Question 1 (b) EVALUATE YOUR PRODUCTION IN RELATION TO NARRATIVE
Choose your A2 production. Start your exam answer by stating that you intend to answer in relation to Brief 2, the promotion package that you have created, composed of a trailer for your film (name) together with a film poster and film magazine (name).
Apply theories of narrative to one of your coursework productions.
These questions appear quite short and fit a common formula. You will be asked to apply ONE concept to one of your productions. This is a quite different task from question 1a, where you write about all of your work and your skills, as this one involves some reference to theory and only the one piece of work, as well as asking you to step back from it and think about it almost as if someone else had made it - what is known as ‘critical distance’.
Narrative is one of the main ways that characters and their characteristics are relayed to the viewer. Narrative also dominates and affects other aspects of film such as editing. For example, if a film centres on the story of a particular character (Shaun in 'This Is England' (2006); Rita O'Grady in 'Made In Dagenham (2002), Jenny and Steve in 'Eden Lake' (2008)), it needs to be filmed and edited to privilege their point of view.
DAVID BORDWELL
Understand the position of Bordwell's ideas on classic Hollywood narrative in relation to other narrative frameworks here in this Slideshare on narrative theory
Classical Hollywood Cinema
A very interesting text, Three Dimensions of Film Narrative by David Bordwell is at http://www.davidbordwell.net/books/poetics_03narrative.pdf
In 'Three Dimensions of Film Narrative', Bordwell explains that a chain of events within a media form (such as a film or music video) cause effects on a relationship in time and space. The narrative shapes this material in terms of time and space, such as where and when things take place. This can be portrayed by using effects to show the time and space: for example, flashbacks, forwarding time, slow motion and speeding up. There might be titles used, such as in 'The Shining', to show which day it is during flashbacks or flashforwards, connoting the importance of time in the narrative.
Spend 35 minutes.
There are many ways of breaking down narrative structure. You may hear a movie described as a "classic Hollywood narrative", meaning it has three acts. News stories have their own structure. A lot of work has been done by literary theorists to develop ways of deconstructing a narrative.
A film trailer is ideal for narrative, as it depends upon ideas about narrative in order to function. A trailer must draw upon some elements of the film’s imaginary complete narrative arc in order to entice the viewer to watch it, without giving too much away. You have been introduced to a number of theories about narrative, but just in case, here’s a link to a PDF by Andrea Joyce, which summarises four of them, including Propp and Todorov.
CLAUDE LEVI STRAUSS
constant creation of conflict/opposition propels narrative. Narrative can only end on a resolution of conflict. Opposition can be visual (light/darkness, movement/stillness) or conceptual (love/hate, control/panic), and to do with soundtrack. Binary oppositions.
Our narrative works through binary oppositions. This can be seen through the two protagonists Xander and Charlie being chased after by the army marines Ryan and Ollie. Our codes are shown through the outfits which the antagonists wear, in this case army gear, their faces are also shown to display a thug like persona.
Levi-Strauss and binary opposition – Claude Levi-Strauss identified a narrative system of 'binary opposites' in which symbols and ideas exist in relation to their opposites, with which they are in conflict. The theory is that this helps us draw meanings from a text, such as the need to side with a character who is 'good'. Typical binary oppositions are Good v Evil; Male v Female; Us v Them (Think 'Eden Lake', 'Ae Fond Kiss').
Bordwell & Thompson Narrative Theory
In our film we use a securtiy camera effect filter to give an idea of someone watching our protagonsit as he leaves an area.
Bordwell and Thompson in their book Film Art, An Introduction (tenth edition, 2013) discuss the role of editing in creating temporal (time) and spatial (space) meaning. They also discuss how the way a scene is edited gives it rhythm and visual, or graphic meaning. Rhythm is important in a chase scene such as the one previously described because the rhythm of the editing needs to match the emotion of the scene. Put simply, the pace of the cars and the frantic nature of car chases is communicated almost as much through the temporal, spatial and rhythmic considerations in the editing as through the performance of the actors and the mix of the roaring engines and screeching tyres in the diegetic sound and the fast paced, upbeat music in the non-diegetic sound.
