We interpreted this song to be about the pain and fear associated with change, even if that change is positive. Although the lyrics seem to deal directly with change in relationships we felt that this could be expanded into a boarder context and this is what we aimed to show in our video. Our main focuses in shooting this film were juxtapositions of day versus night, winter versus spring, and movement versus stability. We tried to show various combinations of these shots with or without people in order to bring to light the loneliness often involved in these transitions.

We wanted to convey a mood or emotion and we felt that the combination of images used in the montage format does this better than the linear plots used in long takes. The reason that the montage format is able to convey our meaning so well is that we were able to use the comparison in images to show a change. As Eisenstein said in his essay, “The combination of two representable objects achieves the representation of something that cannot be graphically represented” (16). In our case, this representation is of the pain and fear of change. An example of this representation is the combination of images of each us looking upwards juxtaposed with the bright flash of the distorted sun. Another example is in the final sequence of our montage, where shots of us walking away from the camera are juxtaposed with a shaky and unstable point of view shot of footprints. This juxtaposition is meant to convey the feelings of an upset person, shaking and possibly even crying as they approach the future. Even though there is visible sunlight over the hill, they must first pass though the literal and metaphorical forest of uncertainty to get there-a terrifying process.

The form of montage allowed us to have repetition in the short film, which permitted us to repeat shots such as the sun and the swing set. These shots promoted continuity, despite the various settings of our shots. Montage also allowed us to repeat the same shot right next to each other, such as the long shot of Katie falling in the snow, and the boot splashing into the water. The falling shot shows the struggles in life, and later when Katie is shown again, it shows that you can come back from those hardships. The repeated shots of the boot splashing in the water symbolizes the missteps that happen in life, and how they can happen over and over again.

The various techniques and freedom that montage allows helped to convey our mood and theme of the film despite the lack of a distinct plot.

Works Cited
Eisenstein, Sergei, and Jay Leyda. Film Form: Essays in Film Theory. San Diego: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1977.

Group Members: Jack Clancy, AJ Guff, Flo El Kumeshi, Caroline Kahlenberg, Tara Quinn.

Manifesto:

The objective of our montage is to parody the way the term montage has come to be understood in Hollywood and the overall American film industry. We want our montage to address how this can be done successfully.

Through our readings on the theories of Pudovkin and Eisenstein in combination with our class understanding of montage, we have extrapolated Eisenstein’s formula with a twist. We employ the equation A+B=C as a means of colliding two disjunctive events to create meaning rather than narrowing in on the collision of two disjunctive shots. Given this variation of Eisenstein’s theory in conjunction with our storyline—in which two male athletes undergo intense training to open jars of peanut butter and jelly—we have constructed our own equation: Event A (training) + Event B (opening peanut butter and jelly jars) = C (parody).

In addition, we choose to convey the narrative without dialogue, but rather with music. We feel that the most effective means of communicating the narrative is contingent on the actions and expressions of the characters. Thus, playing “Eye of the Tiger” in correspondence with two athletes training guides the viewer to focus on the athletes’ actions and facial expressions. We further emphasize a viewer’s focus on the imagery through a synthesis of a series of short shots and close-up shots. Through this, we hope to overdramatize the characters’ actions, intensify their facial expressions, and capture their emotions.

We firmly believe that montage is the most effective vehicle for dramatizing and parodying film and that the long take would not have expressed our storyline properly. As mentioned above, the multitude of shots utilized in montage dramatizes characters’ actions and further constructs anticipation of what is to happen next in a scene. As a result, a series of multiple shots enables the viewer to invest his or herself in the scene and dedicate his or herself to the characters on screen. For example, the intercutting of short shots within the temporal ellipsis—which we include twice in our video—not only provides the viewer with a sense of time, but further causes the viewer to think about how the images relate to each other over time. The long take would have taken away from constructing a sense of time for the viewer and his or her anticipation of what is going to happen next.