Homework BLK: Film Clip Analysis

Clip from 'Rush Hour', 1998.

Film Making Conventions

The scene starts with a shot of a car pulling up behind a fancy black gate, followed by a shot of two smartly dressed men behind the same gate but on the other side. This immediately creates a physical and metaphorical barrier between the two parties. 

The man who steps out of the car is dressed all in black and has a vibrant red tie, again this contrasts to the two mens' conventional suits with white shirts and further emphasises the difference between the two.

When conversing at the gate, many over-the-shoulder shots are used to show the two men are in conversation. (0.29, 0.33, 0.38 etc.)

At 0.05, the character standing in the foreground is in focus as he recieves a piece of information, then he passes it along to those behind him, and they are shown in focus as they recieve the information. Each persons positioning and focus in the shot shows exactly how much knowlegde they posess at that moment in time.

The film itself if categorised as an 'action comedy' and both these two genres can be clearly seen at 0.46 (action; fight scene) and 1.18 (humerous moment).  

Cultural Codes

Strong looking men in suits with deep voices, standing side by side, show power and strengh. Typically bodyguard/secuirty duo.  
 

Very fast paced and dramatic music starts once the 'chase' begins (1.09) and we as an audience can sense trouble is ahead. This music is often assiociated to someone running as we have heard in films before, and so we know what to expect and feel. 

Jackie Chan, a chinese man, starts to perform karate style moves and we are not surprised as this is almost steryotypical and makes sense in the audiences' mind.


The front gate, security guards with earpieces, winding road to the house, tall hedges and walls, curtains, large family portrait and high chairs in the main room all are symbols of wealth and quickly convey the familys' prosperity. 

Homework DYM: Film Still Analysis

This still is from the film 'Fracture' which I recently watched and highly recommend to lovers of the crime drama film genre.

Why I chose this shot: 

• It immediately appealed to me as I thought the idea of having the murderes reflection in a pool of the dying victims blood was very clever. We feel as if we are looking over the victim, but also can sense the murderer is looking over us as the viewer too, creating an eerie atmosphere and distance from the second character.
•  I felt both the lighting and colour schemes portrayed the themes of the film well. Essentially the entire narrative is based around this one murder and so all is mostly very serious and sinister throughout the film. The shot appears to have an icy blue tinge to it which could symbolise the murders cold-hearted and unnerving actions, along with the general dark wash and low key lighting that also conveys a sad and sombre tone, which follows throughout the film right until the very end. Finally, the victim herself is wearing a plain white top, perhaps to highlight the few blood stains and convey her innocence to the audince?
• The shot on its own also evokes questions: Who is the woman and the man overlooking her? Why is he staring instead of helping her? Did he kill her and why/how?

Homework BLK: Film Still and Evaluation

When taking shots, my group decided to focus on both the horror and thriller genres.

For this shot we wanted a location that looked remote and that also had naturally dark and shadowy lighting in order to effectively convey the horror genre to the audience. We thought these two technical codes were crucial in doing so as they both are used in horror films frequently when creating shots and scenes that evoke fear into an audience, along with some mystery and a sense of discomfort. Audiences associate these conventions with the genre and therefore will immediately know how to feel and react to this shot.

What We Did

To acheive this effect, we shot from a slight high angle which created a deep shadow on top of all the books and made it look as if it could almost stretch on forever into the unknown. This adds a horror-style feel to the shot. We also shot more to the left side of the object, (the hand) and not straight on so as to make it appear as if we were looking on from the characters perspective. However we still cannot see the face or body of this person and so we create even more mystery and enigma.

Was It Sucessful?

Personally I do feel this shot was succesful as just from looking at it, it's obvious which genre it belongs to. Also I think the shot is interesting in the sense it sparks many questions such as 'Who does the hand belong to?' and 'Why is this person in an old library?' 'What book do they need and why?'   

Possible Improvements

To improve this shot I think we could have done a number of things, for starters we could have shot on a duller day or blocked out the lighting to make the books themselves even more in shadow. This would emphasise their age and dust and perhaps could have also made the shot look as if it was at night time, which is when most scenes in horror films are shot. If we had more time we also could have thought about the positioning of the hand, altering it in various ways to make it look as if it was grabbing the book or be in a more awkward position to make the audince feel uncomfortable.