Manhattan 1979

The opening to Manhattan (1979) hits the auidience immediatly with a montage of picturesc and romantic shots with lots of quick jump cuts peiced together to establish an attractive and alluring image of New York, This image of New York is vital to the rest of the plot because the main character Isaac (Woody Allen) is writing a book on his love for New York. The distance of the shots range from medium shots of children playing to extream long shots of fireworks exploading over the Empire State building. This allows the auidience to form a picture of New York as a whole, from the grandour of the soaring sky scrapers to the squalor of the city streets. This is similar to the feel I want to create in my film. Whilst I cannot create an entire city, I can use similar techniques to that of this film to form the illusion that the events that are occuring are also affecting the world on a much wider scale.

The classical music during this opening (rhapsody in blue by George Gershwin) helps to submerse the auidience even more into the feelings and culture behind New York allowing the auidience to feel so much more engaged with the setting. This coupled with the smooth voice of Woody Allen giving a voice over on the allure of New York makes the setting almost irresisitably attractive. Yet you can always hear the background noise of traffic to increase the sense of realism.

In conclusion whilst the scale of this opening is very difficult to recreate, in terms of cinematography it is a very similar feeling to that which I want to make in my film.

25 word pitch

A mysterious stranger relays the trail of events that turn a happy relationship into a global apocalypse in this  curiosity fueled drama.

Mood Board

I have chosen these pictures because they represent a similar post apocalyptic world to the one that I wish to recreate. They show that humanity has turned in on itself and formed a new anarchic way of living amongst the rubble and the chaos. Whilst I understand that it will be difficult to recreate this kind of chaos and anarchy in a two minuet film I believe that it will be possible to show this kind of destruction on a much smaller scale and then use editing and dialogue to make the audience believe that this situation is a global issue.