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Autistic Cinematography

L

LadybugFeatureFilm

Hey everyone!

I'm making a film with an autistic main character and wanting to get a bit creative with POV shots for this character and perhaps non-POV shots of the character too.

Some features of autism (and how I'd like to highlight it using the camera):
- lack of eye contact (POV shots with the other person's eyes or face mostly out of frame or out of focus)
- poor attention span (POV shots with lots of looking around or focusing)
- obsessive with a specific area of interest (POV shots looking at object related to obsession rather than what they should be looking at - e.g. person speaking)
- repetitive or restrictive behaviour (repetitive/identical framing during repetitive activities/rituals - e.g. morning routine)
- dislikes change (when change happens or character loses it a bit, go overexposed or if character starts shutting down/shutting out the world go underexposed)

Was wondering if anyone else had any ideas/suggestions/thoughts/comments/etc????
Would love to get some crazy/wacky/weird/wonderful/odd stuff in there!
 
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Yeah, I imitatively thought of every POV where hes looking at someone, a slow slide away from the face, too much and it would look campy, but maybe just a little slow drift to the side never holding still, with sudden BURST of zoom and hyper attention on unrelated detail. Etc..
 
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Is this supposed to be comedy, or serious? For comedy, I think you could work wonders with POV, especially if the ENTIRE thing is POV. For drama, I think I'd prefer to just leave it up to the actor to get us inside their head. In drama, I think a POV shot would just be distracting.
 
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LadybugFeatureFilm said:
Thanks for your thoughts/ideas ...

It is a drama, yes.
Click to expand...

Ok, well, perhaps I'm not seeing what you envision for this, so I could be completely wrong. That being said, my intuition tells me that POV wouldn't be the best for drama. In my opinion, cinema is most heartfelt when we're able to make the audience forget that they're watching a movie. For me, a POV shot is just about as extreme an example as you can get that will scream at the audience that what they're watching isn't real. I think drama works best when they can be a voyeur, pretend like they are there, watching what is happening. But when you switch to POV, that's no longer voyeuristic -- now we're supposed to pretend that we're inside the brain of one of the characters; requires a great deal more of suspension of disbelief.

Were you thinking of doing just a couple shots POV? Or, were you thinking of doing the entire thing POV?

I think it could work if you went all the way. If you go back-and-forth between POV and "regular" shots, then I think it would probably have the effect of emotionally disengaging the audience. But if the whole damn thing is shot POV, I imagine it wouldn't take very long for the audience to settle into this unusual viewpoint, and before you know it, they're feeling everything our protagonist feels.

All or nothing. For what it's worth, that's my vote.
 
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I think you've persuaded me on that point!

(I was wanting to do a mix, but still only two or three POV shots in the film with the rest normal -- but you've comment has lead me to think twice).

Doing the entire thing POV would be amazing! I'll have to think more about this ... but it would require a fair bit of difference (as has been done a fair few times) - though considering the character is autistic there is room for a lot of difference. Wow. The more I think of it the more it sounds really interesting .. but I dunno, unsure if it is going too far for my story. Does make some parts of the story harder to tell too (i.e. if restricted to just one character's worldview/emotion/thought/physical view/actions/etc) - could change/mold things to this idea, but not sure if it would flow as naturally in some points. There is so much you could explore though! I dunno ..... you've gone and tempted me to go in a direction I would never have considered (but now I'm stuck at the decision)!! I suppose the most crucial question is - does a POV only film lend itself to my story? Sort of, but not entirely. Naturally, as an autistic character it's going to be difficult at some points in the story for the audience to understand/feel connected to the character when he goes and does very autistic (to the normal person odd/bizarre) things (e.g. refuse to go out because it's a certain day). At those points I was planning to partially swap to Emily (the lead supporting/autistic character's love interest) as the 'protagonist' (however I have been debating recently whether she should actually be the protagonist for the entirety of the film - but I digress!).

Yea .. so I dunno. I like the idea and think it's got a lot of potential for creativity but not sure whether it will ultimately be worth it from a storytelling perspective? Thoughts would be *greatly* appreciated ....

