To screen my film which was essentially a story reel at the time,at the Orlando International Fringe Festival, I had to put a disclaimer in front of it. That disclaimer said, “Content Warning: Contains some mature language and content, including depictions of illness and death. Viewer discretion is advised.” After six film festival rejections so far, I suspect judges are predisposed to reject the film as soon as they see this nine second Content Warning.
I decided to start the film with a new opening shot that fills the slot the content warning held. The new shot is a nine second pan down a NYC street following an ambulance which is the only vehicle moving on the streets. The existing audio is of an ambulance siren so this makes perfect sense. I finished the yesterday but didn’t complete the painting since I had worked on several other scenes as well.
This scene opens with a close up on the window and the virus rolls up to the open window as if looking out. The camera pulls back and pans left to follow the ambulance as it rushes down the street. The pan moves from vanishing point to vanishing point.
I am basing the nocturnal scene on a painting I did of the twin Towers from my Stuyvesant Town Apartment back in the late 1980s. This shot is of Third Avenue but the lighting is the same with a variety of apartment windows glowing like stars in the night sky. This is going to be a fun painting to finish.
I am also looking forward to figuring out the animation of the ambulance. It should be fun to figure out how to animate the lights blinking wildly and I need to find a good way to have the headlights illuminate the street. At nine seconds long, this is the longest shot in the film, so I have to make it worthy of the screen time. Should a festival need the warning, I will place it back over this shot.