Robert McKee’s lesser known Classic Five Part Narrative Theory, extensively discussed by Joe Nicholas and John Price in their book “Advanced Studies in Media” (1998) may be more appropriate since it allows for the progressive accumulation of events which inspire the protagonist to act. The theory suggests the first stage of the narrative is the inciting incident, followed by progressive complications, then a crisis, a climax and then finally resolution with the rather predictable happy ever after ending.
ROLAND BARTHES: FIVE CODES
Roland Barthes describes a text as
"a galaxy of signifiers, not a structure of signifieds; it has no beginning; it is reversible; we gain access to it by several entrances, none of which can be authoritatively declared to be the main one; the codes it mobilizes extend as far as the eye can read, they are indeterminable...the systems of meaning can take over this absolutely plural text, but their number is never closed, based as it is on the infinity of language..." (1974 translation)
What he is saying is that a text is like a tangled ball of threads which needs unravelling so we can separate out the colours. Once we start to unravel a text, we encounter an absolute plurality of potential meanings. We can start by looking at a narrative in one way, from one viewpoint, bringing to bear one set of previous experience, and create one meaning for that text. You can continue by unravelling the narrative from a different angle, by pulling a different thread if you like, and create an entirely different meaning. And so on. An infinite number of times. If you wanted to.
Barthes wanted to - he was a semiotics professor in the 1950s and 1960s who got paid to spend all day unravelling little bits of texts and then writing about the process of doing so. All you need to know, again, very basically, is that texts may be ´open´ (ie unravelled in a lot of different ways) or ´closed´ (there is only one obvious thread to pull on). (MediaKnowall site)
Barthes also decided that the threads that you pull on to try and unravel meaning are called narrative codes and that they could be categorised in the following five ways:
Barthes - semiotics, enigma codes, 'steak and chips'
Barthes, a French media theorist writing from 1950s to 1970s, developed the theory of semiotics - where any text is a complex bundle of meaning which can be unravelled to create a whole range of different meanings. These threads are called narrative codes. Texts that can be read in a number of ways are polysemic texts. The handiest code to refer to in essays is the enigma code - found in all successful texts from 'Bob the Builder' to 'CSI'. These codes are constructed to attract and hold the attention of the audience, usually be creating a mystery or puzzle which the audience want to see solved - why has this man been murdered?
See Barthes' article 'Steak and Chips' on p62 of his book, 'Mythologies': https://soundenvironments.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/roland-barthes-mythologies.pdf
VLADIMIR PROPP ( Morphology of the Folktale, 1927)
In Propp's theory of character function, characters and events can be seen as constructs to drive the narrative. Propp set up a list of character types with clear functions: the hero, villain, donor (who gives the hero some magical key or information), helper (assists the hero on the quest), heroine (used by the villain and a reward for the hero). See all Disney Princess films, Star Wars, The Lord of the RingsVladimir Propp’s theory was formed in the early twentieth Century. He studied Russian fairytales and discovered that in stories there were always 8 types of characters evident. These are: the hero, the villain, the donor, the dispatcher, the false hero, the helper, the princess and her father. He did not state these characters were all separate people e.g. the provider could also be the helper. There are only 8 different character types and only 31 things they ever do (character functions). Once you have identified the character type (e.g., the hero) it’s easy to guess what they will do (save the maiden, defeat the villain, marry the maiden or whatever) because each character has a SPHERE OF ACTION. This easily relates to films and programmes today.
(see here for The Hero's Journey which is an outstanding explanation of Campbell's ideas)
TZEVESTAN TODOROV
Todorov's theory of equilibrium is the pattern where many narratives begin with a state of equilibrium, which is then disrupted by an event, forcing characters to face up to the disruption in order to reclaim equilibrium.
