For this portion i will be writing about it's first episode "Weird" and how it was directed.
What stands out to me first of all is Lains sound design, what background music there is it is largely composed of ambient electric esque humming, noise and other distorted effects. This is often paired with ambient background noise of the scene, The sound design is often very quiet, it is unafraid of silence, often giving us long portions of the episode with only Diegetic sound. Sometimes dialogue is omitted completely as mouth flaps are intentionally left unfilled to add to the suspense of the scene.
Lains visuals are often very lingering, it feels as there are no real quick cuts in it. it uses many close ups, most notably semi realistic close ups of characters mouths. Repeating shots of peoples eyes and faces. Long establishing shots that pan across a white saturated scenery. It's Shadows often very bold but also not using pure black, it uses a single texture that is a watercolour esque purple and red, giving it both a surreal and eerie atmosphere.
"to signify that the Wired is in the shadow, even in the real world, it's still there beneath the surface"
I wanted to create a shadow texture for myself to use in my own research in this
It's use of Light is it's most stand out feature as light sources glow brightly having a very noticeable colour distortion on the scene around it, often used as a way to guide the eye around the scene, as well as ground the scene as that strong light source effects all of it we are able to keep up with the cuts throughout it. Television and monitor screens have a strong distortion on them and it easily separates them from the world that Lain is living in and what is on screen, greatly adding to the atmosphere of how people interact with these objects in their daily life.
Although on a smaller note it also uses reflection very purposefully, often in establishing shots, such as when she is in the middle of a cross walk, a car drives by the cameras view, while we are able to see that she is already in the middle of a cross walk in a build up urban area, the reflection on the car doors only solidifies that scene with the reflection being of the sky cluttered with buildings and wires.
Lain suffers from what we are led to assume are hallucinations, or major dissociation. Although any mental disorder, if any is left up the the viewer, Lain often veiws people in an othering way, as people blend into shapes alone. This pushes us to be sympathetic with Lains character as characters around her are often distant. Many People displayed are often without faces, or avoided showing them. More important characters are often othered with uncomfortable close up shots, and detached attitudes towards her.
"it's reality to her, but to everyone else that's around her, they can't see it, it's not part of their reality. so in that respect, everyone has their own reality that another person can't see, and it's kind of a playoff between realities for each individual person."
Overall I feel Lain has a very strong sense of it's audio and visual language and how it communicates it to the viewer, we have automatically established tense and weary relationships with the technology shown without the use of being told to be so though speech or narration.
I think it's hard to encompass the entire atmosphere of lain, however it's atmospheric use of light is the one thing i like about it the best and i would love to use it's use of light and shadow in my work, in more enclosed spaces it looks cluttered, however the starkness of the last panel is interesting.
however perhaps more sexual shadow should be used in wider shots, splash pages and other things
Overall although it's an interesting technique it should be approached carefully in it's use as i can come off as too overwhelming for the image
Lawrence Eng, L, E. 2000. Panel discussion With Yasuyuki Ueda And Yoshithoshi Abe.[Online]. [1st Feb] Available from: http://www.cjas.org/~leng/o2klain.htm
Serial Experiments Lain, Episode 1, Weird. 1998. TV Tokyo. 6th july.
Symphogear. 2014. Serial Experiments Lain in the modern age of social media and the internet. [Online]. [Nov 5th] Available from: http://the-artifice.com/serial-experiments-lain/
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