Coen Brothers - 'Barton Fink' Guestbook Shot

In our over-the-shoulder letter shot, we tried to incorporate the Coen Brothers style of filming. Following the style of directing from the well-known ‘Barton Fink’, which showed a close up point of view shot of a spinning guest book. This proved aesthetically pleasing. Whilst the guestbook was being spun, the camera movement was rotating in the opposite direction, making the audience feel contempt with what they were consuming and an overwhelming sense of satisfaction. (0.25-8)

We wanted to transfer this feeling to our audience by using this kind of peculiar filming style in our final piece. We decided to use this in our a shot where our main character was opening a letter, this demonstrates the importance of it and how the ‘normal’ object will play such a significant part to our storyline. Also conforming to the theory that establishes a thriller, which Alfred Hitchcock said to be placing an “ordinary person in an extraordinary situation.”

Original clip of letter

After filming our shot for the first time, when we came to edit we noticed that there was flaring of the camera lens. The camera was unable to adjust to the sudden changes in the light, and the variance in the lighting caused the camera to not catch the shot in the way we intended. The change in light caused the camera to catch the glare through the windowpane and as a result, the letter switched between light and dark, due to the shadowing.

Next clip

We then re-filmed the shot, ensuring the camera flaring would not occur again. We prevented this by keeping the lighting consistent throughout the shot, holding the envelope at a steady angle away from the windowpane, removing the chance of the sunlight and shadows affecting the shot and transferring the chaotic light changes onto the envelope. It is essential to achieve the full potential of this shot as in this part the image of the hostage is revealed, and this is the starting point of where the extraordinary events will begin to occur, shaping the story for the “ordinary” character.

Ivana and Ellie