Text: Savage Five
Editor: Mr. Friday
Picture: network, video screenshot
Friday: "The Hummingbird Project" is a business genre with entrepreneurial inspirational themes. It has a certain routine. The only difference is that it is anti-inspirational, so there is the theme of "speed and slow confrontation" in the play. Fast is relative to entrepreneurship, and slow is relative to life. Obviously the director is making a fuss about the conflict between these two things. This is a cliché theme setting, not worth mentioning. The problem is that the method of filming that achieves this goal is worthy of our study and reference (a closer analysis, you will find that almost all film language designs are focused on the theme). This is actually the advantage of Western commercial films. If our screenwriter and director did not realize this, he would not even be able to copy it! This article will take a look at how the director uses those methods to attract the audience to the thematic confrontation.
(Note: 1. This article is about spoilers. Reading before watching the film will seriously affect your viewing and thinking pleasure; 2. "The Hummingbird Project" is currently being shown in theaters across the country;)
1. The beginning of the chapter, looking down and looking up, opens the prelude to the "confrontation between fast and slow"
The first three minutes of the movie began with a large panoramic overhead shot, the camera moved horizontally, and several cars under the highway crossed the screen like spots.
Immediately afterwards, the camera shakes, and two people sitting on horizontal chairs appear in the picture. It is an entrepreneur and an investor talking about a cooperation project.
From a plot point of view, this is an ordinary entrepreneurial inspirational title. But the director cleverly used visual contrast to show it, which not only explained the plot, but also produced the dramatic tension on the theme. Where is the tension, let’s take a closer look:
"Panoramic overhead shots of the motorcade driving on the highway" reflects the sense of space and speed, which belongs to the fast track of entrepreneurship, and the "two-person bench conversation" reflects the thinking in life, which belongs to entrepreneurial motivation and character personality. This slow line. Obviously, from a visual point of view, the two images are full of contrasts. It can be said that the director has already opened the prelude of the "fast and slow confrontation" in the first three minutes, but this prelude is purely visual cinematic.
Unsurprisingly, afterwards, all movies have been developed around confrontation dramas. Almost all fixed shots are talking about life and entrepreneurial motivation, and they are countering the urgency of starting a business (that is, slow and fast counteracting).
Second, the blinding methods played by professional terms, props, and numbers
To construct a conflict between the pros and cons, we must first clarify what the pros and cons are doing (that is, the entrepreneurial projects of the characters in the movie). The thing is simple. The two protagonists in the film want to build a 1,000-foot fiber between Kansas and New Jersey.
Not only must the matter be stated clearly, but it must also be believed that this is a reliable truth. How to achieve this depends on the "realism" of the film. In this regard, once the movie entered the topic, it was a bombardment of professional terminology and professional equipment: what pulse, neutrino, hub, what data line, engineering drawing, stock index, and what excavator, Measuring instruments and even speedboat helicopters...
Even the director has to add subtitles on the screen to remind the specific coordinates of the progress of the project...
All of this visual and auditory senses are on the battlefield, who can doubt that it is not a real story!
But please pay attention to everyone: this movie is really just an old stalk of the "tortoise and the hare". It's awesome in "realism" and "details."
3. Three magic weapons for "fast"
Reality alone can’t satisfy the audience’s need for dramatic storytelling. Therefore, the director and screenwriter used the three great axies of tried-and-tested commercial films——
1. Set up roadblocks
This roadblock refers to the ups and downs in the entrepreneurial process. Take, for example, the hurdles of forming a professional team, such as persuading employers to allow pipelines to pass through hurdles underground, or the 1 millisecond time difference that technicians must overcome.
Almost every step forward in the film’s protagonist’s entrepreneurial journey is blocked by a corresponding “hurdle”. I have to say that this makes entrepreneurship look even more exciting!
2. Set an anti-angle
There must be a big contradiction behind these roadblocks, which can make the confrontation look more intuitive and visual. At the same time, it can also balance the male to female ratio of actors and enhance vividness and comedy. So there was the appearance of the female boss Ava.
She established her own image and story mission from the very beginning. That's right, she is a big contradiction to the startup project.
3. Set character motivation
This refers to the protagonist’s motivation for starting a business. This motivation is usually presented progressively from both explicit and implicit aspects. The film is shown separately through the two entrepreneurial protagonists Anton and Vincent.
Anton’s motives are obvious and intuitive, as the movie begins: buying a house on the mountain.
Vincent’s motivation was invisible and more abstract, and he explained it in a later conversation with his partner: about success, about father...
Regardless of whether these motives are explicit or implicit, whether they are making money or being inspiring, in short, it makes people who watch them more sympathetic to the role and expect them to succeed in their business. In my opinion, this is one of the purposes of the director's motivational play: to win over the audience.
These three tactics are enough to capture the audience's psychology, but they are not enough to make the story more dramatic, so the movie releases another big move in the middle to make the time of entrepreneurial projects more urgent and the desire for success Stronger. Let's continue to watch-
4. "Cancer" further enhances the urgency of starting a business
In the movie, the male protagonist Vincent, who is the leader of entrepreneurship, was diagnosed with cancer, and the doctor emphasized that there is not much time left, and he must stop for treatment immediately.
This plot is equivalent to putting a countdown stopwatch in the hearts of the audience to strengthen the sense of urgency of time and consolidate the protagonist's persistence (or paranoia) to achieve the goal.
At the same time, this setting is also fighting against the "quick" of entrepreneurship. Since then, the hidden "slowness of life" in the theme has gradually gained the upper hand .
The movie arranged a "massage" scene when Vincent was so busy and was troubled by troubles. This is a typical example of the confrontation between slow and fast.
It's just that this desire to "slow down and enjoy life" begins with the actor's subconscious motivation. In other words, the male protagonist's thinking has begun to change, and he has begun to doubt the correctness of entrepreneurship.
5. The hidden speed conflict between the two protagonists
We mentioned the entrepreneurial motivations of the two protagonists in the previous article: one is explicit and intuitive, and the other is implicit abstraction. In fact, under this difference, there are hidden conflicts in their motives. Let’s look at some detailed pictures——
Did you find out? Whenever talking about work, Anton always "eats", in other words, what Anton shows is the side of life, his behavior is not compatible with the fast start of.
Another plot of flying by plane better confirms this contradiction:
Anton’s fear of flying causes the two to change their cars and slow down.
Obviously, instead of saying that the two protagonists show two different motivations for starting a business, we can say that they are two irreconcilable contradictory products designed around the theme of the movie "speed" . From a story perspective, this setting only strengthens the tension of the drama.
You know, almost all of these directors are done with visual language and actor's action performance, rather than rigid preaching outside the language of the movie, this is the gap.
Sixth, the upgraded scene at the end allows slow to beat fast
In the end, slow defeated fast—the two protagonists were no longer obsessed with the success of their entrepreneurial projects, but settled down to savor the meaning of life. So, how does visual language accomplish the ending of this theme?
This time it’s more straightforward, and the lens is directly upgraded.
The movie ends in these slow motions. Since then, the speed of the confrontation is clear.
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