Director: Christopher Nolan –
Produced both Batman movies, The Prestige, Insomnia, Memento. With a director who has produced some popular films over the past 10 years, this also helps to attract the public, who saw other films by Christopher Nolan and the previous Batman and know It will be a good film.
Budget$185,000,000 (estimated)
Production CompaniesWarner Bros. Pictures – The famous Warner Bros company which only big or certain films get produced by. Legendary Pictures – Seem to produce films for the male audience, these include lots of big superhero and comedy films DC Comics – The famous comic company that produces the comics of iconic characters in the DC universe. Worldwide brand associated with Batman Syncopy – Worked on the previous batman and the prestige by Christopher Nolan and another film in 1998. Just 4 films.
Opening Weekend$158,411,483 (USA) (20 July 2008) (4,366 Screens)£11,191,824 (UK) (27 July 2008) (502 Screens)Gross$529,143,070 (USA) (16 November 2008)£48,246,658 (UK) (28 September 2008)
Cinemas shown: ODEON – Most common popular cinema in UK, IMAX London, Cineworld. Even lots of local cinemas paid to get this in there screens.
Importance of Genre - The superhero genre has been a solid seller over the past decade and slightly further to the early nineties.The specific genre appeals to all comic book fans wanting to see their childhood heroes come to life on the big screen. Other fans may just want to see an ACTION/ADVENTURE/THRILLER film as this is normally the type of genre that superhero movies are based on.
$$$$$$ THE STARS $$$$$$ -
A film maniac would look at this cast and believe that the film would be very good with this cast. Not only are they all good actors to help make it a believable/enjoyable film but one could assume that the actors arent all in it for money and have read the script and feel that it is a strong story.
•Audiences are reached through the amount of money spent in the media industry. This included tons of publicity for the trailer of the film on the internet and TV. A collection of impressive looking posters were put up at bus shelters and billboards. Lots of them revealing the Joker, whom was a big icon in the film and an instant hit. This is mainly due to the performance put in by Heath Ledger and the announcement of his death included many different audiences seeing the film.
•This also brings me to mention that stars are a huge part in films these days with many audiences having their favourite actors. “The dark knight “ is full of well known actors. The main movie poster tells us this. To me if it has lots of stars in the film, it has to be a fairly decent film.
•Young children seeing the film because its Batman in general how is an childhood hero. They are also reached through mass merchandise in toys, food and clothes. Older teens and men seeing the film for action and the continuation of the Batman series. You could say people who weren’t fans of Batman saw the film simply because of Heath Ledgers technical last performance and the hype of the character of the joker through the media. We could say this is how they reached many female audiences also.
Music: Hans Zimmer was one of two composers that produced the soundtracks for this film. He worked on the first film and has become a ‘legend’ among his fan base. He produces such powerful music. The music to a film may not be the key point for attracting audiences, but it does help to make a better experience when viewing.
An online version of the fictional newspaper The Gotham Times arrived and was followed by numerous websites, including a defaced Joker version of the paper called The Ha Ha Ha Times. This was very interesting and shows another way that fans would be interested to view this site by going on the web, learning more.
Monday, 8 December 2008
Wednesday, 22 October 2008
The Graduate, Mike Nichols, 1967, USA
->When he is driving in his car, we have sound that goes with whats actually happening on screen. What i mean is the strum of the guitar gets slower and eventually stops to show contrast with his car fading away. (it breaks down)
->When the wedding chapel is revealed to the audience there is a string of guitar. He tries to enter but the door is locked, when he runs around and up the stairs another strum is used. It is like the guitar is a frequent instrument used in the film and with every new hope that he has found the church, then found a new way into it a new strum happens.
->During the wedding scene where everyone is shouting at the main character Ben Braddock. Elaine looks around the hall in 1st person mode, sees everyone shouting at him, but there is no sound coming from there mouths. All we hear is Ben's shouting of her name in a frantic voice over and over. It's like all she can hear is his voice because thats what she cares about.
