Ambulance

On the surface, Ambulance is the story of Jordan Hughes, a naïve young businessman who just inherited a massive fortune due to his father’s sudden death. However, death seems to become Jordan’s familiar shadow. We pick up in his story at a lonely city bar with a young college girl named Ellen, but their interaction is cut short when Jordan sees two ghosts walk into the bar. At least he thinks they should be dead (by his orders). Within seconds, Jordan is out on the street walking quickly back to his parking garage when the supposed-to-be-dead men pull him into the nearest alleyway. After being stabbed and beaten within inches of his life, Jordan knows this could very well be his final resting place. However, by random chance a young passerby, Lucas Kentley, comes to his aid, calls the ambulance, and stays with him until help arrives. From that point on, the minutes these men share together touch some of the deepest parts of Jordan’s being, bringing out his true colors. It also brings up the ultimate question of the film; Does Jordan Hughes deserve to live?
As I previously stated, that is the story on the surface. Ultimately, this is a story of the consequences of lifestyles and actions, cause and effect, and Karma. Jordan Hughes serves as the cause in which the universe of the story is effected by. Through his general disregard for others’ well-being, lavish and excessive lifestyle, and negative overall personality, he literally come face to face with the consequences. Lucas Kentely is the physical manifestation of his Karma. We should neither love nor hate Lucas; his actions toward Jordan should instill mixed feelings in the audience. This is because he is the vessel that is delivering Jordan’s negative actions right back to him in the form of “Karmic Justice”. That is why, at times, the two characters almost seem to interchangeable/extremely similar. That is why the audience’s sympathy will float between the two characters. This is a story with a deep layer of substance, wrapped tightly in the cloth of a classic neo-noir psychological thriller.

Influences

Many films have played an important part in shaping the visual world of Ambulance. No matter how original your idea, it would be an absolutely ignorant, irresponsible move to shun influence from other great artists before us. One of the biggest, most obvious contributors to the madness that is Ambulance, is the one and only Alfred Hitchcock. His ability to tell a compelling story with very little actual action sequences and a massive amount of tension and suspense inspired me to dig deep into holding onto those unseen moments within the minds and eyes of the characters as they internally, but frantically plot their escape from the impending doom of the situation. Also, writers such as Quentin Tarantino followed suit of Hitchcock’s device of dialogue driven suspense scenes and expanded on it greatly. I took this technique as well and applied it to Ambulance. Much like the infamous “Tavern Scene” in Inglorious Basterds, the tension builds and builds as the “cards” that each character possesses are revealed.
Visually, the film will resemble much of the work of directors such as Lars von Trier, Nicolas Winding Refn, Wim Wenders, Michael Mann, and Harmony Korine. The camera work will heavily follow a few of the aspects of Von Trier’s Dogme95 movement; the only rig we will be using is the camera on a shoulder rig (no dollies, sliders, tripods, steady-cams, etc.). Korine was extremely influenced by this movement and was the basis for his first few films; I too am very inspired by Von Trier’s ideas and want to follow these footsteps (in regards to the camera work). Refn, coming from the same film school in Denmark as Von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, is a heavily stylized filmmaker. Although he usually uses smooth flowing or static camera dynamics, his films have an extremely dense atmosphere that stick with the viewer more than the story itself; that is what I am hoping to accomplish with Ambulance. Much like his films Drive and Only God Forgives, I am going for a neon-drenched cityscape reminiscent of the 1980’s Miami (also very comparable to Korine’s most recent film Spring Breakers.) Again, these are influences. This is not a written confession of my “stealing” or “borrowing” other filmmakers’ ideas. They are the starting point of my interest in film. They are where I came from. It is what made me fall in love with film. These are the things that built me and my unique style as a filmmaker. This leads me to the next point.

The Aesthetic

It’s no hidden fact that Ambulance is a naturally dark film; not only in content, but the entire timespan is about fifteen to twenty minutes during the dead of night. It is rather ambiguous as to which major city these events actually take place in. But whether it be New York, Detroit, Los Angeles, or Miami, they all have something in common; the dirty city nightscape. Also, does it really matter what city you’re in when you’re bleeding out in a decrepit, neon drenched alleyway? The aesthetic of the alley Ambulance is heavily based around exactly that; neon. A color palette of purple and green neon lighting mixed with the sickly warm tungsten washes in the distance will absolutely pop against the daylight white-balanced baseline fill. Mostly, the goal is to create an eerie but inviting and cool but warm atmosphere within the basis of that “1980’s” feel. With the overall lighting, the Taxi Driver wet-down to get a perfect bounce off of the pavement, and the set dressing (posters, junk, dumpsters, etc.) this feeling can easily be achieved.