The egg is stolen, but everyone saw! This chase is on in this Game Night (2018) scene directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. In this scene, six of the main characters
Max played by Jason Bateman
Annie played by Rachel McAdams
Sarah played by Sharon Horgan
Ryan played by Billy Magnussen (pictured)
Michelle played by Kylie Bunbury
Kevin played by Lamorne Morris
play keep away with a Fabrege egg they burgled from a rich person's mansion. They are doing this not for financial gain, but because their friend is being held hostage, and the kidnapper wants this particular egg in exchange. It's suspenseful and fun, and provides the upbeat familiarity of watching a sports match.
The Long Take
This particular sequence, dubbed the "egg chase" scene, is a single shot that lasts for around 2 minutes. Using hidden cuts and other camera trickery, the audience's viewpoint is swooped over shoulders and around the indoor scenery, in order to keep a clear understanding of the egg's position.
This technique of sustaining a shot's duration to what is much, much longer than an average shot is called a long take, continuous take, or continuous shot. It is a filmmaking technique that involves elaborate camera movement and precise blocking, and has been used by directors such as Alfred Hitchcock in Rope (1948), which is an entire movie shot to look like one continuous take.
Other examples include The Russian Ark (2002), an experimental historical film by director Alexander Sokurov
We can break down this scene's concept into 3 major ingredients
1. Setting
This encapsulates the context in which this scene takes place. I'm including the characters and their motivations in this category. This scene sees a couple of adult friends crashing a special invite-only party for people much richer than themselves. You can see many very expensive items all throughout this old money mansion, which raises the stakes of the scene, pressuring the characters to not break anything.
2. Action
The major action of this scene is the game of keep away that the characters play with this egg. They toss, pass, throw, and catch this egg all around the mansion with a nail-biting haphazard. As far as the audience is aware, this egg represents the life of their friend. This scene is executed to look like one single long take that lasts around 2 minutes.
3. Object
The object in this scene, the MacGuffin in which all characters on screen are fretting over, is a very valuable, very fragile Faberge egg which is needed to be used as a bargaining chip. Besides the already very expensive nature of the jewel-encrusted item, it also contains an important list of names with connection to white collar crime.
The Execution is just as important, but we're going to be focusing on the conceptual side of this. By altering these 3 elements, we can change the concept, theme, and driving force of this scene to cater to different audiences.
How can we improve this scene?
Some improvements I could think of to heighten this scene is to extend it. While a 2 minute shot of these characters tossing around a very, very expensive object like a hot potato is already pretty tense, I believe adding an extra minute with more hold-your-breath moments would increase the impact of this scene that much more.
Another enhancement that could be made to this scene is keeping the egg visible in frame throughout the entire sequence. During the majority of this 2 minute scene, the egg is obscured by characters hands, backs, different pieces of furniture, or is out of frame as it is being tossed through the air. I imagine this scene could work well if the egg were an object with some motion, like a music box, or a timer, like an alarm clock or time bomb, and it were tracked into the center of the frame almost the entire time. Then, all the chaos with the characters trying to grasp it could be made secondary in the background. The juxtaposition of the frantic, fighting characters and the calm, steady motion of the object could add increased visual comedy to this comedy movie.
There are many changes that could be made to the objects in this scene, as well. A keep-away scene with a valuable object is a very versatile premise. We've seen similar premises all throughout media, like a fragile baby crawling through an active construction zone, being kept safe by sheer luck with timing. But this scene could take place in a hectic kitchen during a cooking competition, one group of chefs trying to keep their delicate prized souffle out of the hands of the competing team of chefs. It could also be
Something more depraved, like the last baggie of drugs being tossed and kept away from a group of fighting addicts
An organized sport, perhaps an actual game of hot potato.
The object could have a mind of its own! Imagine if this were a real partially hatched egg, with small webbed feet poking out of the bottom, scrambling away from its assailants or even protectors
Building on #3, it could be a hermit crab with a very valuable item as a shell, slowly scuttling away from some hungry seagulls.
The object could be not valuable at all. the characters could just be very competitive friends, trying to snag an italian hoagie from one another.
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