New ideas for Charlotte

Last week we had a meeting with Matt, Paul and Luke. We present our idea of the opening sequence. The idea seemed very interesting for everyone but the problem as they told us that these scenes need more investigations than we can afford and also the whole story is not suitable for filming in school conditions. So, Matt and Luke developed with us during this meeting three different ideas and asked us to forget about the scene of party which we planned. The main idea of Charlotte seeing dates of death is still the main thing in our plot however everything else will be changed. Matt suggested to put background voice of Charlotte explaining her special gift and her ability to see the numbers and Luke told us to search about Kuleshov's effect which we can use in our shooting and this will make our trailer more exciting.

The Kuleshov Effect is a film editing (montage) effect demonstrated by Russian filmmaker Lev Kuleshov in the 1910s and 1920s.

Kuleshov edited together a short film in which a shot of the expressionless face of Tsarist matinee idol Ivan Mosjoukine was alternated with various other shots (a plate of soup, a girl in a coffin, a woman on a divan). The film was shown to an audience who believed that the expression on Mosjoukine's face was different each time he appeared, depending on whether he was "looking at" the plate of soup, the girl in the coffin, or the woman on the divan, showing an expression of hunger, grief or desire, respectively. The footage of Mosjoukine was actually the same shot each time.

Kuleshov used the experiment to indicate the usefulness and effectiveness of film editing. The implication is that viewers brought their own emotional reactions to this sequence of images, and then moreover attributed those reactions to the actor, investing his impassive face with their own feelings. Kuleshov believed this, along with montage, had to be the basis of cinema as an independent art form.

So, since this meeting we started to think about the new interpretation of our idea and we took into account all what Matt, Luke and paul told us.