Group Four Presents:

Oh God, No....

Director's Commentary 

http://soundcloud.com/ben-gross/eng-281-director-commentary

Directors Commentary Transcript:

Ben Gross: Starting off one of the first things you notice is the music selection. The first song we chose is the intro to It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. It’s really happy almost a 50’s-esque sort of sound to it. It paints the picture of something positive and good going on. The first cut we do is you notice is outside, and before you actually see the title screen the actors are already on screen, and the title screen starts the movie and brings the audience into the story with the actors. It makes you feel apart of it. One of the first things with the camera work is the pan down to the cat, to show that the cat is one of the major players in the story line. You notice with the first transition that we use all of our smoother transitions, so fades and wipes to show the passing of time. Where as the direct cuts keep you still in the moment. The music also changes to the Psycho theme song, that’s when, the cat first strikes. That shows that the cat is terrifying, attacking and it’s trying to kill the cat sitter who is watching after him. We use a lot of close ups of the cat. For example in the second scene, it zooms up on the door to show the attempt of him trying to get her away. We use another close up of her sleeping on the couch. The cat is watching and is studying the enemy trying to take as many notes as possible.  Another close up is when she is in the kitchen and the cat leaves behind the poison. This shows the cats intent in the situation of him going at it, for the reason he is not at home with his owner, and he is hell bent on killing the woman for no apparent reason that we can see. We wanted to personify the cat in all of the shots, to show the scheming and conniving and planning that he has-- all of the things he does. He plans to lock her out. He plans to plant the poison. He plans to freak her out with the sign that said murder backwards on the door so that she sees it when she opens the door to the mirror. It was our intent to take a situation where everyone can see themselves watching a friend’s cat for a weekend while they are away. And try to make it seem like in the moment where the characters are you would be terrified. But watching it from this angle it is outrageous and it would never happen. So we get this view of something that is funny, it’s so ridiculous that you have to laugh it in the way that it is set up. When you get this close up of the phone, where it didn’t send the text message trying to say that she is being killed. You then get the last transition of music into the ukulele, which we had in the original sound. But since we cut the sound for the silent aspect of the film we re-recorded it because it fit so well with the dying in the tub. The cat actually being successful, in whichever task worked. That is sort of the mystery, you don’t actually know which one worked. Did he poison her or did he do something else. But he managed to succeed in killing this poor innocent girl, who is only looking after the cat for a few days for her friend. All in all, we had a good time filming, we had fun. We hope that everyone watching enjoys the video.