Emma Cowley: Assignment 2
Film Research
Essay
Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a film starring Audrey Hepburn released in 1961. Holly Golightly, played by Hepburn, is a woman living a lavish, expensive lifestyle in NYC at the cost of her many wealthy lovers. She is paid to visit the prison, Sing Sing, to see a mafia man. On dates she gets “$50 for the powder room”, which she keeps for herself, never returning to the dates. Holly uses her freeloading tendencies to cover up her confusing past life, to cope with the death of her brother, and to avoid all of her financial, social and personal problems. Her favorite distraction is visiting Tiffany & Co. early in the morning to see the jewelry in the windows.
Paul Varjak, (Fred Darling) moves into Holly’s apartment building and they begin to spend time together until Paul becomes aware that he may also be used for his money, thus breaking Holly’s heart. Holly explains to Paul that she doesn’t believe “people belong to people”, and that her cat doesn’t even belong to her. The first time she meets Paul she says, “Tiffany’s calms me down right away. Nothing very bad could happen to you there. If I could find a real life place like Tiffany’s then I’d buy some furniture and give the cat a name!”
Even though she wears high-priced outfits (even wearing decorated earplugs to bed), throws packed apartment parties, and practices confidence and certainty, Holly struggles with her identity throughout the film. In the end, Paul explains to Holly that no matter where she runs, she’ll always end up running into herself, which prompts her to run after him on a rainy NYC street in the final scene. They also rescue Cat, whom she had thrown out of the cab just prior to her life-changing realization that people do belong to people. The overall tone of the film is mostly whimsical and adventurous but also has underlying feelings of grief, pity and intimacy.
Five words:
Classic
Lavish
Naive
Discovery
Urban
Words to Idea + Thesis Statement
This classic film chronicles Holly Golightly’s transformation from a naive gold digger with a secret past to an assured woman in love.
Visual Research (Inspiration Board/Collection)
Exploration/Formulation (Style Board/Examples/Studies)
Exploration/Formulation (Motion Tests)
Story Board
Pink squares pop up one by one starting from the bottom, then "produced by" then "Jurow-Shepherd"
Pink squares remain while names disappear one by one. Cigarette pops up, then "Audrey Hepburn" then "as Holly Golightly". Pink squares turn to gray one by one. Names disappear one by one then each square disappears one by one. Many of the elements in this title sequence simply pop in our out of the compositions—staccato-like.
Background color changes to orange. Cigarette begins to rotate clockwise to turn into a pen. Each element of the "check" appears individually (tan rectangle, then each blue line, "pay to order of", then "memo", etc). The pen moves from left to right, revealing each letter one by one of actor's name and character's name.
"a" in "as" begins to "jump" from its place into the next composition. Each element of the "check" disappears the same way it appeared; "pops out" of sight.
Background color pops to tiffany blue and each element of the "doorbell" pops in (orange rectangle, pink box, gold circle). The "a" from the previous composition seems to "jump" on the gold circle as if it's ringing the doorbell. Pink zig-zag shapes appear and seem to "buzz" while "Mickey Rooney" and "as Mr. Yunioshi" appear one by one, moving with the "buzz" shapes, as if they're dancing. The little "a" jumps off screen.
Each element of the previous composition begins to "pop away" one by one (actor and character name, orange rectangle, gold circle, etc) except for the pink square. When the pink square is alone on the blue background, it becomes "jumping" from left to right into the next composition.
The background pops to gold and the pink square continues jumping until it reaches a fixed point (top left of the group of squares) and the rest of the squares pop into view. Some of these squares alternate from pink to orange, like they're "sparkling."
solid blocks of color representing begin to pop in and more pink squares appear on the blue building (representing windows). These pink blocks continue to alternate between pink and orange. "Patricia Neal" appears and then "as 2-E".
Each element pops out of view, beginning with the actor and character names. Only the tan rectangle is left. Background color changes to pink.
The tan rectangle begins to "fill up" but gold bubbles (representing liquor) one at a time starting from the bottom.
The tan rectangle or "cup" suddenly "spills" and all of the gold circles pour out to the left. "Directed by" pops up and then "Blake Edwards". The smallest gold circle begins to bounce on the director's name (in front of "directed by") and then bounces off the spilled cup into the next composition.
The small gold circle continues to bounce, using the bottom of the composition as a surface. It bounces into the next composition. Background turns to tiffany blue again.
The gold ball jumps into its fixed position, at the top of the "telephone dial". The circles begin to change colors (pink, teal and gold) as the "windows" did in an earlier composition. The base of the phone appears and then the handheld part.
As the dial buttons continue to change colors, or "blink", the background color changes to orange. The top part of the phone "tilts" to the left and the words "Music by" appear on the left side. "Buzzing" icons, similar to the ones in the doorbell sequence appear, signifying that the phone is ringing.
The background color suddenly changes again to pink and the top part of the phone tilts to the right and the name "Henry Mancini" appears on the right side. The dial buttons continue to change colors. The "buzzing" icons continue to "dance".
The background changes to a tinted orange. The dial button at the top remains while the rest of the elements disappear one by one. The main part of the typewriter (in black) appears and so do the rest of the buttons, in a scattered fashion.
The orange box in the background appears behind the typewriter. The rest of the buttons are in place and they begin to flash pink as if someone is typing. The "paper" (white rectangle) appears suddenly and each of the letters on the "paper" appear one by one. The letters are irregularly placed to imitate the nature of a real typewriter.
The rest of the text appears and a blue rectangle begins to emerge from the right side of the typewriter, representing wild typewriter ribbon. The circles stop changing colors and return to gold.
The background color changes to tan. The "ribbon" from the previous composition begins to cross the new composition in multiple directions. Two main, thicker, blue rectangles move across the screen. One of the buttons/keys in the previous composition turns white and begins to duplicate, making a pathway through the new composition. The represents a pearl necklace. The words "Breakfast" and "at Tiffany's" show up one at a time. This is the end of the title sequence.