Taken Abduction Scene Analysis

Kim on the phone to her dad hiding under the bed.

This memorable and iconic scene is acted spectacularly by Maggie Grace and Liam Neeson, who play daughter (Kim) and father (Bryan). The scene is based on a phone call between Kim and Bryan as she has arrived in Paris with her friend Amanda. The first camera shot is a zoom which shows the discomposure of Kim as people break into her apartment. The sharp non diegetic sound is heard and as it fades back getting louder Kim steps back. This is called synchronous sound. Kim isn't speaking very quietly as she is alarmed that what is happening to her friend could happen to her. She is crying and very emotional in contrast to her father who is very calm and knows what to do. The camera shots in this scene are all zooms to show her panic.

The diegetic sound of the phone call is played most of the scene with no background music. This makes it seem more realistic and emphasised the horror of this action. Bryan (Liam Neesom) is fiddling around with his equipment whilst his daughter is answering questions moderately loud about people she has met or spoken to since being in France. The mise-en-scene is passports in a rubber band, which suggests he travels a lot and brings up the question of why he has more than 1 passport. He then pulls out what looks like a voice recorder and a speaker which are plugged into his phone.

He continues to ask questions like 'how many people are there' as the men approach the room Kim is hiding in. The sound is very fuzzled through the phone which creates suspense. The lighting in the room is very light to when she is told to move into the bedroom it is dark, the two room contrast. The dark room brings a bad atmosphere with it. The front on shot of Bryan shows his determination to help his daughter. We also get a sense of his feelings which connote that he is showing no emotion but behind his blank facade he is really nervous for his daughter.

As Kim slides under the bed, there is a tracking shot following her from the bathroom to here. The close up of her emphasises her emotions. As her dad is giving her advice on what to do, there is a diegetic sound of footsteps and creaking floor, this creates a spooky feel and suggests something negative will happen. There is also close ups of the shoes to emphasise how close they are to her. As she holds her phone up after being commanded to, the camera angle is a low angle to show her lack of power at this point in time. There is then a zoom into her face which signifies a sense of panic which suddenly changes to a sense of relief when the two men walk out the room.

She whispers 'They're leaving... I think they're...' The camera stays still as Kim proceeds backwards away from the camera to show that she is going to have to be found. The loud scream alerts Bryan and the camera slowly zooms in on his face as he listens to his daughter being abducted. The screaming then fades out and all is silent. Someone picks up the phone as Bryan gets up in sync. He says "I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you." There is another silence where after a few seconds a reply of "good luck" is heard and the phone is put down. Bryan's facial emotions are very distressed as he draws the phone away from his ear which foreshadows the girl being kidnapped.

The Call Trailer Analysis

The Call Cover

The Call is apart of the Thriller genre. The trailer starts off with a black screen. There is a sound bridge of the phone ringing. The over shot view of the office shows the power they all have as 911 operators and how busy they are. As soon as Hallie Berry hits the space bar to answer her call all the diegetic sound stops. The zoom into her eyes shows the fear of the operator of the sound she just heard over the phone of a window smashing. This connects to the sub title and shows how the audience should be feeling and signifies our response as well as hers. The echo of the screams connote that the girl is very scared. The dark lighting of the house that has been broken into suggests something bad will happen. When the operator redials after loosing connection, there is a blip in the screen like a flash of darkness. This indicates that there is going to be a change and that the intruder is going to find the girl. The zoom in on the teenagers mouth emphasises how loud her scream is and how scared she is, additionally the zoom in on the eyes again conveys how her mistake her cost the girl her life. 
Preceding, the sound effects when the car pulls into the girl show that it wasn't a mistake as it is intensified to build tension. As seen before the blip then happens multiple times and the girl is abducted. We then get an inside view of the girl in the boot of the car. We discover that the girl finds a phone and phones the 911 operators. Similar to before, the same operator gets put on the case to help, we know this time by her facial emotions she is determined to not make any mistakes and save the girl. The repetitive of the blip occurs when the abducter is shown, which demonstrates that the man could have abducted the first girl that was found dead. The steady non diegetic beat shows the heart beat of not only the girl but the 911 operator who is giving her specific advice on how to get people to notice her and getting her calm. The constant shutter effect is to connote something bad will happen like the man being set a light with petrol on him. The side shot of Berry’s eyes and the words she says and the reply foreshadow what was said in the first incident, this presents the fear. The flashbacks she has and the very short clips show how dramatic it is and builds up tension of what is going to happen next. The short clips of tense parts of the film put together to non diegetic sound signify the determination she showed at the beginning as we can guess that the girl is going to be saved. 