This approach suggests narrative is simply equilibrium, disequilibrium, new equilibrium.
Todorov proposed a basic structure for all narratives. He stated that films and programmes begin with an equilibrium, a calm period. Then agents of disruption cause disequilibrium, a period of unsettlement and disquiet. This is then followed by a renewed state of peace and harmony for the protagonists and a new equilibrium brings the chaos to an end. The simplest form of narrative (sometimes referred to as ‘Classic’ or ‘Hollywood’ narrative). (Source: ESMedia)
Our film trailer focuses on the stage of disequilibrium to captivate the viewer and make them want to view the film its self. This structure helps the audiences understanding of the otherwise fragmented narrative. Barthes theory of enigma codes can also be applied. Our narrative leaves the questions of why has the world has been left derelict? Will the boys find the rest of humanity? Will they survive even though being hunted down by a mysterious, oppressive, violent and armed organisation?
I think that our trailer met the twin demands of the genre, which are too create a sense of thrilling enigma which will draw the audience into the cinema and also sufficient narrative structure to make the narrative ark convincing without giving too much away.
MEDIA LANGUAGE
At A2, I made the promotional package for a new film called 2020. This comprised a trailer, a film poster and film magazine cover.
My trailer for 2020 introduced the drama of a post-apocalyptic disaster world in which a teenage survivor thinks himself alone in a ruined world which he explores with growing trepidation and terror. The audience is introduced via scenes of international war with leaders launching missiles and hand-to-hand fighting. Our mise-en-scène needed verisimilitude to make this convincing so sets included a series of abandoned structures, such as warehouse and disused school buildings as well as vast open terrains over which soldiers crawled and fought, depicted in flashback to set the backstory.
Trailers, as a genre, have a set of conventions such as inter-titles, ellipsis, motivated edits and fast-paced editing with hard cuts (which I will discuss when I write about editing); focus on the protagonists (to establish key players for audiences who need to pick up very quickly the bare bones of the narrative); tracking shots to link narrative sequences; emotive sound that establishes mood and anchors visuals; text that offers key information (release dates, stars, director, institutional information, ‘puffs’) and overall should generate a sense of anticipation, drama and excitement.
Our production is part of a promo pack that includes a film poster and film magazine cover, both of which have their own visual language and sets of print conventions regarding layout, framing, typography, colour choices, font sizes, ‘house’ style (for magazines), bar codes, dates & prices, QR code, billing block (posters), social media & website links (posters). The one over-arching, most important part of this media ‘language’, however, is that the promo pack as a whole delivers a cohesive, integrated visual package that creates a visual synergy in making the production (the film) memorable.
Editing
Our intertitles function as cues to guide the audience through the narrative. Specifically, in 2020 the intertitles provide key narrative anchors about the protagonists and the jeopardy that they face, which increases by the second during our 2-minute trailer, ratcheting up the tension and suspense. For example, the text ‘……’ is intercut with ‘…….’ leading to ‘……..’ with an immediate shift of mise-en-scène from ….. to a drone shot of ….. and culminating in ‘
‘From the producers of…’ is a distribution tactic that inspires audiences by building a relationship with them (Blumler and Katz, uses and gratifications model of audience behaviour).
Camerawork
All of our camerawork (by which I mean camera movements, camera angles, shot types) was designed to serve the overall aim of the production, which is to generate intense interest in the trailer as a means of persuading audiences to see the film itself. One of our most effective sequences uses a drone cam to take the audience from the apparent safety of the medical centre to the wild woods where the murder victim will be entrapped. The sets are therefore visual symbols. The murder victim is clearly beyond help as the students have moved beyond the law. Cuttaway shots of…..
Shots of….. are repeated in both my film poster and magazine cover which both feature …….. thus tying in the three elements of the promo package, and through the visual codes, anchoring the messages of sinister danger.