However, I was planning to do a montage of bugs/insects/spiders/etc (as the autistic character is obsessed with entomology) for the opening of the film to put opening credits over and introduce a main theme - but what if all those shots were actually POV? I.e. have all those shots then the very last shot his hand enters frame to pick it up, and he carries it inside, or another character (e.g. his mum) tries to get his attention? (I liked this idea when I thought of it - not that I'm biased! :P)
Again ... thoughts greatly appreciated!
 
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Buzzing and Flickering florescent lights
screaming CRT tvs

I love the over exposed idea - perfect.

When stressed, sounds become painful over a certain - relatively low - value, they are generally accompanied by a low rumble as the muscles in the head try to shut the earholes to block the sound... it's a bit like the panic feeling like having water go in your mouth unexpectedly - a bit of a drowning in sound.

One of the coping (I'm a high functioning Asperger's kid :) ) mechanisms I use is to watch the lips of a person talking to be able to process their language.
 
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Its been a couple days now. Just to let you know. My original reaction when I read autistic cinematography was: BWAHAHAHAH!!!! Maybe you can shed some light on an unfunny issue. Rainman has set autism so far behind, in research, it just isn't funny, anymore.
 
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Murdock said:
Its been a couple days now. Just to let you know. My original reaction when I read autistic cinematography was: BWAHAHAHAH!!!! Maybe you can shed some light on an unfunny issue. Rainman has set autism so far behind, in research, it just isn't funny, anymore.
Click to expand...

I asked, and LadyBug did say that this is a drama, not a comedy. I do think it possible (though difficult) to do this in a way that is enlightening, sincere, and emotionally engaging. The possibilities are limitless. It could end up laughably cheesy, or it could end up heart-wrenchingly-touching, or anything in-between. Only one way to find out.

In my opinion, the vast majority of movies that deal with mental-illness are not just unrealistic, but insulting and offensive. I'm kind of side-tracking here, cuz it's a completely different issue, but if you want to see a movie that treats a mental-illness with respect and dignity, and depicts it accurately, watch Jamie Foxx in "The Soloist". I don't feel like getting into personal details on this public forum, beyond saying that it hits home. They really nailed it, 100%.
 
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I would personally say make it and see if it works... it could provide to be a wonderful insight that no one expects. So much cinema is expected, it takes trying to show something new to do it... I'd like to see it... Beautiful Mind and Little Man Tate both showed me that others saw numbers and patterns the way I did (although much less subtly than it works in my head -- and they're both waaaayyyyyyyyyy! better at it) -- before that I couldn't explain it, these gave a reference for doing so.

Please make a record of the world the autistic sense. It has the possibility to enrich the world. Please show that. I want to see it... but make sure the story is good.
 
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Thanks for weighing in everyone!

After reading some of these replies and chatting with friends I'm probably going to include only one POV shot at the very start of the film, as per previous post:
I was planning to do a montage of bugs/insects/spiders/etc (as the autistic character is obsessed with entomology) for the opening of the film to put opening credits over and introduce a main theme - but what if all those shots were actually POV? I.e. have all those shots then the very last shot his hand enters frame to pick it up, and he carries it inside, or another character (e.g. his mum) tries to get his attention
Click to expand...

For the rest of the film I'm going to try to experiment with some of the same ideas I had for the POV shots, but use them in a non-POV fashion (e.g., no eye contact - only see lower half of the face in a CU shot when a character is speaking (not all the time of course, I will try to use it tastefully and where it helps the story)).

Will continue experimenting/playing with ideas and thinking out loud on this thread; thanks everyone for your input! (Also, I will be checking this thread intermittently so feel free to keep leaving feedback/suggestions/ideas/etc ...)
 
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Personally I wouldn't bother using POV. I think it's a bit overdone and amateur.
You can have a contrast in how you shoot specific characters. For example if your protagonist is autistic, then shoot all his stuff very stiff, rigid, locked down to reflect his inability to change.
When shooting other characters you can have a more fluid look to it.

With cinematography it's really deciding a rhythm and pattern you want to adopt for specific things you want to reflect to the audience. It can be metaphoric and not necessarily all about literal.

Also other than cinematography, there are many many other ways to reflect autism.
Some examples are color palettes (plain for protagonist colorful for others?), editing (contrast in tempo), and sound design (maybe as a way of reflecting his inability to pay attention).
Anyways these are just a few ways you can really beef up your film, especially since it's a feature.
GOOD LUCK!
 
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