Children of Men Cover Analysis

The glass is smashed. This connotes that the world he lives in is broken. The shape of the glass cut out is a heart, this may suggest that he has a broken heart. The writing on the cover is stenciled on and looks like graffiti. This may suggest vandalism and crime in the world he lives in. Under the word 'children' may represent a red embryo to suggest that babies are being killed/not born. The main character is seen through the glass as very in focus and stong. His eyes present a lot of emotion which is aimed right at the camera to connote the world he is living in.

Pulp Fiction Cover Analysis

We see a girl wearing black, showing a bit of cleavage, this attracts men to watching the film. Her choice of attire aswell as her high heels which connotes her power as a women. The cigarette in her hand, the red lipstick and the gun show that she is provocative. It is done on purpose that her eyes are staring straight into the camera to signify her intimidating personality. The cover has 10 cent stamp on it to illustrate that this is infact a book cover. Pulp Fiction means a cheap book hence why it is 10 cent. The room she is in looks very dark, this connotes that something bad may happen in the film. The light only hits her legs which may suggest that she is very active and presents her character.

Editing the Prelim

For my prelim, i edited using Adobe Premiere Pro. I found that this was very simple to use once i got the hang of it. I found the idea of continuity hard after we had filmed it as we made a mistake with the door opening and closing so we couldn't use one shot because the door wasn't in sync with the other shot when putting two together.

I chose the shots by choosing the ones that flowed and observed continuity which was challenging. We organised our shots by matching the story board and the ones that looked good together. We checked for things like selective focus as that makes the outcome better.

We did shot reverse shot as Claudia and Mr Wood were having a conversation, additionally the eyeline match was also done when they were in the conversation. Lastly we also did match and action. Mr Wood walked in and chucked a packet of gum at Claudia and in the next scene she chucked it.

If I had to improve I would do more transitions and make sure everything is done properly like focus shots.



This is the screen whilst editing.

The logging.

The variety of shots.

This was the exporting of the clip.

Prelim

When making my prelim it was fairly easy to set up the camera once shown how to do it. The white balance setting was tested by members of my team and I. We put a piece of paper in front of the lens so we could focus it to the correct lighting. 

When observing the 180 degree rule, it was very hard at first as my group had to do two takes as we were unclear that we had the keep the video running instead of stopping and starting on the shots we wanted at particular bits. When it was understood, the 180 degree rule was pretty simple to do as we did a video from each angle and then when we edit we will cut and place the shots we need. 

The 180 degree rule

Following the storyboard was very simple and we also improvised. Claudia and Mr Woods starred in our pre lim as they were the best actors that we could find at the time. They were very easy to work with and followed instructions given by the director, camera person and continuity person. 

This is the storyboard we followed...

As a group, Becca, Jess, Claudia and I worked very well. We all took turns changing roles so we could all have a go to film. Claudia was acting but filmed the close ups of Mr Wood that she wasn't in.

My personal contribution to the film was my part of being a director and filming 2 of the scenes from two different angles. I also did the continuity to make sure the object thrown landed in the same place every time and was thrown and dropped every time as well as the actors staying in the same position the whole time. I observed the story board each time before we did the shot to make sure it was right.

If i had the chance to improve i would do more camera angles if i had more time as we only got one extra shot done which was a high shot. I think shots like low shot signify and connote more ideas. Additionally I would like to use the camera more as i liked to film and get it in the right position. Finally i would like to the do a more interesting story line.

How to Setup a Camera

Children of Men Analysis using Mise-en-Scene and Sound

The poster of Children of Men

Children on Men is about a dystopian future where everything is as bad as it can be. It is directed by  Alfonso Cuaron and is a Sci-Fi film. It is set In 2027, after 18 years of global human infertility, civilisation is about to collapse as humanity faces the reality of extinction. 

The camera is crucial when introducing the main character as it follows him using a tracking shot out of the cafe. On top of this, the man is also central in the cafe scene, barging through the crowd so we automatically know he is the main character, this reflects his spectacular acting throughout this film.

The costume of the man is very rugged and has loose change which he pays for his coffee with, this backs up his tramp look. Additionally, he has very dull coloured clothing on which contrasts with the buses that are high tech and he is just completely the opposite. He could also be perceived as an alcoholic as he pours whisky into his morning coffee from a flask. This looks like a normal day to day activity for him as he was eager to stop where he first could to put the whiskey in. The clip we watched shows no make up. 

There is mixed elements of lighting throughout the clip. There is some elements of light to show the future and how high-tech and cool it would be to live like that in the future. On the other hand there is also a lot of darkness to show how boring the lives of the people are especially as the plot of the film is about having no kids.

I think London is a good place to have this movie set in because it is familiar as a city to many people. Subsequently the scene looks very realistic even with the addition of the dystopian future objects like the bus with movies on the side.

