The Big Picture

This is definitely the best scene that I have found that fits the intended use of my project.

The scene itself shows the main character (male) driving with a sense of direction, past a state line, through the night, with his hood up, where he eventually stops at a hotel where he rents a room and gradually breaks down.

In my first iteration of this scene: The character begins by driving through a sense of sadness, I believe that he's lost something that he holds dear to him, possibly the loss of his family/child/both. The man is scared and needs to find a new life for himself, something to find comfort in once again. As he enters the hotel, he find his first vocal interaction with a human since his loss, something he can't cope with, needing the sense of isolation that he has grown to depend on. As he sits in his room, he begins to struggle to cope, his emotions start to turn to a sense of anger. As the french narration enters, he continues to grip to a photograph of a woman and becomes more and more angry and frustrated with himself, this character is possibly not the sad, isolated man that we thought, did he kill them, did he leave them during the night, is he suicidal? His vomiting is not a sign of his weakness in this scene but is instead a realisation of the horrific tragedy in his life and all that he has done, he is breaking down and turning into a chaotic, crazed and threatening man that is on the brink of doing anything. As he leaves the toilet he appears in trance, no longer moved by emotion but motivated by his own inner fear, as he sits on the edge of the bed holding a piece of sharp mirror he contemplates his past, he contemplates a life where he is the bad guy, the lives he could take to make up for his loss, the victims he could take and ultimately the thought of suicide to end his maddened state of mind.

The second version of story that I came up with for this section is:
The man begins as an antagonist, on the run, hood up wishing to hide his identity. The dark outside is reflected in the music, he's an ominous man, who is he? what has he done? is he a killer? has he broken down?
As he enters the hotel we are to believe that this man should not be interacting with civilisation, he is a threat to these people. As he lies down on the bed we see a new side to the character, he isn't quite the threatening man we thought, he does have a soul, he seems to be emotionally charged and saddened by a previous act in his life. As he grips the photograph we feel for the character, we begin to believe that he is on the run as he has lost the only love in his life, one that he will never see again and the only thing he could do to get away from the feeling of loss is to run from everything he knew to be normal. After being sick, the character sits down the with shard of broken mirror in a state of complete disbelief, he's a broken, lonely, lost soul who doesn't want to be a part of this world.

I believe this clip would work well with my project as the character does not show overwhelming signs of emotion that point to one clear state of mind. I believe that if I chose this clip it would not be to simply convey an antagonist as a good guy but instead to change the state of mind from the mentally unstable to that of a fragile being. The idea would be to have the character lose his family and slowly break down so that by the end we believe that the character could be reason for the families loss and he knows that, the flip side of this being that he comes across as a crazed man on the run from something to find that by the end of the clip that he is infact on the run to get away form the life he once lived as he does not want to be reminded by the loss of his family.

My initial thoughts in terms of sound is to leave the French narration in the scene but without the accompanying subtitle. My idea for this is that the character reads a note/looks at the picture of his family and has a state of realisation, this is where the major turn of thought towards the character hits, he either completely breaks down from his realisation or begins to come to terms with his loss through sadness.