->Sound is muffled in some scenes because it relfects the main characters moods and his hearing. Like when he is at a party and all we hear is muffled voices. We are hearing what he is making to hear.
Scream, Wes Craven, 1996, USA (Looking at SOUND)
Diagetic sounds play a big part in horror films and they work together with the instrumental horror themes. The screechs, the beats and the thumps.
Opening title clearly depicts its genre, extreme thumping edgy music in opening title.
There are certain diagetic noises that at times to scare the audience are louder than they naturally should be. For example, certain related things like Cindy pulling out a kitchen knife, the doorbell, the fgas on the cooker. Certain things that will be important.
These are sounds known as "Visceral" - 'sounds that you feel, hits you loud/scary'
In one good scene of filmmaking, to contrast with the situation, the girl Cindy, has left the popcorn on the cooker, its popping up (loud noises) and its about to explode. At the same time she is on the phone to the killer and is breaking down, with the conversation we are waiting for the killer to appear and kill her or for something to happen. It's like the build up of tension and the popcorn bag is blown up and ready to explode. We could guess that when something happens or before something happens the popcorn will explode.
Opening title clearly depicts its genre, extreme thumping edgy music in opening title.
There are certain diagetic noises that at times to scare the audience are louder than they naturally should be. For example, certain related things like Cindy pulling out a kitchen knife, the doorbell, the fgas on the cooker. Certain things that will be important.
These are sounds known as "Visceral" - 'sounds that you feel, hits you loud/scary'
In one good scene of filmmaking, to contrast with the situation, the girl Cindy, has left the popcorn on the cooker, its popping up (loud noises) and its about to explode. At the same time she is on the phone to the killer and is breaking down, with the conversation we are waiting for the killer to appear and kill her or for something to happen. It's like the build up of tension and the popcorn bag is blown up and ready to explode. We could guess that when something happens or before something happens the popcorn will explode.
Monday, 20 October 2008
Evaluation of "The Meeting" production
In this production which consisted of Scott as the photographer, Dom as actor and myself as the other main actor we where to produce some sort of story using one shot photos. The title was called "The Meeting". So my main task was to produce a storyboard on what we will do.
I went for a personally classic idea of 2 people meeting up, ending in a face off and then left on a cliffhanger. However, my take on this is that there is mystery and suspense added because the shots taken show Dom looking bad and serious and in a hurry (Why?) and then there is me looking calm at 1st and as if i am waiting for someone, (who?).
The length of each shot varied as i made a video of the shots and put it with theatrical music. So some shots lasted 2 seconds, some lasted 3-4 seconds when showing more important scenes. They also synced quite well with the music like making some sort of still shot trailer.
The 1st shot is a medium shot of me leaning against a pillar outside a building. With this shot you cannot see as an audience what building i am at. It is then changed to a crane shot scene of Dom walking down a public path. We used a crane shot to get variety of shots and show his dominance on this lonely public path. Then a jump cut is used to show him slightly further up the road. A white flash appears at the beginning of each of these scenes to build up tension and go with the music. There is then a close up shot of me looking at my phone, this is to capture my reaction of this. Then a white flash fades in to Dom looking at his phone. However we used a tilt shot looking up to Dom because we wanted to show the "power" that this character has over us as a viewer.
We then use a basic transition of a bar dissolve after Dom's picture to change scene completely.
Then as the music builds into a beat, it fits in nicely with the next scene. Which is tension of Dom beginning to run down this path. We still used one shot photos but did it on quick capture flutter on the camera so it took lots of shots per seconds. We achieved this by using tracking on Dom, it showed movement. Between each single shot of Dom running, more white flashes are used for the tension building.
The next scene is a transitional effect of the screen exploding into bits to reveal a shot in 1st person view of my phone and a turning point in the story. This was done so the audience could read my message on my phone and ask who is it from? Dom?
Following this was the use of extremely close up shots of mine and Dom's faces to get the characters reaction to what they have just seen. I am shocked and Dom is stern. These images were edited and given a sepia tone which turns things a darker yellow type colour. Like an old photo. This is because i wanted to show that this scene is important to the characters as well as the audience and with a change of lasting colour it should be remembered.
Finally to get more camera shots and cinematography, I came up with this idea to show a stand off between the two characters facing one another from some distance. This was to be shot using depth of field into shallow focus and vice versa. It happened the opposite way around for each characters 3rd person view on screen. It builds the tension of a stand off and what will happen now? Depicts opposite sides. (good vs. evil etc)
After a "to be continued" which was added on the video, I replay the shot of the 2 characters faces split in half on screen. Once again contrasting character. It was edited with a paintbrush/comic affect that makes it seem everlasting. Like a painting.
Hope you enjoyed.
I went for a personally classic idea of 2 people meeting up, ending in a face off and then left on a cliffhanger. However, my take on this is that there is mystery and suspense added because the shots taken show Dom looking bad and serious and in a hurry (Why?) and then there is me looking calm at 1st and as if i am waiting for someone, (who?).
The length of each shot varied as i made a video of the shots and put it with theatrical music. So some shots lasted 2 seconds, some lasted 3-4 seconds when showing more important scenes. They also synced quite well with the music like making some sort of still shot trailer.
The 1st shot is a medium shot of me leaning against a pillar outside a building. With this shot you cannot see as an audience what building i am at. It is then changed to a crane shot scene of Dom walking down a public path. We used a crane shot to get variety of shots and show his dominance on this lonely public path. Then a jump cut is used to show him slightly further up the road. A white flash appears at the beginning of each of these scenes to build up tension and go with the music. There is then a close up shot of me looking at my phone, this is to capture my reaction of this. Then a white flash fades in to Dom looking at his phone. However we used a tilt shot looking up to Dom because we wanted to show the "power" that this character has over us as a viewer.
We then use a basic transition of a bar dissolve after Dom's picture to change scene completely.
Then as the music builds into a beat, it fits in nicely with the next scene. Which is tension of Dom beginning to run down this path. We still used one shot photos but did it on quick capture flutter on the camera so it took lots of shots per seconds. We achieved this by using tracking on Dom, it showed movement. Between each single shot of Dom running, more white flashes are used for the tension building.
The next scene is a transitional effect of the screen exploding into bits to reveal a shot in 1st person view of my phone and a turning point in the story. This was done so the audience could read my message on my phone and ask who is it from? Dom?
Following this was the use of extremely close up shots of mine and Dom's faces to get the characters reaction to what they have just seen. I am shocked and Dom is stern. These images were edited and given a sepia tone which turns things a darker yellow type colour. Like an old photo. This is because i wanted to show that this scene is important to the characters as well as the audience and with a change of lasting colour it should be remembered.
Finally to get more camera shots and cinematography, I came up with this idea to show a stand off between the two characters facing one another from some distance. This was to be shot using depth of field into shallow focus and vice versa. It happened the opposite way around for each characters 3rd person view on screen. It builds the tension of a stand off and what will happen now? Depicts opposite sides. (good vs. evil etc)
After a "to be continued" which was added on the video, I replay the shot of the 2 characters faces split in half on screen. Once again contrasting character. It was edited with a paintbrush/comic affect that makes it seem everlasting. Like a painting.
Hope you enjoyed.
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
Speed,1994,USA, Jan de pont.
Plot:
A young cop must save the passengers of a bus that has a bomb set to explode if the bus goes below 50 MPH
Bus chace scene: Back of bus, poster, jump cut to back of bus but further away, tracking movement shot of girl chasing bus running, (it is all fast paced its called speed)
eyeline levels matching so it looks like your sat on bus.
contrasting - calm bus, guy driving fast6
Wednesday, 1 October 2008
Elephant, Gus Van Sant, 2003, USA
(Elephant - Everybody knows its there but wont admit it)
Genre: Crime, Drama
CINEMATOGROPHY (What i notice about it)
Scene opens with fixed shot of clouds and time passing by. Camera tracking follows trees to show movement, we are going somewhere. This is shown by the car which we are following from behind in another tracking shot. The next interesting scene invloves the camera stuck onto the car as he turns on the engine the camera rumbles. Then the camera must have moved to the right a bit.
>Very natural scenes (light reflecting off of him like its our eyes/his eyes)
> Same scene but reverse camera angle again and again. (key points in story)
> Irony - Music of beethoven with guy playing shooting game. (strange characters)
Genre: Crime, Drama
CINEMATOGROPHY (What i notice about it)
Scene opens with fixed shot of clouds and time passing by. Camera tracking follows trees to show movement, we are going somewhere. This is shown by the car which we are following from behind in another tracking shot. The next interesting scene invloves the camera stuck onto the car as he turns on the engine the camera rumbles. Then the camera must have moved to the right a bit.
We get a great view of the settings and surroundings from the wide landscape shots used. We see this a few times for a park woods, the sports field etc. But the story is also vague even with these understandings of the settings. (weird)Camera to follow characters is used a lot like you are the 2nd person with the characters. (Lots of diagetic noise) so more natural feeling.
> Lots of slow mo scenes which at 1st seem random but are actually relevant to key points in the story where different characters cross paths without knowing.>Very natural scenes (light reflecting off of him like its our eyes/his eyes)
> Same scene but reverse camera angle again and again. (key points in story)
> Irony - Music of beethoven with guy playing shooting game. (strange characters)
Wednesday, 24 September 2008
Fargo, (1996) Joel coen, USA
(Source: http://www.imdb.com/)
Fargo is based on true events that occurred in Minnesota in 1987 with the names changed to protect the victims. Jerry works in his father-in-law's car dealership and has gotten himself in financial problems. He tries various schemes to come up with money needed for a reason that is never really explained. It has to be assumed that his huge embezzlement of money from the dealership is about to be discovered by father-in-law. When all else falls through, plans he set in motion earlier for two men to kidnap his wife for ransom to be paid by her wealthy father (who doesn't seem to have the time of day for son-in-law). From the moment of the kidnapping, things go wrong and what was supposed to be a non-violent affair turns bloody with more blood added by the minute. Jerry is upset at the blood shed, which turns loose a pregnant sheriff from MN who is tenacious in attempting to solve the three murders in her jurisdiction.
MISE EN SCENE:
Flat empty snowy landscape resembles lonliness to characters and that they are knowhere.
(Such as north by northwest)
The director repeats a lot of scenes in terms of environment, we are taken from blue snowy plains to a household or building scene frequently, helping us learn the location of the film.
Many props are used this film, guns, cars, food and many a time does a telephone produce the diagetic sound in the scene. Through the use of a giant woodchopper statue from benath camera angle in the dark. We can guess that the next setting/scenes will produce alot of bad things for the story. I liked the general filmaking which had us guessing. Tension built up mystery because policeman takes ages to get out of car and you dont see his face for ages. (remembering that they have Jerrie's wife in back car and 1 criminal is panicking). The music here is non-diagetic music whihc builds up the suspense. Wondering whats going to happen.
Next scene with psycho criminal with dark eerie figure, music builds, he shoots teenagers in dark, blackout after gun. (Red light from his car shows us blood or danger). Lots of characters with red on them are in danger.
Contrast of tranquille music in snowy forest with criminals.
YAA? YAA! - showing their accent and they seemed to be not the brightest.
PERSONAL NOTE: I did not like the film as much for its storyline and it flowed rather poorly. Just seemed boring even with the action scenes of killing. However, as a piece of filmaking it scores highly because the actors put in a strong performance, the characters are developed well and the use of mise en scéne is very good. Also there are a few twists and it produced some good suspense. 6/10
Fargo is based on true events that occurred in Minnesota in 1987 with the names changed to protect the victims. Jerry works in his father-in-law's car dealership and has gotten himself in financial problems. He tries various schemes to come up with money needed for a reason that is never really explained. It has to be assumed that his huge embezzlement of money from the dealership is about to be discovered by father-in-law. When all else falls through, plans he set in motion earlier for two men to kidnap his wife for ransom to be paid by her wealthy father (who doesn't seem to have the time of day for son-in-law). From the moment of the kidnapping, things go wrong and what was supposed to be a non-violent affair turns bloody with more blood added by the minute. Jerry is upset at the blood shed, which turns loose a pregnant sheriff from MN who is tenacious in attempting to solve the three murders in her jurisdiction.
MISE EN SCENE:
Flat empty snowy landscape resembles lonliness to characters and that they are knowhere.
(Such as north by northwest)
The director repeats a lot of scenes in terms of environment, we are taken from blue snowy plains to a household or building scene frequently, helping us learn the location of the film.
Many props are used this film, guns, cars, food and many a time does a telephone produce the diagetic sound in the scene. Through the use of a giant woodchopper statue from benath camera angle in the dark. We can guess that the next setting/scenes will produce alot of bad things for the story. I liked the general filmaking which had us guessing. Tension built up mystery because policeman takes ages to get out of car and you dont see his face for ages. (remembering that they have Jerrie's wife in back car and 1 criminal is panicking). The music here is non-diagetic music whihc builds up the suspense. Wondering whats going to happen.
Next scene with psycho criminal with dark eerie figure, music builds, he shoots teenagers in dark, blackout after gun. (Red light from his car shows us blood or danger). Lots of characters with red on them are in danger.
Contrast of tranquille music in snowy forest with criminals.
YAA? YAA! - showing their accent and they seemed to be not the brightest.
PERSONAL NOTE: I did not like the film as much for its storyline and it flowed rather poorly. Just seemed boring even with the action scenes of killing. However, as a piece of filmaking it scores highly because the actors put in a strong performance, the characters are developed well and the use of mise en scéne is very good. Also there are a few twists and it produced some good suspense. 6/10
Tuesday, 23 September 2008
Equilibrium essay
(a) An analysis of a film extract – 1500 words (Mise en scene for opening scene)
Equilibrium, Kurt Wimmer, 2002, US.
I am going to review the Mise en Scene used in the opening 10 minutes of the film “Equilibrium”. The film is set in a futuristic world where a strict regime has eliminated wars by suppressing emotions. Feeling different emotions is a crime punished by death. The film stars Christian Bale as the main character called Preston, who is a top agent that is responsible for those who do not follow the rules. However, when he misses a dose of Prozium, the mind-altering drug that hides and suppresses emotion, Preston, who has been trained to enforce the strict laws of this new regime, suddenly becomes the only agent/man capable of overpowering it with his unique skill.
The film begins with a black screen that slowly fades into past videos of real life events relating to war and corruption with short titles summarising what is being said. A mans voice is narrating and summarising what these videos are relevant towards. He then explains that a new law has been installed which is set up to stop mankind from creating another war by taking away thoughtful emotions.
The video is now of what looks like a soldier training like a ninja and then lots of soldiers attacking a building. As the opening description slowly unveils the basic plot, an image of a painting is used which then turns out to be the start of an actual scene from the film.
So far we can learn that the setting of the film is in the future and by the dialogue/voice of the narrator can guess it may be set in future America. After the intro we may believe this to build up to be a serious film throughout which suggests violence and murder of some sort since speaking about a past war where everyone is now “controlled”.
An actor then appears and gives orders to a group of men who pick up artwork and grab guns; they then begin an assault on the law soldiers from a building with lots of windows and a massive gunfight breaks out. The scene follows where many men are shot and windows are smashed. Christian Bale is off camera not to be seen. When the soldiers advance in the building a car pulls up. Which the viewer can only see the very top of due to the camera positioning. This is done so we do not know who may exit the vehicle, creating suspense. To our surprise Christian Bale exits the car with another high profile actor, Sean Bean, wearing long black robes (Matrix style) and enters the building walking down a dark corridor with lots of bullet holes through the wall creating lots of shining light through effects.
From this next scene we can depict that the opening scene contains lots of props such as guns, cars, broken glass, costume of armour, black robes, black jackets and paintings followed by a large gun fight where many people get shot fighting on either side, which help to once again suggest what type of film this may be.
Down to personal opinion on how to look at a film, we can suggest that the film has to be fairly decent because two really good actors are together on screen at once. Playing what may be the main characters. They are also wearing interesting black robe suits and have stern faces like they are from a cult or organisation.
The lighting comes to effect because most of the filming is in a room and outside the building for this opening scene. Which normally you would expect natural lighting except maybe for the painting room scene. However, the director has once again given that eerie feeling to the film and pointed out that it may be serious by having some scenes very low tones of colour. For example, when the police pull up and get out of their cars is maybe to show significance?
The film in general has also quite dark lighting. Another film that I noticed that seemed to do this was “Superman returns” maybe trying to portray a new serious Superman film? For this next scene however the camera tracks the two main actors walking through the dark corridor with bright bullet hole lights shining through. This is a different type of lighting used in film that we do not see too often.
The camera then spins around the two actors and the 3rd actor speaking.
The camera then continues as if it were the eye view of the actors moving towards this door at the end of the corridor. A close up is followed on Christian Bale who, with a determined look begins running fast towards the door with 2 handguns in each hand. He then running kicks the door down and the camera follows this by going straight through the wall. Bullets are fired and the scene goes black accept with gunfire blazing across from left to right. Silence then occurs and after a few seconds the screen goes grey with a quiet whisper in the background. Gunfire then restarts but it is Christian Bale who begins firing. Killing lots of enemies whilst the camera has a 1st person view of Bales perspective and shows the end of a gun killing these men in the dark, the men then fall back in pain.
The use of editing here is useful and well done because it shows lots of killings going on in seconds with this 1st person view to get the feeling that Christian Bale is wiping out a lot of people easily. The lighting is once again a part to play as the room stays dark but the use of effects coming from the guns lights the room to allow seeing the characters in this fast motion track, quick changing action sequence (through lots of editing). Once black the scene then slowly lights up with two small bright lights at each side of the camera. These turn out to be the light from the hotness of Bales guns. Which slowly illuminates this figure of him in a stance then slowly fades back to black. Bright white lights in the forms of torches are then shunned. Creepy chanting music can then be heard in the background. Lots of lighting and diagetic sounds follow. The scene then shows Bale and Bean standing there with the camera constantly slowly moving to the right and fading to black like a slide to show the gap from one room to the next.
More props then come as more paintings are uncovered, this one showing the famous ‘Mona Lisa’ and other electronic devices are used. The camera is on this special effects for 2 seconds. A zooming in of Christian Bale’s bold look and the Mona Lisa’s face take turn. We are wondering what the purpose of all the past fighting scenes were for. Where the seemingly bad guys trying to rob some paintings? Or do the organisation has there own plans for them? All of a sudden Bale reveals that the painting should be burned! The camera then zooms out and 2 men in fire protection suits use a fire extinguisher to burn the paintings, another prop. Significance is shown as a quick zooming in on the burning rare painting and then Christian Bale’s facial expression with the fire in front of the camera. He walks off and Bean looks worriedly at the burning fire whereas Bale did not. What is Bean thinking?
We are treated to a completely new scene of a ruined city and a car driving away.
The ruined city shows that the stories 3rd world war clearly had some effect on this place helping to get an understanding of the environment. Bean reveals a book he kept (another prop) after Bale mentioning why he kept it and not gave it to others.
Another diagetic narrative takes place as the camera gives us a huge panning of the city whilst tracking the car. The lighting is still dim as they are now outside and the sky is rather pale blue. Another panning view of the city is used and shows timed stopping of all the actors used in the city using another prop and choreographed actors doing martial arts.
This is the detailed analysis of the 1st 10 minutes of the film ‘Equilibrium’ using the ideas of props, setting, lighting and characters to portray when and where they are and what might happen.
Equilibrium, Kurt Wimmer, 2002, US.
I am going to review the Mise en Scene used in the opening 10 minutes of the film “Equilibrium”. The film is set in a futuristic world where a strict regime has eliminated wars by suppressing emotions. Feeling different emotions is a crime punished by death. The film stars Christian Bale as the main character called Preston, who is a top agent that is responsible for those who do not follow the rules. However, when he misses a dose of Prozium, the mind-altering drug that hides and suppresses emotion, Preston, who has been trained to enforce the strict laws of this new regime, suddenly becomes the only agent/man capable of overpowering it with his unique skill.
The film begins with a black screen that slowly fades into past videos of real life events relating to war and corruption with short titles summarising what is being said. A mans voice is narrating and summarising what these videos are relevant towards. He then explains that a new law has been installed which is set up to stop mankind from creating another war by taking away thoughtful emotions.
The video is now of what looks like a soldier training like a ninja and then lots of soldiers attacking a building. As the opening description slowly unveils the basic plot, an image of a painting is used which then turns out to be the start of an actual scene from the film.
So far we can learn that the setting of the film is in the future and by the dialogue/voice of the narrator can guess it may be set in future America. After the intro we may believe this to build up to be a serious film throughout which suggests violence and murder of some sort since speaking about a past war where everyone is now “controlled”.
An actor then appears and gives orders to a group of men who pick up artwork and grab guns; they then begin an assault on the law soldiers from a building with lots of windows and a massive gunfight breaks out. The scene follows where many men are shot and windows are smashed. Christian Bale is off camera not to be seen. When the soldiers advance in the building a car pulls up. Which the viewer can only see the very top of due to the camera positioning. This is done so we do not know who may exit the vehicle, creating suspense. To our surprise Christian Bale exits the car with another high profile actor, Sean Bean, wearing long black robes (Matrix style) and enters the building walking down a dark corridor with lots of bullet holes through the wall creating lots of shining light through effects.
From this next scene we can depict that the opening scene contains lots of props such as guns, cars, broken glass, costume of armour, black robes, black jackets and paintings followed by a large gun fight where many people get shot fighting on either side, which help to once again suggest what type of film this may be.
Down to personal opinion on how to look at a film, we can suggest that the film has to be fairly decent because two really good actors are together on screen at once. Playing what may be the main characters. They are also wearing interesting black robe suits and have stern faces like they are from a cult or organisation.
The lighting comes to effect because most of the filming is in a room and outside the building for this opening scene. Which normally you would expect natural lighting except maybe for the painting room scene. However, the director has once again given that eerie feeling to the film and pointed out that it may be serious by having some scenes very low tones of colour. For example, when the police pull up and get out of their cars is maybe to show significance?
The film in general has also quite dark lighting. Another film that I noticed that seemed to do this was “Superman returns” maybe trying to portray a new serious Superman film? For this next scene however the camera tracks the two main actors walking through the dark corridor with bright bullet hole lights shining through. This is a different type of lighting used in film that we do not see too often.
The camera then spins around the two actors and the 3rd actor speaking.
The camera then continues as if it were the eye view of the actors moving towards this door at the end of the corridor. A close up is followed on Christian Bale who, with a determined look begins running fast towards the door with 2 handguns in each hand. He then running kicks the door down and the camera follows this by going straight through the wall. Bullets are fired and the scene goes black accept with gunfire blazing across from left to right. Silence then occurs and after a few seconds the screen goes grey with a quiet whisper in the background. Gunfire then restarts but it is Christian Bale who begins firing. Killing lots of enemies whilst the camera has a 1st person view of Bales perspective and shows the end of a gun killing these men in the dark, the men then fall back in pain.
The use of editing here is useful and well done because it shows lots of killings going on in seconds with this 1st person view to get the feeling that Christian Bale is wiping out a lot of people easily. The lighting is once again a part to play as the room stays dark but the use of effects coming from the guns lights the room to allow seeing the characters in this fast motion track, quick changing action sequence (through lots of editing). Once black the scene then slowly lights up with two small bright lights at each side of the camera. These turn out to be the light from the hotness of Bales guns. Which slowly illuminates this figure of him in a stance then slowly fades back to black. Bright white lights in the forms of torches are then shunned. Creepy chanting music can then be heard in the background. Lots of lighting and diagetic sounds follow. The scene then shows Bale and Bean standing there with the camera constantly slowly moving to the right and fading to black like a slide to show the gap from one room to the next.
More props then come as more paintings are uncovered, this one showing the famous ‘Mona Lisa’ and other electronic devices are used. The camera is on this special effects for 2 seconds. A zooming in of Christian Bale’s bold look and the Mona Lisa’s face take turn. We are wondering what the purpose of all the past fighting scenes were for. Where the seemingly bad guys trying to rob some paintings? Or do the organisation has there own plans for them? All of a sudden Bale reveals that the painting should be burned! The camera then zooms out and 2 men in fire protection suits use a fire extinguisher to burn the paintings, another prop. Significance is shown as a quick zooming in on the burning rare painting and then Christian Bale’s facial expression with the fire in front of the camera. He walks off and Bean looks worriedly at the burning fire whereas Bale did not. What is Bean thinking?
We are treated to a completely new scene of a ruined city and a car driving away.
The ruined city shows that the stories 3rd world war clearly had some effect on this place helping to get an understanding of the environment. Bean reveals a book he kept (another prop) after Bale mentioning why he kept it and not gave it to others.
Another diagetic narrative takes place as the camera gives us a huge panning of the city whilst tracking the car. The lighting is still dim as they are now outside and the sky is rather pale blue. Another panning view of the city is used and shows timed stopping of all the actors used in the city using another prop and choreographed actors doing martial arts.
This is the detailed analysis of the 1st 10 minutes of the film ‘Equilibrium’ using the ideas of props, setting, lighting and characters to portray when and where they are and what might happen.
Wednesday, 10 September 2008
Thelma and Louise (1991) Ridley Scott
What we can depict in the opening scene.
We can observe the setting in this film quite easily. It is set in a town in the deep south, USA. I came to this conclusion due to the accents , props, the folk song in the beginning, classic american cars and the rural background. It is set in the 1960's and the car is a '66 Thunderbird.
During this opening scene there are alot of diagetic and non-diagetic sounds.
know characters personnas, housewife and busy worker are bored and want to escape from boring life in the form of a road trip.
Thelma is messy housewife, she packs so untidy.
Louise seems single and tidy and dresses smart. They are quite opposite character contrasts.
Thelma is controlled housewife (stereotype) trys to sweet-talk husband with offer but he ignores her. So she makes decision final and leaves.
(Also the background music is related to the characters upbeat nature and the adventure ahead.)
Basically we learn a heck of a lot from the 1st few scenes about the setting, characters and what may happen later on.
Fin.
We can observe the setting in this film quite easily. It is set in a town in the deep south, USA. I came to this conclusion due to the accents , props, the folk song in the beginning, classic american cars and the rural background. It is set in the 1960's and the car is a '66 Thunderbird.
During this opening scene there are alot of diagetic and non-diagetic sounds.
know characters personnas, housewife and busy worker are bored and want to escape from boring life in the form of a road trip.
Thelma is messy housewife, she packs so untidy.
Louise seems single and tidy and dresses smart. They are quite opposite character contrasts.
Thelma is controlled housewife (stereotype) trys to sweet-talk husband with offer but he ignores her. So she makes decision final and leaves.
(Also the background music is related to the characters upbeat nature and the adventure ahead.)
Basically we learn a heck of a lot from the 1st few scenes about the setting, characters and what may happen later on.
Fin.
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