Making of Collateral Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Making of Collateral - Essay Example It’s in this perspective that I will critically analyse how creative people have used films to give experience that people will always value. I will look at how the producers and director have put out a finished work that shows creativity and also the practical decisions they have made during the film making process. According to Irving and Rea (2006) filmmaking steps include the preproduction, production, postproduction, and distribution. Filmmaking has two-fold approach in which it is mainly centered on the perspectives of the producer and the director. Their (producer and director) different energies must always merge to create a winning short film or video from script to the final product. On the director’s perspective; Rabiger (2008) explains that directing covers the methods, technologies, thought processes, and judgments that a director must use throughout the fascinating process of making a film. Directing also should help you master technical and conceptual ski lls in the filmmaking process. â€Å"The first time we watch a film; we usually don’t know or think about the artistic decisions that were made during its production.† (Brown, 2002) In my case study, I examine how choices made by filmmakers, lead to artistic results by looking at the production of a single movie. My case study is based on the movie â€Å"Collateral† by Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx directed by Michael Mann. Boucher Geoff (2008) said "The movie had to communicate some inherent truth about the L.A. experience, and only one film per director was allowed on the list" in relation to the movie. Michael Mann’s ‘Collateral† was released in 2004. A psychological crime thriller set in Los Angeles. Vincent (Tom Cruise), a mystifying man hires Max (Jamie Foxx), a cab driver, to drive him to a string of appointments in one night. Max before long learns that those appointments are a chain of killings, he struggles to escape but Vincent forces h im to carry on as a reluctant getaway driver. During that period the two men wrangle verbally and in the end they confront one another. Mann and his crew made numerous decisions during the making of Collateral. Some of the choices made include: one that impacted the film’s form and one apiece for four categories of mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing, and sound. Scriptwriter Stuart Beattie originally set Collateral in New York City. Max was to be portrayed as a loser, hiding from the world in his cab and getting little out of life. Once Mann took charge as a director, he made numerous changes. The setting was changed to Los Angeles. Max became less a loser and more a laid-back, intelligent man content to observe the world from behind a steering wheel and to interact with his passengers, endlessly delaying his plans to start his own limousine service. The story largely consists of this pair interacting, so Mann’s decision to change Max’s traits altered the nat ure of the conflict between them. Max becomes our point-of-view figure for most of the film. Unusually for a film about a professional killer, we don’t see the first murder but stay with Max in the cab until the shocking moment when the body falls onto his cab roof. The switch to Los Angeles affected many aspects of the film’s style. One of the attractions was that this tale of a random crossing of destinies took place almost entirely at night, from 6:04 p.m. to 4:20 a.m. Mann wanted to portray the atmospheric Los Angeles night, this was to make use of L.A night as much of a character in the story as Vincent and Max were. This major decision created much of the film’s look. Mann was determined not to use any more artificial light than was absolutely necessary. He relies to