"Research Task" by Hannah - Part 2

3) The Bourne Identity

Camera work:

• High Angle: There is a use of a high angle in the beginning sequence of The Bourne Identity. In this high angle we see the silhouette of a person floating. The camera is situated in the water so we can tell the person is floating in the water. This creates suspicion as we don’t know who the person is and also we don’t know how they got there.

• Block framing: We cut from the high angle frame to a block framing angle looking down on a group of men playing cards on the boat. The block framing creates the feeling of being watched and secrecy. It also feels like we are in the Point of View of someone else creating enigma around the situation.

Mise En Scene:

• Lighting: The lighting in the opening of the Bourne Identity is very dark. As it is set in the middle of the sea in as storm then it would be dark but the darkness also immediately makes the audience feel something bad is going to happen in this scene because of the dark lighting and storm.

• Setting: The scene is set in the middle of the sea and all we see is one boat with nothing around it. This also immediately makes the audience feel something may happen because there is nothing around the boat or anywhere near.

Editing:

• Cuts: The scene uses cuts and is quite slow at the beginning as nothing really happens. Then when one of the men spots the body in the water, the pace of cuts speeds up because of the sudden panic of the men finding the body and the rush to get him out the water.

Sound:

• Diegetic sound: The scene uses diegetic sounds in the background so that we can still hear them and creates more of an atmosphere and makes it seem more realistic. Using the wind and lighting in the background makes the storm feel more realistic to the audience.

4)
Se7en

Camera work:

• Shallow depth of field: In the opening of Se7en, Shallow depth of field is used. This is used to add emphasis to the book. It is used as the first cut and the hands in the background are out of focus while the book is in focus which means the book has more emphasis and might be a big part of the film.

• High Angle: A lot of the shots are high angles in the opening. In these shots, we are looking down on the book or notebook the character is looking at. It is at high angle so we can see the pages in the book and just what is in the book this character is making.

Mise En Scene:

• Notebook In this scene the notebook this character is putting together is very important. It is shown as the opening revolves around it so it must play a big part of something. It shows lots of drawing of people and also shows pictures of people. Then later, the character highlights over them as if they have been crossed out. This makes the audience feel that maybe this character has a list of people that he is getting rid of one by one and this is his book of keeping note of it.

• Bandages: On the characters hands, we see bandages on them and this communicates with the audience what this character is like. It communicates to the audience that perhaps this character is quite dangerous and has been in bad situations due to the bandages.

Sound:

• This scene uses no diegetic sounds at all to add more emphasis to the soundtrack playing. The soundtrack playing is a metal/ rock song and is parallel to the scene which adds a more tense feel to the scene and the ticking clock sound in the background of it creates suspense.

Editing:

• The editing of the scene uses lots of overlays of text over the actual footage itself. This may represent something later in the film or symbolise something. Also there is a mix of different lengths of shots which makes the audience watch it more because of the mix and match of lengths.

5)
Taxi Driver

Camera work:

• Extreme close up: In the scene the camera is at an extra close up shot on the character. It is an extreme close up on his eyes which means we can follow where he's looking and see his expression.

• Point of View: There is also a point of view in this scene right after the extreme close up and we can see what the character is looking at and we presume we are in the characters point of view.

Editing:

• As we are in the point of view, the transition between the two different places to show that we moved to somewhere is a fade from one setting to another to show that we have travelled.
• The cuts in this are long which means it's a very slow place and nothing is building up suspense.

Sound:

• In the opening, the soundtrack changes from 2 different songs. One of them is a very dramatic sounding one which is parallel to a thriller movie as it builds up suspense, whereas the other is contrapuntal as it is very relaxed song which nothing dramatic to it.