Saw 0.5

This is the original short film that I mentioned two posts ago upon which 'Saw' was based. It begins with white noise as you'd get on a television screen - in itself this is a little unsettling, as it has become associated with horror (in 'The Ring', the film 'White Noise', and others) and generally a loss of communication, giving connotations of isolation. As well as this, it links to the video played later in the story. However, there are only about 2 seconds of this white noise! After that, we see lots of graphics that we can just make out to be blueprints of some kind of contraption cut one after another at high speed, while tension is build using an accompanying sharp, non-melodic sound, which increases in pitch and bears a resemblance to the sound of a tape being wound on fast-forward. After this we again have a fleeting shot of a 'snowy' screen. This is replace with a white screen, on which the title 'SAW' is punched in red letters, one by one, whilst in the background the music has changed to percussion with a low, minor strings underneath it, which are interrupted when once again the blueprints and 'snowy' screen image returns. The image cuts to CU of an ashtray with a cigarette in it, the packet and a cup in the background. A hand comes into the shot and picks up the cigarette, at which point there is a cut to a MCU of a detective, then to a MCU of the man smoking the cigarette. It is high-key lighting but with a cold tone - blues, greys, and whites. He has blood on his face, his clothes are looking worse-for-wear, he is handcuffed and he looks very shaken, with one arm crossed over himself in a defensive position. The camera moves out so we see more of the man, whose name we now know is David, and some of the table. As David mentions the photos, there is a cutaway to a photo on the table of a sinister looking chair, then to a syringe in an evidence bag, and the camera pans to a photo of a scalpel surrounded by blood. The camera cuts back to the arc around the table, where it has come to rest in position framing an OTS MS of David. The detective asks him for his story, and there is a cut to a CU of the detective. Back to the OTS shot, and David begins his story, putting his cigarette to his lips. There is a flashback, starting with a graphic match to the previous shot, as David is lighting a cigarette, which makes the transition much smoother. The music we heard in the opening titles starts up again, and we have a mini-montage of him getting ready to leave the hospital. He bumps into a nurse, who tells him to put out his cigarette, and he says he is - he's taking it out with him. There are good match-on-action shots here, demonstrating good use of continuity techniques. The nurse tells David the cigarettes will kill him, to which he replies 'living is overrated'. There is a small track and a pan as the camera follows David towards the lift and he puts on headphones, at which point the music we'd been hearing becomes diegetic, coming from his headphones. However, it slowly fades out, and is replaced with an eerie, atmospheric sound, similar to that of an arriving lift, but that the audience will probably attribute to whoever is approaching him from behind. We get this impression from the slow forward track to David's back that acts as a POV shot. A hand comes into shot and taps him on the back, and he turns and is knocked out. The effect of this is created using a fade-out to bright white, followed by a quick fade back in to a MS of David in the interrogation room, ending the flashback. As David talks, the camera very slowly, almost unnoticably zooms in closer, with occasional cuts back to the detective, ending on a BCU and another flashback, this time created with a small tilt upwards and a dissolve into the image of a 'snowy' screen and white noise, which in turn dissolves into a shot featuring the top half of David's head - another graphic match creating a smooth, effective transition. Here, however, the lighting has a green tinge to it and is low-key, and David has some kind of contraption attached to his head. He looks down at it and starts to panic, and the accompanying sound is parallel to this - high pitched, frantic strings with no tune. The camera reverse tracks to a MLS and we can see he is in some kind of cell and tied to a chair. Cut to an EHA ELS of the whole setup, which acts as an establishing shot. There is the sound of thunder and we get the effect of lightning, before a cut to an ECU of David from the side, so we can see the contraption better. He is panicking and confused, and looks around the room while the camera arcs around him. Lights flash, and he struggles to free himself, which we see at various shot distances. The audience is given a glimpse of the back of the contraption, where a timer is fitted. This creates suspense - we don't know when it will be set off, if the timer has started yet, etc., and David is unaware of its existence. Suddenly the television flickers to life and the image of the puppet appears. It is highly disturbing because puppets were originally toys to amuse children, but this one is grotesquely caricatured, and coloured only with black, white and red. When applied to this situation, it is a very chilling image, particularly when it starts to speak. It turns to the camera, as though it is inside the television looking at him. [Although the voice is quite creepy, it did at some points remind me of Bruce the vegetarian shark from 'Finding Nemo'... not sure why, perhaps just the Aussie accent?] The puppet greets David with his name, and says 'I want to play a game', again, playing on the children theme, the sense of fun and innocence, and subverting it completely. He explains how the device attached to David works, and gives a demonstration. The timer on the 'reverse bear trap' in the video goes off, and we hear ticking, like that of a clock; there's a cut back to the establishing shot, and then see what the device does in the video. The puppet tells him there's a key to the device - in the stomach of his dead cellmate - and that he has to make his choice - live or die. The video ends and at this point (5:11 minutes into the clip) David goes into a complete frenzy, panicking like mad, which is echoed and transferred to the audience by the use of editing here - jump cuts and under-cranking are used, and quick cuts between a MS of him in the chair to closer shots, where the camera arcs around, and they are faded together. Again, the music is parallel, with a screeching sound & what we associate with electricity. In his frantic desperation, he frees himself - and in doing so, triggers the timer. He realises with horror, and we get a cutaway to the timer, and hear the ticking sound. Again he panics and tries to pull it off his head, but fails. The lights in the room are flashing, adding more horror to the scene. The flashback ends again with a cut back to a CU of David, who looks extremely disturbed and agitated. The detective is presumable reading his statement and explains that that's when he saw the body - cue flashback, but done with a simple cut this time, to a handheld camera tracking David. This scene is really chilling, as just as David finds the scalpel and is about to cut into the body's stomach, he realises the man is, in fact, not a corpse, but has been put under paralysis. The man pleads with his eyes, but we can tell that David is fighting with himself to do this because he doesn't want to die - these shots are interspersed with cutaways of the timer. The frenzied strings are back, building tension once more. At the moment he raises the scalpel, the flashback ends again. When we return to the flashback, we see the shadow from the flickering lights of David cutting into the man, more cutaways to the timer, getting ever closer to the end, and his bloody fingers as he finds the key, and it gets tenser and tenser - will he get it off in time? [of course, we know he does because we've seen him alive and ok in the interview, but we don't think about this in the suspense and excitement of the moment]. He gets it off just in time as it snaps open, and we have a MCU of his blood-covered face and hands as he screams and sobs at his ordeal. Then the figure from the video enters the room on a squeaky tricicle - another child's toy - and congratulates him. The explanation we are offered for the actions of David's tormentor is that 'most people are so ungrateful to be alive, but not [David]. Not any more.' [This reminds me of the scene in 'Fight Club' with Raymond K. Hessel - Tyler threatens him with a gun and makes him think he will kill him, then lets him go, but tells him to go out and become a vet, as he had wanted to do. He says the next day will be the best day of Raymond K. Hessel's life.] The flashback ends with a dissolve back to the interrogation room, and once again the camera moves from David to the back of the detective, creating an OTS shot, where the detective asks him, 'are you grateful David?', at which point David completely breaks down. The film ends with a fade to black, and to an old, derelict bathroom, where the camera zooms towards the end wall, where a hole appears and an eye can be seen looking through. The title 'SAW' appears again, the 'A' where the eye is, and music is once again what we heard in the opening. The shot cuts to black and the credits begin.