Chinatown Screenplay

China Town Production Notes

     For an assignment in class, I chose to read the screenplay Chinatown. It was interesting reading a movie instead of seeing it. Instead of usually relaxing and mindlessly watching a movie, I got to enjoy the literary prose this time around.

     Chinatown immediately drew me in with its interesting premise. The main character Gittes’s job involves revealing scandalous situations. Not long after the beginning of the screenplay, Gittes soon gets caught up in a scandal himself.

     I think I was very drawn into the story because of the great plot as well as reading it from a screenplay. From reading from a screenplay, the audience is able to recreate and inteptret a scene in his own imagination. The experiencing of stitiching together an image from imagination rather than being shown was a great sensation.

     As for Production Notes,  for my take of the film, I'd like to see how lighting will accent the drama and suspense.  I'd use water as a motif through out the film, since the story is so focused on betrayals pertaining to a scandal involving water. Bodies are found in water, murders in water, etc.

      I think it would be interesting to incorporate certain mannerisms for the characters.  For example I'd like to see moments of Evelyn Mulray ache in fear while she tries to hide her memories of being abused by her father. I'd like to see how the anxiety of that character's play out as they lie to each other.