though Llewelyn manages to avoid being shot, the truck continues to pursue him, which as with the other times Llewelyn narrowly avoids death shows how though Llewelyn can miss a bullet or even two, his enemies will not stop and he will never be safe again. In the next scene we pull in to a medium close up of Llewelyn under the truck where he has crawled for cover and we can see the fear in his eyes. This shot serves to place the viewer in Llewelyn’s shoes as we hear the truck approaching and the camera cuts back to the bright headlights coming closer through the blue darkness. Then the camera pulls back to a medium shot as Llewelyn leaves from under the truck and the chase begins. We cut back and forth between the perspective of the pursuers and a shot in front of Llewelyn silhouetted by the headlights. This allows us as viewers to assume the role of the pursuer and the pursued, running in front of Llewelyn and looking back to see the truck approaching. Both shots employ jittering camera movements which provide a sense of immediacy and evoke the feeling of panicked running as the two perspectives near a collision. This scene takes place in an empty desert, though other scenes take place in more populous areas the feeling of lawlessness remains. In the desert, as in the entire movie, there is no one around to save Llewelyn and all he can do is run. The identities of the men who chase Llewelyn remain nebulous because they are in essence a force of nature. The headlights of the truck are not just headlights, but fate catching up with Llewelyn despite his best efforts. The headlights come from the same direction as the sun illuminating the night and they mimic its inevitability, Llewelyn can no more outrun his enemies then he can escape the rising dawn. More evidence of this can be seen in the cover for the film which uses a similar composition to this segment. In the films cover we see the same empty open desert with Llewelyn running for his life. The difference here is that in place of the truck’s headlights we now have the eyes of the nigh-elemental Anton Chigurh rising from the horizon. This is why the people who drive the truck following Llewelyn aren’t identified, because they are representative of violence and the inevitability of fate.
Daniel de Castro 