Final Timed-writing

0430038
Baggio Hou
June 21,2007
Timed-writing Three

Direction: if you were to create a filmed advertisement (a trailer) for a movie based on the Grass-Eater, which scene would you select? Why? Discuss ways in which you might film the scene.

If I was to create a filmed advertisement (a trailer) for a movie based on the Grass-Eater, I would like to choose the scene that Ajit Babu’s wife is sleeping in a moving train while Ajit Babu himself is smiling besides, looking silently at his wife. The reasons why I select this scene are that:

First, this scene can present the theme of the film. As we know, a trailer should tell a movie viewer who are the protagonists of the story. Meanwhile, it needs inform viewers which theme the movie tends to focus on. In other words, from the scene, an ordinary people would get the information about what kind of people would appear in the movie and what their life patterns are. So in this sense, a scene in a moving train could serve this purpose. Ajit Babu and his wife are born in the low class of Indian Society and they even have no stationary home to live in. When they need a place to spend a night, they have to choose an “unwanted-looking” wagon. However, when they wake up in the second morning, they often find themselves in another place. -- when they are sleeping, the train has traveled from one city to another! Such experience is amazing for average people who have a stationary and comfortable home. But it is true for those who are suffering the starvation and exposure in India those days. So from this scene, potential views would see the misery of Ajit Babu and his wife and thus can understand the film itself more easily.

Secondly, the scene that they are sleeping in a moving train can help viewers catch the character of the protagonist of the story, Ajit Babu. He is smiling. He did not mind such adversity. In the film he enjoys such “thrilling experience”. Although his wife wants to live in a stable home, not hoping that their child will be born in a train, Ajit Babu thinks it is a place absolute free of charge and he can get complete freedom here. He always holds an optimistic view toward the adversity: in his value system, every difficulty can find its opposing explanation, which, in some sense, releases his distress in material world. So he is smiling in the moving train. From this detail in the trailer, a viewer can easily detect the character of Ajit Babu.

After I have chosen the scene that I would like to film, I would range the scene in this way: in the moving train Ajit Babu and his wife are wearing worn-out cloths. They possess nothing but few bowls and spoons, which they would use when they are begging for food. The night is deep. Through a small window of the freight train, one can find the objects outside are flying behind, which proves that the train is moving rapidly. In the train, Ajit Babu’s wife is sleeping leaning against Ajit Babu. Through the moonlight outside the window one can see that Ajit Babu is smiling toward his sleeping wife fondly, without any words. The train is moving, while such a peaceful scene would keep on until next morning.

Although this trailer I do not arrange the protagonist to speak even one word, I think it suffices to express what the film would talk about and may make viewers moving.

24.5.07 09:54