Sound
In common with most trailers, there is highly selective diegetic sound and few uses made of dialogue as the genre requires maximum impact with minimum information, thus a great deal of information is conveyed visually through action codes and through non-diegetic sounds that sets the emotional temperature, building up to a climax that is compelling enough to drive audiences into cinemas. In 2020, the voiceover in the establishing shot is like a diary entry (?) in which ……. shortly after, ‘Are you ready to take the risk?’ The words ‘2020’ are reiterated throughout the trailer as well as on the poster and magazine cover as it is the film title and emphasises the thriller genre.
Diegetic sound is key elsewhere, such as …….
The soundtrack builds tension throughout both by the use of increasingly fast and tense percussive beats, powerful orchestral music and, very importantly in our film work, …….
The sound builds to a crescendo at the climax before going silent as the title RISK is displayed, immediately distorted by electrifying glitches.
Editing at this final point is fast-paced with a series of rapid hard cuts, using specific types of camera angles such as close ups of …….
This creates unbearable tension for the audience, leaving them on the edge of their seats in anticipation. Unlike conventional Hollywood editing, a trailer should not move smoothly through the narrative explaining every detail, but through ellipsis, it should sketch the narrative arc and leave enough enigma to draw audiences into the cinema.
Mise-en-scène
If audiences have seen ……., they will be familiar with the use of …… visual codes to suggest danger, as I do in our film as well on both my film magazine and poster. We use a ‘……’ scenario (signalled by the wooden sign ‘out of bounds’), an abandoned shed to imprison the murder victim, white coats and medical equipment to stage the medical facility.
Summary
We have a stylish sophisticated logo of metallic typography, appearing above the earths horizon, thus suggesting the sophistication and seriousness of our film. A low thrumming creates tension and builds anticipation. We have incorporated a small amount of footage from news broadcasts showing missiles being fired from submarines. Accompanied by inter titles ‘over 60m people were killed during WW2’ to situate the narrative. Further hand held footage, and a second infertile brings the story up to date through its reference to ’30m Americans were killed in Nov 2019’. Here the audience is made to understand through inter titles that we are in a futuristic post-apocolpytic world. The third and final inter title states ‘it is unknown how many survived’ bringing the ilm into the present world and helping the audience understand the title 2020.
A transition which uses glitches, functions as the audiences bridge to a diary like voice over in which the protagonist recounts his harrowing story of being a survivor in a ruined world. We chose to start with spectacular: a drone cam shot offers the audience a birds eye view of an isolated abandoned mansion, set in woodland some 20 miles from the city of London. The voice over offers a restrained but shocking account of the dying screams that have now been replaced by silence. We reinforce the emotional decimation through a low angled shot of the protagonist approaching the intimidating steps of the mansion in his search for survivors. We sourced the imposing mise-en-scene very carefully, combining the mansion facade with other abandoned interiors from else where, edited seamlessly to make it look as one. To give substance to the survivors feelings of terror and danger we contrived a series of small disconcerting micro actions within the main frame such as, the unexpected diagetic sound of doors closing behind him. The increased tempo and intensity of the electronic hum is a sound code for his peril. One of our most convincing pieces of camerawork, is the shot of our survivor pictured on an exterior camera, date and time stamped, as he exits the building. This is so convincing as it implies hostile surveillance, thus increasing the tension and anticipation, making the audience want to know who is watching him. This is combined with the voice over saying ‘I fear I am no longer alone’. A second piece of camera work which is extremely effective follows: the drone cam now watches him take his leave down a central path that cuts through the middle of the frame, with deliberate jump cuts, as he becomes an increasingly small figure, alone and vulnerable, facing his uncertain future alone. For Todorov, narrative moves from a state of equilibrium through disequilibrium (the third world war) towards a renewed equilibrium at the end of the film. Our job in making a trailer is to hint at the over-arching narrative, without giving away final outcomes.
