Exercise 2. Plan

 → Recreating a romantic scene from the film “500 Days of Summer”

Day 488

Perhaps the toughest scene to watch in the movie, it's also one of the most important, and one that can be read in two very different ways.  After Summer's wedding and Tom's decision to pursue architecture, the two come together again on the bench in Angelus Plaza (actually Angel's Knoll for tourists who want to pop a squat).  Tom and Summer have swapped views on romance, with Summer asserting that Rom was right all along, that love does exist, that it had to have been fate that her now-husband walked up to her and asked her about The Picture of Dorian Gray.  Then, she rips Tom's (and our collective) guts out: "It just wasn't me you were right about."

The scene allows Tom to find closure, in that his previous beliefs are affirmed by someone who had previously been dedicated to the opposite stance.  It allows Tom to really move on to (literally) the next season of love, Autumn.  On the film's commentary track, the filmmakers discuss the possibility that this scene is a fantasy scene in the vein of the dance number, that Summer didn't actually come.  If that's the case - it's up to the viewer to decide - it has huge implications for both Summer's and Tom's characters (maybe she's a bitch, after all).  While the filmmakers opted not to have Summer's character fade away and thus cement in that reading as being "correct," they tend to think of the scene as Tom's fantasy.

source: https://suchmovingpictures.blogspot.com/2011/12/top-10-scenes-in-500-days-of-summer_22.html

SCENE CLIP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGaztzbzTpg 

(starting second 0:22 till the end)

SCRIPT + CAMERA SHOT SIZES

→ Always at an eye level angle

1. Medium shot

Tom: You never wanted to be anybody's girlfriend and now you’re somebody's wife

2. Medium shot

Summer: Surprised me too

Tom: I don't think I’ll ever understand that. I mean, it doesn't make sense

Summer: It just happened

Tom: Right but that’s what i don't (small pause) understand. What just happened?

Summer: I just… I just woke up one day and I knew.

Tom: Knew what?

Summer: (pause) What I was never sure of with you

3. Medium shot

Both state into each other's eyes for a few seconds. Then Tom looks down (Summer still watching him) and to his left up his shoulder (Summer looks down). Then Summer looks to the horizon. Then Tom looks back at Summer.

Tom (looking at Summer): You know what sucks?. (Sniffs) Realizing that everything you believe in is complete utter bullshit? Sucks (nose scratch)

Summer: What do you mean?

Tom: Uh you know; destiny and soulmates and true love and all that childhood fairytale…nonsense. 

4. Close up shot

Tom You were right, I…I should have listened to you.

Summer (laughing): No

5. Close up shot

Tom: Yeah, wha- what are you smiling at?

6. Medium shot

Summer (sweetly): Tom 

Tom: What?

(Summer laughs and looks in his eyes)

7. Medium shot

Tom: What are you looking at me like that for?

(Summer laughs again)

Summer: Well; you know … I guess it's cause-I was sitting in a Delly and reading Dory and Grey and a guy comes up to me and 

8. Medium shot

Summer: asks me about it and…now he’s my husband.

Tom (laughing): Yeah and, so?

Summer: So… what if I'd gone to the movies? What if I had gone somewhere else for lunch? What if I'd gotten there ten minutes later?. It was (pause), it was meant to be. And,

9. Medium shot

Summer:  I just kept thinking (pause), Tom was right.

Tom (laughing): No

Summer (smiling): Yeah, I did. (Laughs) I did

(pause)

10. Close up shot

(Summer takes hair out of her face)

Summer: It just wasn't me that you were right about

11. Long (wide) shot

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WARDROBE

Summer: 

- Aegean blue t-shirt

- Taupe brown coat  

- Formal black skirt and shoes

- Stone necklace in different shades of blue

- Hair down and curly

Tom:

- Plain white button shirt

- Umber brown suit (matching top and trousers)

- Brown striped tie

- Dress-up shoes

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CASTED ACTORS

- Joaquina Bonadeo as Summer

- Nicolás Tischner as Tom

MISE AND SCENE

SOUND