JaneTaylor_Assignment2
Film Research
Starts off with main character (Jean-Baptiste Grenouille) committed of a crime not yet revealed to viewers.
Jean-Baptiste is born with an insanely great sense of smell, and often tries to understand the world through scent
Comes across a perfume shop while in town during his slave work. is introduced to many new smells that he becomes intrigued and curious
Catches the scent of a nearby women and becomes entranced by her personal smell. proceeds to follow her and encounters her up close
accidentally kills/suffocates the woman while trying to keep her quiet from nearby citizens for she becomes alarmed by his random presence after following her in the night. he then unclothes her and tries to capture her sent, but cannot for she has died and her scent dies along with her. this prompts him to figure out a way to preserve the scent of other women
while completing another job during his slave work, he become acquainted with an old washed out perfume maker. Jean-baptiste shows of his talents to recreate perfumes and agrees to supply perfume ideas if the perfume maker teaches his techniques in preserving scents
after helping the perfume maker, jean-Baptiste is sent with money to go and learn from an even more experienced technique academy. jean-baptiste also learns that he, himself has no own personal scent and can exist to nobody.
while on the road to the new academy, he is passed up by a girl that has the same traits as the very first encounter
while at the new academy, he learns new techniques and begin to experiment in private with new victims
continues his experiments until he finds a solid outcome
he then finds the red headed girl that he encounters on the road to the academy, and murders her, capturing her scent for his perfume
jean-baptiste is discovered and is sentenced to death in front of the towns people
he quickly pulls out his perfume and waves it around for the people to experience and smell. the scent is so lovely that the towns people become entranced into a euphoric state that causes them to feel loving and giving to one another and worship him
but he sees that in the crowd everyone is loving one another and he in the end has nobody. that the scent he has made does not compare to the true feeling of love
Essay
Perfume: The Story of A Murderer
The film was released in 2006 in Germany by director Tom Tykwer. It’s considered a fantasy thriller that summarizes a peasant man, by the name of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille’s, murder flashback. The film centers around a peasant boy with the incredible talent of scent, who’s only wish is to preserve the scent of a heavenly woman. It starts with Jean-Baptiste in chains for some crime the audience is not aware of yet, then takes the viewer back into the memories that take place before this event to explain the chain of actions made ‘til that point. We’re shown of the birth of Jean-Baptiste in a fish market, signifying that he was brought into the world in a harsh environment and being a nobody. The film is very gruesome and macabre in themes. It shows Jean-Baptiste’s hard ships throughout his life (being sold at a young age to do slave work, abused during his slave work) until he finally catches a break with a perfume maker and falls under his apprenticeship, learning different techniques in preserving scent.
The film focuses on Jean-Baptiste’s desire to create the perfect scent after encountering a woman one night that catches his fancy in aroma. After accidentally killing this girl, Jean-Baptiste loses her scent thus causes him to develop the goal of trying to maintain and preserve such a “heavenly” scent so that he may achieve the love of others. This rolls onto his serial murders and experiments on obtaining the scent of several women, including another with the same traits as the first (red hair, innocence), until he achieves the ultimate perfume that can capture the love of others, meaning a scent so lovely it causes those around to feel as if they are in a euphoric state of heaven. Once Jean-Baptiste accomplishes this, however, he finds that he is still alone without the woman he really wants. That he has never experienced real love and that a mere perfume or presence of scent without the actual person, cannot be equivalent to the real feeling.
The film creates the effect of thrill and mystery with choice of musical scores, slow reveals, and focus on the intimacy of Jean-Baptiste and scent with every object. The colors are vibrant when need be, and scene sequence is carefully put together to build suspense.
Key Words:
-Fantasy
-Macabre
-Murder
-Mysterious
-Elegant
Thesis: This film is a macabre fantasy that centralizes around a mysterious man committing murders in order to obtain the love of humanity through the utmost elegance of scent.
Words to Idea + Thesis Statement
Thesis: This film is a macabre fantasy that centralizes around a mysterious man committing murders in order to obtain the love of humanity through the utmost elegance of scent.
Visual Research (Inspiration Board/Collection)
Exploration/Formulation (Style Board/Examples/Studies)
flower scheme, vibrant colors
different flower scheme maybe for title/opening
texture for overlay use on images
smoke effect going to be used to type appearance/disappearance
Garamond text for title maybe over a black background with effect
smoke effect is made on text to appear/disappear over floral image
Exploration/Formulation (Motion Tests)
Exploration from
Story Board
type will appear with music and fade in
Rest of beginning text will appear with music rhythm as first part of text fades away
next flower painting will merge and fade in to make connection with previous flower image. Next sequence of type will appear along with music tempo again
Same painting pans to the right slowly revealing names along table edge and fades out at the end of image to merge with the next scene.
next image still connects red rose with previous flower scenes and shows hint of a woman as camera pans from left to right and fades out as previous scene.
new image fades in starting at the bottom to reveal a woman with orange hair lying down while music intensifies while text appears per beat
new image fades in at bottom again with a woman and rose pans from bottom to top to fade out again into final scene
camera pan upward to reveal top part of image with type
image stays still on face for a bit to give off eerie feeling along with music before transitioning into last scene
beginning of last scene starts from top of image and pans downward as last type names appear along with musical beat
title begins to reveal in smoky/cloudy effect as rest of type along with music
rest of title appears at bottom of image and fades out as music fades out to end sequence
This title sequence will mostly consist of slow pans and eerie feeling of dark/dirty imagery of paintings leading up to an intensified ending along with music. The type will interact compositionally with images and appear in a cloudy effect to imitate the essence of perfume mixing in a bottle. The goal is to reveal the main ingredient used in perfumes and sort of set up and/or bring the idea of film setting and not to reveal too much of what the film will be about. The theme and textures are supposed to be rugged and dark with only the vibrancy of the red rose since the color red is very important and exaggerated in the original film. The music to pair with this would also be a very slow classical ballad that sounds of sorrow and mystery to help move the sequence along.