Further Short Film Inspiration - Theme of memory

Research into creating a sense of memory through film

I have been researching several films and techniques in filmmaking which aid in creating a memory or dream like sequence. Although our idea does not have to come across too literally to viewers, we have been trying to think about and plan out how we can visually create the impression that the content is a series of memories and therefore does not necessarily have to flow in a chronological order to viewers.

 
Example - 'Quicksand'
Dir. Lance Oppenheim
http://www.shortoftheweek.com/2013/08/01/quicksand/

A short film that I came across quite early on within this research is 'Quicksand', which is currently featured on the Short of the Week website. This has become a really useful film to come across in my research, as some of the ideas used work very effectively and I feel similar ideas to how the piece comes together could be applied to our own work. Although this film takes more of a documentary style approach, the content is still relevant and has been useful in terms of sparking new ideas for how to visually approach the theme of memory, and in particular, showing forgotten memories.

The use of the flicker effect alongside the blank white space is an element of the film that I felt communicated the concept well and connected the viewer to the character's perspective, as he deals with his own memory loss and concentration on trying to remember.

Watching this short film has given me an insight into how the concept of memories, or pieces of memory can be achieved visually in more ways than one. For example, the way in which the film both begins and ends with snapshot images really gives the viewer the idea that they are being shown memories, and this is something that we could perhaps think about incorporating into our idea in a similar way.

The sound use is also very effective in leading the narrative and focusing on connecting memory with a sense of time within this film, and the clock in particular at the beginning is an idea that I have thought about incorporating  alongside different visual areas of our film.