The camera always privileges the protagonist in the frame: he is often framed centrally and the many mid shots and the close ups of his concerned but resolute face make the audience engage and sympathise with him. We cast an attractive, appealing young actor, which is the norm for contemporary films of this kind, for example Jason Bourne. The introduction of big orchestral music marks the culmination of this mid section, as tracking shots follow our young hero through his former school. This was filmed with a handheld camera to show the audience the danger which immerses him, it also allows for the quickening of pace, resulting in him finding another survivor.
The final, terrifying third section, kicks off with a low angle POV shot of armed professional soldiers lying low in a corn field holding our young survivors in their rifle sights. Diagetic sounds of military comms build the tension as the boys are now clearly about to be under fire. While earlier sections had highly saturated colour, we colour graded this combat section by using filter which gave it a combat hue. The complexity of our mise-en-scene: real army uniforms, a ruined, derelict, crumbling out building, smoke bombs and replica weapons lend verisimilitude (likeness to life). At this point we have introduced a very different sound track: the vocals and lyrics of the track ‘human’, carry the action with a dynamism vigour and intensity which plunges the viewer immersivly into the experience. The audience is positioned on the side of the two young survivors through a triplet of inter titles, which flash rapidly onto the screen stating, we fight/ for/ our home. The use of ‘we’ and ‘our’ anchor the meaning. For Blumler and Katz, audiences use texts to gratify needs, such as, the desire to have their world view endorsed and to develop sympathetic relationships with on screen characters. Seconds from the end of the trailer, our target audience will be on the edge of their seats, hoping for the survival of the two boys in this nihilistic scenario. The repeated refrain of the lyrics ‘Im only human after all’ reinforce their vulnerability in the face of the terrifying political machine.
After the diagetic sound of gunshot as one of our heroes is on his knees facing the camera, crucial inter titles draw the trailer to its close: the visual language of the typography is very powerful as the numbers 2020 appear like etched metal with bullet traces on the surface.
Apply theories of narrative to one of your coursework productions.
These questions appear quite short and fit a common formula. You will be asked to apply ONE concept to one of your productions. This is a quite different task from question 1a, where you write about all of your work and your skills, as this one involves some reference to theory and only the one piece of work, as well as asking you to step back from it and think about it almost as if someone else had made it - what is known as ‘critical distance’.
Narrative is one of the main ways that characters and their characteristics are relayed to the viewer. Narrative also dominates and affects other aspects of film such as editing. For example, if a film centres on the story of a particular character (Shaun in 'This Is England' (2006); Rita O'Grady in 'Made In Dagenham (2002), Jenny and Steve in 'Eden Lake' (2008)), it needs to be filmed and edited to privilege their point of view.
DAVID BORDWELL
Understand the position of Bordwell's ideas on classic Hollywood narrative in relation to other narrative frameworks here in this Slideshare on narrative theory
Classical Hollywood Cinema
A very interesting text, Three Dimensions of Film Narrative by David Bordwell is at http://www.davidbordwell.net/books/poetics_03narrative.pdf
In 'Three Dimensions of Film Narrative', Bordwell explains that a chain of events within a media form (such as a film or music video) cause effects on a relationship in time and space. The narrative shapes this material in terms of time and space, such as where and when things take place. This can be portrayed by using effects to show the time and space: for example, flashbacks, forwarding time, slow motion and speeding up. There might be titles used, such as in 'The Shining', to show which day it is during flashbacks or flashforwards, connoting the importance of time in the narrative.
MEDIA LANGUAGE
At A2, I made the promotional package for a new film called 2020. This comprised a trailer, a film poster and film magazine cover.
My trailer for 2020 introduced the drama of a post-apocalyptic disaster world in which a teenage survivor thinks himself alone in a ruined world which he explores with growing trepidation and terror. The audience is introduced via scenes of international war with leaders launching missiles and hand-to-hand fighting. Our mise-en-scène needed verisimilitude to make this convincing so sets included a series of abandoned structures, such as warehouse and disused school buildings as well as vast open terrains over which soldiers crawled and fought, depicted in flashback to set the backstory.
