Citzen Kane's Influence on AMNESIA.

Spatial distance in images has a huge impact on the subconscious of an audience... and they don't realize it at the time.  When we exagerate the distance of space between characters it exemplifies the distance in the relationship of the characters.

(picture is screenshot from "Citizen Kane")

Citizen Kane

Film scholars and historians view Citizen Kane as Welles' attempt to create a new style of filmmaking by studying various forms of movie making, and combining them all into one. The most innovative technical aspect of Citizen Kane is the extended use of deep focus.[27] In nearly every scene in the film, the foreground, background and everything in between are all in sharp focus. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Kane )

Flashforward to AMNESIA:

Welle's use of "deep focus" cinematography and exagerating distance between characters influenced my storyboarding when I redesigned the shot style of the film.  I decided to take some risks.  Use the camera as a psychological tool, as if a character itself, to provoke certain emotions within the audience to feel a certain way in certain moments.  Obviously, every film does this to some extent.  But I had felt that for that vast majority of the time filmmakers, especially Hollywood film directors, tend to take less risks on their shot choices and instead use industry-standard shot styles that have been in use for each genre.  The films that take risks of using unique shot styles either are praised or criticized. 

I decided with AMNESIA to use distance and "deep focus" both as key film techniques.    The idea was that Allan is distant from the other characters he is travelling with.  He doesn't trust them and in a sense he is in "another world"... kind of like those people who are in a deep thought and you're really not connecting.  He's searching for answers and asking questions.  They don't trust him and trust will take some time to build.  At times we are able to reveal some truth, but it is with hesitancy.  Should he trust them?  Should they trust him?  What's really going on?

(Allan asking "Sandra"  "what season is this?... It's been overcas since the day I woke up... but not much rain?"

(Sandra and Allan "Doesn't matter what season.  These are the type of storm clouds that don't go away."

One of the things that I did was to try to keep everyone in focus in the camera at all times as much as possible, except for the flashbacks or a few key moments.  Typically, Hollywood films followed a new shot design after Citizen Kane by going with "shallow depth of focus".  They keep either the foreground or background in focus with the other out of focus.  Sometimes they even employ "rack focus" .  This technique is the force the audience to focus on what the director wants you to focus on and not the other.  My concern sometimes is that we loose the facial reactions that are in the subtleties.  We you watch AMNESIA the first time you notice the main action going on, but if you watch it a second or third time you see more because I kept the focus pretty much the same on all things in the scene.

The other reason for this was that you would notice the spatial relation between what is in the background and foreground.  You notice why they are in the shot together and reflect on the relevance of it. 

(In this shot the gun stays in focus in the foreground while Allan Carter walks away in the background.  The natural reaction of the audience is, "What are you doing?  Don't leave the gun there!"  I wanted both in focus because I want to you connect both foreground and background and how they relate with out using dialogue.)

(Allan's head in foreground just over the edge of stone house wall and Sandra in the background.  At this point I wanted to show the distance in their relationship.  He did something in the last couple scenes and she's now a bit aloof. She is neither condeming his actions nor condoning but has decided not to talk about it.  Allan speaks his line, "Don't you think it's a bit cocky to be wearing red?")

(now I reversed it so that we are looking through the window behind Sandra looking at Allan.  Sandra is speaking and he is listening to her reaction. Sandra, "Why would you say that?")

(We flip back to the original shot for Allan's response "Just because it makes you an easy target?"

(We now move into a closer shot of Sandra.  It's becoming more personal, but they're still not connecting enough.  Sandra replies, "It's sentimental".

(We now move in closer with Allan saying his next line.  He's curious and asks her what her favotite line is from the book she has been reading.)

(We now move into the closest shot of the scene.  Sandra quotes the line from her book, which ends up being more of a statement about herself than anything else.

(We end of the conversation going back to the extreme over-the-shoulder shot, this time behind Sandra as she walks away.  Allan sees her leave, turns back to his journal.  She leaves the burned-down-stone house to go after AJ who is the one person who is causing the most amount of division between Allan and Sandra.  By going back to these extreme over-the-shoulder shots I am showing that yes, for a brief moment Allan and Sandra were connecting in those closer shots, but in the end they still have distrust and distance between them.  It will take something more than a quick exchange to connect the two and bridge this gap.

The "deep focus" and the exagerated distance shots were some of the ways that Citizen Kane had its influence on The Allan Carter Saga Part I: AMNESIA.