unit 1
- 1. Camera work The camera work is professional as it uses a variety of different shot types in order to help show what is happening form the point of view of the main character as well as give off an feel to the scene in order to help convey the importance of what is happening and better put you in the position of the main character. The scene starts by showing 4 of the characters working together to open the box with 3 at the fount waiting to see what is inside and another guarding the door for possible intruder. With one looking on to them, this immediately shows that he does not have the same level of experience and does not know what he should do in this situation and is observing them to try and learn. Next it moves onto looking down on the lock as this shows how powerless it is to stop the police who are opening the box. The shot then moves back to looking at everyone so you can see their reactions of excitement and curiosity in the case of the main character. It them moves to a scrolling shot of the suitcase and the money that resides within it as this showcases how much money that their is. While people are working to dig up the box we are placed in an over the shoulder shot of alonzo allowing us to experience what is happening from his perspective we lower down so that we can see that time has passed through the pile of cigarettes which have built up at is feet,this also serves purpose of informing us that alonzo is nervous through the use of noticing him chain smoking. The video then proceeds to show closeups of the peoples reactions to this which are all joy, which serves to show that this is a big seizure and will help them to later progress in their careers. How ever this belief is then changed quickly when you see that the head of the team proceeds to mention how their is 4 million pounds in their and they made a 3 million dollar seizure showing his intention to take the diffrence to split between the group who are their. Upon which you see the reaction of the trainee change to one of conflict as he seems to struggle with the idea of taking money other than his paycheck. The Next shots of the reactions of the other people their serve to show that this is a dangerous situation, this is down the way that they then seem to look at him as a group with one of them holding their gun to their own head resting on it highlighting how all of these people are still armed. Another shot of interest is after the team leader says “don’t you want
- 2. some of this” the shot changes to a mid shot showing everyone in the room staring at him intently showing how this happening is a serious thing for them and highlighting the pressure that the trainee must be going through. Before cycling though everyone again reaffirming this feeling. Based off of this i would say the camera work in this scene was mostly used to help showcase the reactions of everyone in this scene as it was something where the audience did not understand what was going on meaning they were in the same position as the new guy being forced to try and gauge reactions of the people who are in the room to figure out what is happening increasing your empathy with him. Mies en sen The first thing which comes to mind is the colouration of the seen which is a yellowy brown, this indicates that that location which they are in is old and has been out of use for a significant amount of time. This is backed by how everything hear is old such as the suitcase which has has some of the leather breaking off due to wear. The large case displaying plates serves to show the audience that who ever owned/owns the building is wealthy as they are able to afford things such as that. Another thing which comes to mind is the outfits which the police officers are wearing which includes bullet proof armour, which shows us that what they are doing is dangerous and it is possible they believed some one may have been in their ready to start a fire fight. Addition as they are wearing nonstandard uniforms we can assume that they are working under cover or are trying not to be seen by other groups who would take an interest in the police. The location itself is filled with details of mies en sen, the first detail is its location which is out of the way in some suburbs as here the old man would be away from others who would be able took in on him due to his criminal nature, the house also appears to be very run down as to deter thieves from taking from him and discovering any of his goods, with the blinds being down and the hedges being tall as to stop any of his neighbours from being nosy and looking inside is house and noticing him up to no good. Again the contents of the house are also used to show that he is a wise person by the large amounts of papers which are lying around indicating that he often reads and has gained knowledge, other symbolism of this are used such as the owl figure which is behind is a again
- 3. synonyms with jake and also perhaps showing that jake is over his head with these people. Finally the run down interior with some small number of luxuries such as the highly expensive drinks and a new stereo show that while the old man is wise and able to hid his wealth and not spend it all on pointless things which would seem out of place for someone without any wealth, which makes sense given their would have been no poin for him to break the law in order to earn his fortune if there was nothing he could gain from it. Sound At the start of the clip there is a low droning sound which serves to give a feeling of mystery as they open up the box enhancing curiosity as to what is inside of it before it occurs. I would say there is roughly equal amounts of diegetic and nondiegetic sound used throughout the scene where the lock is being broken, one example of diegetic sound used is banging of the hammer against the lock which is amplified to sound louder than it is making the lock seem tougher than it really is, however this scene also uses non diegetic sound extremely well as it creates a pounding sound which matches up with a heart beat which gets progressively quicker as it comes closer to opening up the lock as this show how they are waiting with anticipation.. The as you have the high angle shot of the money you can hear the person in charge of the team clapping slowly showing that what was found was a good amount and he is happy about it. Once the scene gets to the point where the protagonist is reusing the money the music dies down to a much lower and quiter tone which creates a tense atmosphere which enchanges the feeling that he is endangered by refusing the money. Once we move to the part where jake is being made to kill the old man however the music stops completely leaving us with purely diegetic sound as the film wants us to be invested in this as much as possible and removes any possible sources of disconnect between the film and this scene, this also means that the large gaps between speech are dead silent unnerving us as an audience maining us feel the same as jake. Editing
- 4. The first bit of editing that we see in this clip of the film is the cut to the lock being smashed open before showing the people counting down to opening it this is good as it allows for the audience to wonder what is inside it with them, it then cuts back to reveal that the suitcase is packed full of money. This is also using a l cut as we can still hear the audio from the previous shot in the new one which helps increase the fluidity of the scene. Later when the head police office tosses the bag of money to one of his partners, we can see that the film uses match on action form when he throws the bag in the next scene which again helps keep the scene running smoothly, this lso servers to give us another chance to see the entire group rather than a single person at a time. Stuart Hall’s Encoding/Decoding theory A brief explanation of stuart hall’s encoding/decoding theory is that the creators of films make people put things into a film so that the audience can the extrapolate meaning form them. The theory also states their there will be deviation form what is encoded to what is decoded due to a variety of factors and differences between how the viewer and director think/ view the world. One general example of this sort of difference would be how a thumbs up is a good thing in the western world but their are other countries where it is a big insult and would be decoded differently. In the film the characters can be seen to be lighted to different levels with the main character fully lit up, this is to represent how he is an above the board person who follows the law fully does nothing illegal while alonzo and his crew are at least partially in the shadows which represents how the are much more shady and less honourable characters with alonzo himself being completely in the shadows which shows 1 he is a very shady charter and 2 represents how he is the puppet master of the others pulling their stings behind the scenes. Another light based message comes from the lighting in the kitchen which is much lighter than the rest of the old man's house so that when the chest full of illegal money is taken out of the dark ground it is coming into the light literally which acts as symbolism of the secret coming to the light at the same time. Charters clothing also hold messages about them such as how jake wears clothing which features greens and browns which are called earthly colors which we can extrapolate that he is a normal down to earth person form, mean while alonzo wears leather and has a large cross right at the center of his chest which can be used to visually say that alonzo wears a large cross despite being for money and power which shows that he
- 5. is somewhat of a hypocrite additionally he wears a jacket that is far to big for him which shows how he believes he is bigger than he really is, and has a belief that no one could hurt him as shown by his lack of bulletproof jacket while everyone else is required to wear one.