Trailers, as a genre, have a set of conventions such as inter-titles, ellipsis, motivated edits and fast-paced editing with hard cuts (which I will discuss when I write about editing); focus on the protagonists (to establish key players for audiences who need to pick up very quickly the bare bones of the narrative); tracking shots to link narrative sequences; emotive sound that establishes mood and anchors visuals; text that offers key information (release dates, stars, director, institutional information, ‘puffs’) and overall should generate a sense of anticipation, drama and excitement.
Our production is part of a promo pack that includes a film poster and film magazine cover, both of which have their own visual language and sets of print conventions regarding layout, framing, typography, colour choices, font sizes, ‘house’ style (for magazines), bar codes, dates & prices, QR code, billing block (posters), social media & website links (posters). The one over-arching, most important part of this media ‘language’, however, is that the promo pack as a whole delivers a cohesive, integrated visual package that creates a visual synergy in making the production (the film) memorable.
Editing
Our intertitles function as cues to guide the audience through the narrative. Specifically, in 2020 the intertitles provide key narrative anchors about the protagonists and the jeopardy that they face, which increases by the second during our 2-minute trailer, ratcheting up the tension and suspense. For example, the text ‘……’ is intercut with ‘…….’ leading to ‘……..’ with an immediate shift of mise-en-scène from ….. to a drone shot of ….. and culminating in ‘
‘From the producers of…’ is a distribution tactic that inspires audiences by building a relationship with them (Blumler and Katz, uses and gratifications model of audience behaviour).
Camerawork
All of our camerawork (by which I mean camera movements, camera angles, shot types) was designed to serve the overall aim of the production, which is to generate intense interest in the trailer as a means of persuading audiences to see the film itself. One of our most effective sequences uses a drone cam to take the audience from the apparent safety of the medical centre to the wild woods where the murder victim will be entrapped. The sets are therefore visual symbols. The murder victim is clearly beyond help as the students have moved beyond the law. Cuttaway shots of…..
Shots of….. are repeated in both my film poster and magazine cover which both feature …….. thus tying in the three elements of the promo package, and through the visual codes, anchoring the messages of sinister danger.
Sound
In common with most trailers, there is highly selective diegetic sound and few uses made of dialogue as the genre requires maximum impact with minimum information, thus a great deal of information is conveyed visually through action codes and through non-diegetic sounds that sets the emotional temperature, building up to a climax that is compelling enough to drive audiences into cinemas. In 2020, the voiceover in the establishing shot is like a diary entry (?) in which ……. shortly after, ‘Are you ready to take the risk?’ The words ‘2020’ are reiterated throughout the trailer as well as on the poster and magazine cover as it is the film title and emphasises the thriller genre.
Diegetic sound is key elsewhere, such as …….
The soundtrack builds tension throughout both by the use of increasingly fast and tense percussive beats, powerful orchestral music and, very importantly in our film work, …….
The sound builds to a crescendo at the climax before going silent as the title RISK is displayed, immediately distorted by electrifying glitches.
Editing at this final point is fast-paced with a series of rapid hard cuts, using specific types of camera angles such as close ups of …….
This creates unbearable tension for the audience, leaving them on the edge of their seats in anticipation. Unlike conventional Hollywood editing, a trailer should not move smoothly through the narrative explaining every detail, but through ellipsis, it should sketch the narrative arc and leave enough enigma to draw audiences into the cinema.
Mise-en-scène
If audiences have seen ……., they will be familiar with the use of …… visual codes to suggest danger, as I do in our film as well on both my film magazine and poster. We use a ‘……’ scenario (signalled by the wooden sign ‘out of bounds’), an abandoned shed to imprison the murder victim, white coats and medical equipment to stage the medical facility.
