Part of executing the liveliness mentioned in my previous entry concerning Boogie Nights (1997), Almost Famous (2000), and City of God (2002) is studying those works and deciding whether or not to adopt their techniques. I found a lovely video essay on Youtube by Lewis Bond on City of God’s energy that I think will end up being pretty useful.
Bond ordered his essay by how characters, editing, structure, immersion, and environment attributed to City of God's vibrancy. I don't believe his commentary on characters will help me too much, just because I'm not planning on presenting more than three characters in my opening, or treating all characters with equal importance as I want to create a film with clearly distinct leading roles. However, I will take note of what Bond said about limiting the amount of scenes with only one character as the focus.
Regarding editing and structure, Bond explained how City of God never started in the beginning of a scene, but rather jumped from the end of one to the middle of another, maintaining pacing and excitement. I definitely think utilizing this technique would be beneficial to my project when establishing tone!
Furthermore, a major component of City of God's style is its camera movement. The camera is meant to mimic audience actions, double taking when something shocking happens, or even looking completely upside down. By doing so, the directors place the viewers in the scene, which I definitely think is fitting when trying to make a film feel alive, and would love to try out!
Until next time!
CS
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