Influences: A Series of Unfortunate Events

Written By Oliver Fitch

A Series of Unfortunate Events is a 2004 black comedy film starring Jim Carrey, Billy Connolly and Timothy Spall and is directed by Brad Silberling. The film itself is based on the first three novels of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events book series, which are The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room and The Wide Window. The film follows the story of the Baudelaire orphans who lost their parents. They are continuously being leered into entrapment by Count Olaf: he’s desperate to steal their family fortune which was passed down to them by their deceased parents.

Getting to the point, the part of the film that may have influenced my addition to the story line of our short film production was the way in which throughout the film it is narrated to the audience through speech and constant typing and camera shots of the narrator typing. This is used in an effective way to help explain to the audience about the story and also suggests to the audience that as the film progresses the narrator is continuously typing (writing the story). The narrator is also seen by the audience to be representing Lemony Snicket (Daniel Handler) the author of the book novels as he narrates the story throughout the film to the audience. I may have unconscientiously been influenced by the film while selecting certain elements within our film.

However, in our Short Film we used this technique of typing but in specific way which put the audience into the frame mind perspective of the protagonist John, so when it was presented on screen the audience could emphasize what John was going through physically and mentally. Also it allowed the audience to follow the instructions of the guide as it explained to them what the protagonist (John) must do in order to complete his journey and dispose of the unwilling burden that was brought into his possession unknowingly. But the main difference in our production to this influence was when editing and trying to place this method in, we finally came to the conclusion where the instructions to the guide would actually be placed on screen itself, allowing the audience to read and follow them while the sound track of typing would be played during this. As well as showing typing errors to suggest that it was actually being written as the film progressed similar to A series of Unfortunate Events. This technique is applies throughout our piece and we think as a group has had a very positive effect on the finished product as well as giving a very clear message to the audience by allowing them to see the film through the frame of mind of the protagonist.

Where as in A Series of Unfortunate Events this method is used to explain to the audience the story line and in our Short Film we have used it to explain to the audience the instructions of the guide and how protagonist must follow this at all costs.

This technique that influenced our film can be seen in the video below within Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events: