Post 9/11 film: The Hurt Locker

I have chosen The Hurt locker as a post 9/11 film as i believe it represents this event in a rather good way allowing the film to be intense at certain parts. This film is a good example of a post 9/11 film as it is firmly set within the framework of the war on terror. The main aspect of this film is that there are Islamic terrorists who are attacking the US army. The US army have a big juggernaut like suit which is very padded and enables great protection from explosions. This may be a direct link to 9/11 as it is symbolising that even though America is highly defended it can still be wounded by things for example explosions (9/11). Furthermore this film shows how the bomb squad who are in this film become more psychologically damaged by the war each day that they survive showing that they are becoming more vulnerable as the days pass. In addition this films continues to show influence of the effects of 9/11 as the films isn’t about politics, it is about people. This is showing an effect of 9/11 as politics couldn’t really do much for the country and the people of America were frightened as they realise they are not invincible. It tries to show how a person under terrorist threat would feel and how they would be living with caution.

    ENJOY

How does mise-en-scene create meaning and provoke audience response in a 3-5minute sequence for the film “I am legend”?

I have decided to study the film “I am legend”, and the micro element that i shall be analysing is mise en scene. The extract that i shall be analysing the scene in which Dr. Robert Neville (Will Smith) returns to his house and makes himself some food and washes his dog. I believe that the directors aims in this scene were to create how normal yet different the character is. The character seems normal as he is dressed in a suitable fashion and seems to be happy, but there are many hints which indicate that he is different and maybe he is hiding something.

At the beginning of the sequence Dr. Robert Neville exits his car and goes to the passenger door and brings out 2 containers. One of which has a biohazard sign on it showing the audience that clearly this man has possession of dangerous chemicals. He then walks away and begins to go up the steps to his house. As he walks up these steps he pours a clear liquid all over them. The audience may be led to believe it may be just water. This provokes the audience as Dr. Neville is acting in a suspicious way. His body language is suspicious, as he seems to be acting strange and being cautious with his actions. This is showing the audience straight away that there is something dangerous out there. However there is a contrast as there are birds tweeting and golden leaves which symbolises how peaceful this area maybe, also the area seems to be empty. This provokes the audience to think what has happened to everyone. Already there seems to be abit of mystery lingering in the audience’s minds. As he reaches the top of the steps and finishes with the liquid he looks left and right to check if anyone is there. This could provoke an audience response as it may indicate that he is being cautious that no-one is watching him and that he is being careful with his actions.

 The first thing that is seen when we enter the house is 3 power boxes. Yet again a sense of in normality as the power boxes must be needed to generate a lot of electricity for something but what? This leaves the audience alert and thinking of what Dr. Rogers may be hiding. Furthermore there is an abnormal amount of food in a storeroom and when he takes out some Bolognese sauce he replaces it with a new jar. This shows us that he has clearly stockpiled on food meaning that there is a lack of food and he is trying to survive, also that he is organised with his food and he likes to keep it all in the same place where he found it.

As Dr. Rogers enters the lounge the television is on and the director makes the audience aware that it is a recording. The recording is obvious as the director places the camera directly in front of the television, so that it takes up most of the screen. this immediately catches the audience’s attention Also on the television there are numbers counting up which show the audience that it is a recording. These numbers are immediately shown to the audience as they are bold white writing and comes off the screen, being the first thing that the audience see’s. Immediately the audience know that something is wrong. This shows the audience that Dr. Rogers is trying to feel normal and live a normal life as if nothing has happened. He acts normal as he walks around his house, implying to the audience that he is trying to live his life as a normal human being. He then shuts the door to the lounge making sure that he is secure and safe. This may indicate to the audience that he is trying to keep everything like windows and doors shut within his house in order to keep something from the outside getting in.

The director uses the kitchen fridge as a prop to give us a bigger perspective on Dr. Neville’s life. Each item on it poses a question for the audience or acts as a clue for his situation. On the front of the fridge are pictures of his family. His wife and children. These pictures may be a memory of what he used to have it makes us feel sympathy for him as he maybe missing his family. There is also a calendar on the fridge. This may mean that Dr. Rogers is trying to keep track of the days. Furthermore there is a magazine cover of him on the fridge. When the audience spots this the first thing they will see is a huge white question mark next to the word saviour. The purpose of this question mark is to show that maybe Dr. Rogers is questioning whether he is a saviour or not. This may signify to the audience that Dr. Rogers may have been a saviour in the fact that he may have saved many people, but he has put a question mark there as he didn’t save what he wanted to save. Maybe it is his family that he didn’t save. This would explain the photos on the fridge used as memories. In addition there is still a large abundance of food within the kitchen/ lounge. This shows the audience that he has a lot of food and that he keeps it organanised. Furthermore as he eats his food his dog (Samantha/Sam) begins to eat her own food. Dr. Rogers talks to the dog as if she is a human. He treats her like a child by saying “eat your vegetables.” This shows the audience that maybe the dog is his only friend/family left. After Dr. Rogers and Samantha have eaten he takes her upstairs to the bathroom in order to give her a wash.

This scene is of Dr. Rogers washing his dog. As he is washing his dog he turns on the radio and seems to be happy as he sings along to this song.  This is the Director is building up a false sense of security scene for the audience. As an audience we are suspicious as everything seems to be okay. This scene is implying “calm before the storm.” The words from the song “everything is going to be alright” may show the audience that Dr. Rogers is reassuring himself that he is safe through the words of a song. Maybe the song makes him feel as if he is in another world? The sound from the radio is diegetic. As he washes his dog the camera zooms out and there is a golden glow of light from the sun which fills the room. The colour gold symbolises a new age, hope and warmth. This could provoke a response from the audience as they could be questioning whether or not this is a good or bad new age as there is so much mystery behind Dr. Rogers. Further on in the scene Dr. Rogers is still washing Sam and a beeping of an alarm begins. Once this beeping begins all the noise in the environment of the room including the music and the water coming out of the shower fades away and all the audience can hear is the sound of this alarm. This can provoke a response from the audience as it shows them that this sound is very important to Dr. Rogers and it seems to make him upset. There is a major contrast between performance when this beeping occurs as Dr. Roger goes from being happy and singing along to some music to just quit and there is a sign of deep thought and sadness in his face. The camera then goes to the dog and the dog begins to bark. This alarm seems to block out the barks from the dog and no facial expression is shown from Dr. Rogers. The barks from the dog show the audience that there is something wrong and that the dog senses it. Eventually all of the sound comes back to Dr. Rogers and he immediately stops washing the dog and gets up from his seat and closes these steel doors/shutters behind the window. This provokes the audience into the response that there is defiantly something dangerous out there and these steel doors are used for protection and that Dr. Rogers realises what world he lives in now. Furthermore the beeping indicates to the audience that Dr. Rogers shuts these steel doors at the same time every day. This final scene answers the entire audiences question about Dr. Rogers’s family, why he has so much food, why he poured that liquid on the steps outside.

In conclusion, i believe that the director was very successful in creating layers of meaning and provoking a response from the audience as he has created the scene so that the audience believe that Dr. Rogers is a normal person and that he is living a normal life, but there are hints around the house and hints in the personality of the character which show that he is living a slightly different life compared to a normal human being. These hints engage with the audience as they begin to ask themselves questions about Dr. Rogers’s life and it begins to create mystery behind the character as he does things that not a particularly normal living person would do. The director then uses the last part of the scene to finally show the audience that he is far from a normal person that is living a normal life and that the life he is living is rather dangerous and survival is a key aspect to living in this new world.

How does sound create meaning and provoke response in the short film lucidity?

My film is about a young boy that begins to see strange things happening to him around the house. He seems to be seeing things and is getting worried about what he is seeing. Everything that he is seeing is within his head and seems to be some kind of illusion, but seems real to him. The paranoia begins to get worse as the time goes on causing him to become more scared as the minutes pass by. The aims in which i have tried to achieve are a sense of horror and eeriness within the house. This is used to keep the audience engaged with the film.

The film begins with the boy walking down the stairs playing music aloud throughout the house on his speaker. I chose this diegetic sound to show teenage taste of music indicating that the boy is having a normal happy day and is enjoying his day. He then turns down the music. I did this so the music can signify the mood set within the house. The loud music indicates happiness and joy whereas the quiet, low volume music indicates the mood of happiness being slowly removed from the house.

The second scene is the boy moving through the kitchen to go outside into the garden to get some fresh air. I did not add any sound here as there was no need due to the scene being simple and nothing mysterious was happening.  He then goes to the bridge and leans over it to see his reflection, but he sees his friends reflection next to him. I purposely used no non-diegetic sound here as the silence before the reflection is seen signifies peace, this way is more effective as it stands out to the audience. When the reflection is shown no sound effects are used as the boy screams in horror. The sound from the boy is natural and sharp and pierces through the audience placing shock and fear within them. I wanted the audience to feel as if this was the start of something horrible and mysterious like an alarm for the audience. The boys then moves away in shock and trips over and falls to the ground making his hands dirty. As he turns around and falls to the floor i added a non diegetic sound to symbolise how confused and scared the boy was. This non-diegetic sound is a rather sharp and alerting noise which gets louder as the boy falls. Once he has landed on the floor the sound immediately stops to show awareness to the audience.

 He then makes his way upstairs to wash his hands. As he runs up stairs a build up of music is used to show that something is going to happen and this moment is being built up to. Whilst he is washing his hands he the water turns to blood. At this point a sudden change in the music is used. The change is a quick change in pitch causing the music to sound loud and sharp. This provokes the audience as it immediately grabs the audience’s attention telling them that something wrong has happened.

The next scene is of the boy running downstairs and goes to sleep thinking that all of these weird occurrences that he keeps seeing will go away. I added some non- diegetic sound here as it complements the tilt shot showing the audience that something is still going to occur as the confusion is still lingering.  After this he then wakes up and gets a suitcase. He drops the suitcase and a loud unnerving non-diegetic sound is used to show how shocked the boy is knowing that he has just dropped his dead friend. This is also used to guide the audience to feel uneasy as well as the character.  He turns around and his other friend is laying on the floor dead. The doorbell then rings and the sound is removed as he thinks someone is here to help. He then goes to the door still under shock and realises that there are two people at the door. He opens the door and his friends are standing there and say hi. They say hi as they haven’t experienced anything and feel normal and are acting in a normal way. I deliberately used the most normal dialogue to make it seem more shocking. Also when he opened the door i purposely used a sharp non- diegetic sound to alert the audience.

Overall i believe that is have been successful within sound. I also believe that other sounds could have been used within the film such as when the boy was walking towards the bridge. This sound could have been used to build up tension within the audience so they are expecting something horrible to happen from when he arrives to the bridge.

We need to talk about Kevin

Mise-en-scene and sound play a really important part in the opening sequence of ‘we need to talk about Kevin.’ It does this by provoking audience response.

In the opening, the first scene is dark and there are screams and ticking in the background used as a parallel backtrack. The screams create an eerie sound causing the audience to think of death and torture. When this is used with a ticking noise it allows more imagery to be created as the ticking can represent a ticking time bomb meaning that the ticking it building tension in the audience and signalling that a major disaster is going to occur. A bright white light is seen as the scene ends. This is a huge contrast from the screams and dark thoughts as the bright white light is a pure and heavenly tone. This light may show that someone has died and gone to heaven, or that as the next scene is in present day it is a sign for being ‘reborn’ and starting anew.

A new scene begins and the first thing that the audience see is the colour red. The red is used to signify blood and aggression. This affects the audience as this signifies that something is wrong and anger and anguish may be following this women and she doesn’t seem to be able to get away from it. Furthermore in this scene the women is lifted up and she is positioned into a cross position. This position shows a religious aspect as Jesus was pinned up on the cross. This is used to provoke the audience as Jesus was not aggressive. He was peaceful and calm. But in this scene the women is in the position of a cross and is covered in red tomatoes. Maybe showing that Jesus is covered by blood and this may provoke some of the audience. The cross could also symbolise that the women is at peace for that split second, but is then dropped into the tomatoes and trapped again as everyone kicks tomatoes at her. In the scene everyone is close together and it is tightly packed, but yet surrounded by all of these red crushed tomatoes. This may show that even if someone is close to you, fighting/aggressive may still occur and blood may be drawn.

In the next scene it goes to present day and the women is in her home and she just wakes up. This may suggest to the audience the audience that the woman is tired and she just wants some peace and quiet. The lighting in the house is rather unpleasant/unnatural to the audience as there is still the colour red appearing. This provokes the audience response as the audience know that red seems to be following this lady around even in present day. Also there is a yellowy tinge to the colour of the inside of the house. This colour can be used to represent sickness/illness. There is a camera shot which is point of view and it is looking through the window. The blinds show a shape of prison bars which can be seen as the women is trapped in her own home or it is a form of foreshadowing as Kevin is later seen in a prison. This would alert the audience as no-one should be ‘trapped’ in their own home. When the lady gets up she knocks over some pills. This shows the audience that this women isn’t normal and that she is on some kind of medication. The woman makes her way around the house and walks outside. When she is outside the first thing that the audience hear is the sound of birds tweeting and a sense of freedom. This shows a complete contrast in comparison with her house. All of the colours seem to bright up and everything looks natural and pure. This could show to the audience that when the woman is inside her house she feels locked up and away from the outer world, dwelling on all of the bad memories. The camera then zooms out and there a red substance all over her house. Yet again this red colour doesn’t seem to want to go away and keeps reminding the audience that death/aggression seems to be following her.

This scene is a flashback. This scene is in the past and everything seems to be happy. The house that the woman is in seems to be open and light no sign of red. The woman has a family and is smiling and there is laughter as the little girl is dancing with her dad. This shows the audience that in the past the women seemed to have a good, happy life but keeps the audience wondering what happened to it all. Even though the house is open and light. The colours within the house are boring and plain. These are the kind of colours that would be associated with hospitals and psychiatric wards. This is showing the audience that even though the woman seems happy she still feels slightly trapped and that her life seems to be a chore. In addition when the audience see the woman smiling there is a slight reddy/yellow light on one side of her face. This shows that something sinister is still following her. Before Kevin enters the room the little girl is all happy and playful, but when he enters he drops his bag on the table and the audience can tell that there is a sudden increase in sound. The girl goes quiet and so does everything else. The audience can see that Kevin seems to bring misery to the room and a sense of awkwardness. Also the way Kevin is presented in this scene is as if he is unhappy as he has no happy facial expressions. Everyone seems to be happy in this scene as they are laughing and having fun, but Kevin seems to stop all of that as he enters the room.

Overall ‘we need to talk about Kevin’ continuously provokes an audience response throughout the opening scene as a sense of eeriness seems to be following this woman throughout the whole opening. All of these signs are represented by different elements as the colour red constantly occurs throughout and keeps reminding the audience of this.   

Sound Techniques- Film Analysis

The sequence that we filmed was based on a hacker uploading/downloading virus onto a computer, but he does not know that he was apart of an experiment only known to few. This experiment caused him to lose his memory of the events and black out often. So the sequence practically begins properly when the Hacker is being interrogated. The Hacker had blacked out and he does not recall any of the events that took place 13 hours ago. Agent turner and agent Sullivan are a part of M.I.6. They found the hacker on the floor in one of the rooms and ask him questions once he came around. Due to the black out the Hacker couldn’t remember. So Agent Sullivan is the good cop, who tries to comfort the captive, but Agent Turner has a different approach and seemed to lose his temper quickly, his approaches were rather aggressive to try and put fear into the captive.

All of the listed sound techniques were involved in this sequence.

At the beginning of the sequence there was a parallel backing track, which allowed the audience to realise that the Hacker (Malcolm Reid) was doing something not ‘normal’ as the backing track introduced a certain mysterious vibe to the setting. The second scene carried on the backing track. This introduced the sound bridge technique; this showed a continuation of the two scenes. Diegetic sound was used when Agent Turner slammed the desk as you could see the source of the sound. Non-diegetic sound was used when there was a man screaming outside of the interrogation room in the corridor. We chose to use these sounds at these points as the slapping on the desk showed that the Agent was getting frustrated, also the screaming showed that maybe the service doesn’t just interrogate people. These sound techniques were also our on and off screen sounds. Our contrapuntal sound was used at the end of the sequence with the hacker laughing. This showed that even though the Agents were taking it serious the hacker wasn’t and it just doesn’t fit in with the scene. All of these choices and the way they were executed I believe were successful as the way each other technique was used shows how/ why it is used and they were used in a effective manner.

Assessing own technical capabilities:

I believe that most of the sound was captured effectively but during the sequence where Hassan walks into the room he seemed abit quite. This was because the door was too far away from the camera so the microphone was not able to reach him.

The sound equipment provided was used effectively when needed; maybe after a little more experience of using it we may be able to use the equipment better.

The differentiation between diegetic and non-diegetic sound was shown clearly in the sequence as there was 2 very distinct was in showing it as the man screaming down the corridor was non-diegetic as the source of the sound was not shown, and Agent turner slamming the table with his hand was diegetic as the source of the sound was shown. Furthermore the difference between on and off screen sound was clearly as well by these two examples as the slamming of the table was on screen and the man screaming was off screen.

In addition, the difference between parallel and contrapuntal sound was shown as the opening track had co-ordinated with the opening sequence and the laugh at the end did not match the scene that was being filmed. This showed a real contrast between the two as they are completely opposite techniques and if used 

effectively can great a huge impact in a film.

The use of the sound bridge could have been a little better, but I think that they way we used it was good as it showed a continuation between two scenes and linked them together in some way.

Overall:

In conclusion the positive aspects of our film was the use of all the sound effects, as they were used effectively, also the dialogue was good to a certain standard and the story that we was trying to put across was good for the time that was allotted to us. We all played our part well and all of the characters different personalities were shown.

If I were to make improvements then I would ensure that the sound equipment is used effectively throughout the whole film so that no-one sounds quite. I would also add a few more camera movements like a long shot to show the environment outside.

Film Studies

The story:

The story we were trying to tell, was based on two school boys. These two boys were having a normal day in school, talking about normal things like any other guy would. They have a quick conversation about recent events in Dagenham, which associates with a murderer, not from this world, people know him as man-like. Man-like ends up arriving at the school and stalking the two boys, watching their every move as they walk down the corridors. Eventually the boys realise that they are being followed and manage to get away, but with their surprise man-like uses his abilities to teleport in front of them and manages to trap them in a room. What happened to the boys is still unknown.

Shot types and camera movements used:

The shots we managed to use involved, long shot and high angle at the beginning of the film as the intro, a medium shot from waist to feet as the two boys walked up the stairs, also a medium shot from waist to head as they walked down the corridor. Some camera movements that we included in the film were: pan as the boys ran away from man-like, tilt movement as man-like walked up the stairs. We used a long shot and high shot as the intro as this gave the image that the boys are small and vulnerable, also the long shot was effective as it allowed the audience to get an idea of what environment the boys were in/walking into. The medium shot enabled us to focus on just the boys and their conversation. We used tilt in order for the audience to see a whole head to toe view of man-like, also the pan shot was used to represent the boys running, it showed a sense of how quickly they panicked as they saw man-like. Most of our choices of movements and shots were successful as they were used in the right way, but I believe that the long shot wasn’t successful as even though it was meant to represent the surrounding environment, there was no need for it as the whole film was recorded in doors.

Technical Capabilities:

Throughout the whole film I do believe that all the shots were steady. This was due to a good camera man, with a helping hand with a tripod which was mostly laid on its three legs of the floor allowing these steady shots.

Overall:

The most positive aspects of our film were that you got to know the characters in such a short time, and that the basis of the plot was good. The improvement that would have been good is if we had executed the plot properly. I say this as the film seems disjointed, as we had to end up rushing it, so we couldn’t enable the whole plot to unravel slowly; we had to rush to the end in a way. The end was not thought up in much detail (due to it being rushed) but we managed as a group to make a finished piece, which is better than no finished piece. So we need to work on our time management.