This is an idea i was highly considering for my film for the first semester of my second year at university, after developing it more and more i've put it on the back burner for now and might consider making it in the future with a few alterations. It's about the idea of perception and how as film makers we can make something seem one way when it actually isn't.
We’ve all seen those tense, seedy back room poker scenes in films, well what if they were playing snap for their lives?
The audience joins us half way through a game of killer snap, the game of which the viewers have no idea about. Two/Three players have already lost and are dead/unconscious at the table, this is where we begin. The camera doesn’t show what is happening in the middle of the table, only left to guess that whatever it is is lethal, throughout the film the game gets more and more tense as both players bang there hands on the table, the audience only hearing the sound of those bangs on the round wooden table.
They are smoking cigars, the room is full of smoke and the only light being the swinging light bulb above the centre of the table, creating a very noir look. One character is very confident and the other not so, he seems nervous and gets more and more anxious as time goes on and as the banging on the table gets louder and louder and more smoke builds in the room subtle hints begin to arise, you see the cards in one characters hands for the first time, you see that the dead/unconscious players have their hand still on the table with a card in it.
As sweat begins to fall on the characters faces and they have removed their jackets because of the heat and shear fear of being unlucky we finally see the centre of the table, a pack of cards slowly being placed down as the camera tracks slowly away from the table showing both characters in the limited light and as the final card is placed they smash their hands on the table and with an enormous bang the losing player falls in his chair, the winning character having no emotion but budding out his cigar in an ashtray and walking away as the camera carries on tracking backwards away from the table.
My inspiration for this film is the idea of perception. In life we are fed information which we are expected to believe, primary information is rare in civilization today. Media effects us all, and influences us to do what they want us to, to feel what they want us to feel, to have the opinions they want us to have, to spread their word. I wanted to create something to show how you can convince an audience something through the style in which something is filmed, making it seem like a game of poker where you are betting for your life and the winner shoots the loser as that could happen in the real world, when in actual fact it is a simple game of snap, with a little twist.