The sound in Children of Men shows the kind of character he is. As he walks into the coffee shop to order his drink, he is the only person to speak over the news which shows his disinterest to the world around him, this may connote that he is already a bit drunk. The actor is followed by white noise, whilst the crying people and followed by classical music to associate him with negative things. Furthermore, the classical music also acts as a trigger for our emotions which should be sad a sympathetic. There are lots of diegetic sounds like the motorbikes, the news reader and the coffee machines. There is also non diegetic music like the classical music. Finally the noise of the explosion creates white noise that acts as a sound bridge linking one scene to the next. This mean the explosion has affected him emotionally and shows the film from the main characters perspective.

Analysis of the Mise-en-Scene in Scream

The costume of the caller 

Imagine being in a house, away from civilisation. No one around, no neighbours, no family in the house, just you! Ring ring, ring ring. The first time a creepy man calls what what you do? Then if he phoned back within 5 seconds of hanging up, would you be calm and flirt over the phone? Then if he phoned up for the third time, would you start to get slightly worried? Finally the fourth time, where he decides to death threat you and hold your boyfriend hostage in you garden. Would you stay on the phone? POP...POP...POP!

Scream is directed by Wes Craven. The setting comes across to the viewer as spooky. There is a house in the middle of a woodland area with no other houses around. We see this when a crane shot is done from over the trees and the sound effect of crickets is played to show the quietness of the area. This automatically creates a sense of danger for the girl in the house. This is also shown when she is the only one in the house as no one answers the phone and there is no ambient noise from people upstairs or in the other room. When she puts the phone down this shows juxtaposition that she is on her own. In the house, the knives on the counter that she fiddles with whilst on the phone to the caller shows that she is probably going to be killed in the end with this knife. The popcorn that she is cooking on the counter creates suspense as the popping gets faster and faster the more times the man calls. This leads on to the different music and noises that are made.

There is a soundbridge from the title to when we first see the girl, it is a scream to show that something bad is going to happen and it also associates with the title of the film and portrays mystery. The heavy, loud music relates to heart beat and is played just before the phone is answered to show not only how the character is feeling but how we should also feel and creating suspense. Additionally, the piano that is being heard creates the feeling that the viewer should be scared and builds up tension. There is also soft music that is heard that builds up in tempo and dramatic music that changes with the tone of the mans voice. This makes us feel scared.

Moreover, there are many camera angles used for different purposes. A tracking shot is used to follow the girl around the house from room to room. This is done to show that she is alone and vulnerable. A crane shot is used and zoomed in on the house to show isolation. Subsequently a fast zoom is used to show the fear on her face when the caller says something no girl home alone in an isolated area wants to hear. Aswell as the camera angle determinating our emotions, the lighting also makes a huge difference. When is it darker in the house, it is going to be more scarier as it builds suspense. There is only light when she turns the light on her boyfriend, which hints he will be okay in the end but the house still in darkness means she on the other hand will not be. 

The costumes in scream give off lots of hints about what will happen. The main character who is blonde has that colour hair for a reason, which is that in a horror film when a girl is blonde, the audience know that she will automatically be killed. The scary character has a white mask and a black cloak which shows he wants to cover himself up. His mask is very unrealistic and looks like it's be stretched out which makes the character seem much more scary. The blonde girl when acting is very good. At first she is flirting with a random man on the phone and telling him she doesn't have a boyfriend maybe she could be perceived as dishonest. When the suspense starts to build up, the fear is actually shown in her face. 

The blonde girl cooking her popcorn.

About Me

     Hi my name is Billie Alexander. I am 16 years old. I previously studied Geography, French, Art, Maths, Double science, English and JS for my GCSE'S and i am continuing with Geography and Art and additionally Media and Psychology for my A-levels. I am interested in studying media as i have made movies from a young age with my friends on iMovie and video stars ranging from remaking tv shows to making music videos. I have always been interested in film and TV. Lastly my dad owns a media company and i think it looks really fun so would like to learn how to make films, camera angles and what the music should make the viewer feel.

     My favourite genre of films is rom-com or thriller because I find them the most interesting to watch. My favourite actors are Adam Sandler and Liam Neeson. I find Sandler a very funny character in every film he is in and like the genre Neeson is in. My favourite actress is Jennifer Aniston as she mainly stars in rom coms and i find her acting to be very realistic. My favourite film is Taken and the sequel Taken 2 follows on really well to make a twist on the original story. I also like A Cinderella Story which is a rom com. My favourite TV show is Pretty Little Liars and The Vampire Diaries as they are very eventful every programme and always end with the audience wanting to know whats going to happen.

Jennifer Anniston and Adam Sandler

Pretty Little Liars