Summary
We have a stylish sophisticated logo of metallic typography, appearing above the earths horizon, thus suggesting the sophistication and seriousness of our film. A low thrumming creates tension and builds anticipation. We have incorporated a small amount of footage from news broadcasts showing missiles being fired from submarines. Accompanied by inter titles ‘over 60m people were killed during WW2’ to situate the narrative. Further hand held footage, and a second infertile brings the story up to date through its reference to ’30m Americans were killed in Nov 2019’. Here the audience is made to understand through inter titles that we are in a futuristic post-apocolpytic world. The third and final inter title states ‘it is unknown how many survived’ bringing the ilm into the present world and helping the audience understand the title 2020.
A transition which uses glitches, functions as the audiences bridge to a diary like voice over in which the protagonist recounts his harrowing story of being a survivor in a ruined world. We chose to start with spectacular: a drone cam shot offers the audience a birds eye view of an isolated abandoned mansion, set in woodland some 20 miles from the city of London. The voice over offers a restrained but shocking account of the dying screams that have now been replaced by silence. We reinforce the emotional decimation through a low angled shot of the protagonist approaching the intimidating steps of the mansion in his search for survivors. We sourced the imposing mise-en-scene very carefully, combining the mansion facade with other abandoned interiors from else where, edited seamlessly to make it look as one. To give substance to the survivors feelings of terror and danger we contrived a series of small disconcerting micro actions within the main frame such as, the unexpected diagetic sound of doors closing behind him. The increased tempo and intensity of the electronic hum is a sound code for his peril. One of our most convincing pieces of camerawork, is the shot of our survivor pictured on an exterior camera, date and time stamped, as he exits the building. This is so convincing as it implies hostile surveillance, thus increasing the tension and anticipation, making the audience want to know who is watching him. This is combined with the voice over saying ‘I fear I am no longer alone’. A second piece of camera work which is extremely effective follows: the drone cam now watches him take his leave down a central path that cuts through the middle of the frame, with deliberate jump cuts, as he becomes an increasingly small figure, alone and vulnerable, facing his uncertain future alone. For Todorov, narrative moves from a state of equilibrium through disequilibrium (the third world war) towards a renewed equilibrium at the end of the film. Our job in making a trailer is to hint at the over-arching narrative, without giving away final outcomes.
The camera always privileges the protagonist in the frame: he is often framed centrally and the many mid shots and the close ups of his concerned but resolute face make the audience engage and sympathise with him. We cast an attractive, appealing young actor, which is the norm for contemporary films of this kind, for example Jason Bourne. The introduction of big orchestral music marks the culmination of this mid section, as tracking shots follow our young hero through his former school. This was filmed with a handheld camera to show the audience the danger which immerses him, it also allows for the quickening of pace, resulting in him finding another survivor.
The final, terrifying third section, kicks off with a low angle POV shot of armed professional soldiers lying low in a corn field holding our young survivors in their rifle sights. Diagetic sounds of military comms build the tension as the boys are now clearly about to be under fire. While earlier sections had highly saturated colour, we colour graded this combat section by using filter which gave it a combat hue. The complexity of our mise-en-scene: real army uniforms, a ruined, derelict, crumbling out building, smoke bombs and replica weapons lend verisimilitude (likeness to life). At this point we have introduced a very different sound track: the vocals and lyrics of the track ‘human’, carry the action with a dynamism vigour and intensity which plunges the viewer immersivly into the experience. The audience is positioned on the side of the two young survivors through a triplet of inter titles, which flash rapidly onto the screen stating, we fight/ for/ our home. The use of ‘we’ and ‘our’ anchor the meaning. For Blumler and Katz, audiences use texts to gratify needs, such as, the desire to have their world view endorsed and to develop sympathetic relationships with on screen characters. Seconds from the end of the trailer, our target audience will be on the edge of their seats, hoping for the survival of the two boys in this nihilistic scenario. The repeated refrain of the lyrics ‘Im only human after all’ reinforce their vulnerability in the face of the terrifying political machine.
After the diagetic sound of gunshot as one of our heroes is on his knees facing the camera, crucial inter titles draw the trailer to its close: the visual language of the typography is very powerful as the numbers 2020 appear like etched metal with bullet traces on the surface.
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