Coffee Cup: Research

Coffee and Cigarettes: Somewhere in California

The theme of the film is absorption in the obsessions, joys, and addictions of life, and there are many common threads between vignettes (such as the Telsa coil, medical knowledge, the suggestion that coffee and cigarettes don't make for a healthy meal (generally lunch), cousins, The Lees (Cinqué, Joie, and a mention of Spike), delirium, miscommunication, musicians, industrial music, acknowledged fame, and the idea of drinking coffee before sleeping in order to have fast dreams). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_and_Cigarettes#Themes

Jim Jaramusch: Director

 "I'm behind my schedule because I wanted to shoot one or two each year, but I haven't shot any for four years now. The intention was to shoot short films that can exist as shorts independently, but when I put them all together, there are things that echo through them like the dialogue repeats; the situation is always the same, the way they're shot is very simple and the same - I have a master shot, if there's two characters, a two shot, singles on each, and an over-the-table overhead shot which I can use to edit their dialogue." http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/1999/nov/15/guardianinterviewsatbfisouthbank3

The film was released in 2004 and took 2 decades to make.  

The scene we watched was the third scene in the film featuring singers IGGY POP(left) and TOM WAITS(right).  The two men have met up for a coffee and to talk about their careers and what they are doing at the moment. They are also both trying to quit smoking so they then discuss it while having a fag. It is a very realistic scene and makes the audience feel awkward and also like a fly on the wall. They are sat in a diner and it comes across as quite late because it is very quiet and the actors seem tired. The scene is made up of 4 different shots that are very simple and there are no real cutaways. The only cutaway that I think would be there is when the camera is over the table and it creates a break as we watch them take their coffee have a drink and put it back. The scene lasts for around 10 minutes and i think this works because it feels like we are watching this conversation in real time, instead of skipping bits of speech to make different sentences. The pauses and the odd looks are really what make the piece work and make it awkward, which is what we are meant to feel. 

Butterface

This short film was directed by David McLaughlin and starred him and Margeux Dauquin. The film shows the awkwardness between two strangers when they sit on a train together, and the thoughts that may be running through their heads. We see a master shot of the two of them sat together on the train and then cutaways of what is passing by the train. The camera is on the train the whole time which I think is very good, because it is like some one else is sat there watching all this happen. All we hear is the ambience of the train and the voice over of the boy sitting down. This is a really good example of single camera but was effected by the location they chose. When the train had stopped and then the boy got up they had a cut of him in the toilets, when he returned you could see that they had done that in a few takes because the lighting had changed and so did the surrounding scenery. Also we can see that it was done in loads of different bits because when the camera has a close up of her face then pans round to see the passing scenery we can see that the direction changed, it is subtle but it still quite obvious.