All Work and No Play

Description

We based our project on the 1920s Soviet Union editing style “montage,” specifically using techniques from Sergei Eisenstein. We did this by basing some of our shots off of some shots in Eisenstein’s films, like Strike (1925) and Battleship Potempkin (1926).

Our main plot was to have a contrast between doing schoolwork and playing video games/procrastinating, leading to the person procrastinating more than doing work to the point that they aren’t getting things in on time and failing. This is why the short film starts with the title All Work and No Play and ends with the title All Play and No Work.

We wanted to have two contrasting shots like the cow being killed and the people fighting in Strike. This contrast came out in our main character doing homework in some shots and playing video games in other shots. Over time the character progressively started being more focused on the video games and less focused on doing homework.

The montage comes in the editing of the different scenes. We don’t have every scene shot at the same angle as a wide shot. Instead, we varied the shot angles and did close-ups on certain things. For example, we did a close-up on our main character’s feet. This was a foot shot just like the soldiers in Battleship Potemkin. We also did close-ups on objects like the notebook the main character was doing their homework in and the Nintendo Switch that the main character was gaming on.

Filming this short was a very interesting experience for us. It was tricky to figure out ways to limit our use of camera shots and angles as we wanted to replicate the style used in the 1920s, which consisted mostly of stable and idle shots and angles with minimal panning. Subsequently, editing the film on Adobe Premiere Pro was another challenge for us as we spent a lot of time looking for ways to best replicate the montage style as we edited the footage. Plus, it helped us get more used to the software rather than going for the easier option (iMovie).

All in all, our film project All Work and No Play was inspired by Eisenstein’s use of “montage,” as we implemented techniques in our short such as cut contrasting, between schoolwork and video gaming, as well as close-ups.

- Murphy, Jayce, Alex, and Tim

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