Jamie Harper The Shining

The Shining 2 scene analysis

The first scene I am doing is the start of the scene which is called Wednesday in the film. The scene starts with Danny playing with his toy keys on the rug and the camera is at a high angle looking at Danny playing with his cars. The effect this has on me is that God is looking over on Danny kind of protecting him from danger. Throughout the start of this scene there is none diegetic music playing that for me creates a gloomy atmosphere as the music is quite scary and is a typical convection for a horror film. Also with the music it makes me feel like something bad is going to happen pretty soon as in films like Freddy vs Jason something bad happens after the music is played like when the woman is in the shower, gloomy music is being played and straight after her boyfriend is killed by Jason. The camera then goes behind Danny and goes in to a long shot of him, and also the camera shows the rest of the corridor which is empty and is a typical convection for a horror film as its empty long corridor with a lonely helpless character (Danny). The music gets louder and then the camera edits to Danny at the front. As Danny stands up and shouts “mom” the camera goes to a mid-shot of Danny standing up.  The music gets louder and deeper at this point which makes me feel that danger is around the corner. As Danny starts to walk down the corridor the music then gets quieter again and the camera then pan’s forward as if we are looking out of Danny’s eyes as he makes his way forward down the corridor. The music gets louder this time as Danny makes his way to room 237 and also the music gets deeper which makes me think that there is danger in that room and something bad is going to happen to Danny as the music is creating a dangerous tension and also by Danny walking slowly towards the room it is building the tension up as he goes along as he walking slowly and it makes me want to know what is in that room and it keeps me on the edge of my seat waiting to see what happens when Danny goes to room 237. This is a typical convection of a horror film with the building up of dangerous tension as it makes me feel that something dangerous is about to happen. As Danny gets to room 237, the camera edits to Wendy so we don’t actually know what happens to Danny as he enters the room so for me the end of that scene created suspense as I wanted to know what happened to Danny when he entered room 237. Throughout the scene there is high key lighting which I think is unusual for a horror film as normally the typical convention if a horror film the lighting is low key because with low key lighting it normally means there is danger.

The next scene I am doing is towards the end, just after Wendy had slit Jack’s hand with a knife (which is a typical weapon convection for a horror film) as Jack is trying to get into the bathroom and kill her by smashing the door down with an axe which is again is a typical weapon convection for a horror film. The scene starts with Danny running down the corridor with the camera in front of him going back with him so the camera is always showing a long shot of Danny running. The room he is running in is green and green is a sign of sickness and illness which makes me think Danny is going to get hurt very soon. The camera then goes to a mid-shot of Danny as soon as he stopped running to show him looking around which to me he is checking his is safe to hide in this room. The camera then goes to a mid/long shot of Danny getting into a cupboard and this scene is similar to Jurassic Park where the kids in that film are running away from the dinosaurs and they go in the kitchen to hide in some cupboards so the dinosaurs can’t find them. The camera then parallel edits to Jack and pan’s to show him walking down a corridor looking for Jack. The camera is showing Jack as a longshot, and there is a diegetic sound of Jack’s hobbling footsteps as he tries to hunt Danny down. There is also a non-diegetic sound of the wind howling which to me is a typical convection of a horror film as it shows that this hotel is alone and it is also a cold night. The camera then parallel edits again but this time to Wendy and it shows her crying in the corner of the bathroom and the lighting is very high key in this bathroom which to me shows that the bathroom is like a safe place and is safe to hide in away from Jack. At this point the camera is a mid-shot of her. The camera then goes to a close up of her face as she tries to open the door, and by looking at her facial expressions I can tell that she is really struggling to open the door and is beginning to panic. The camera then edits to the chef this time as it shows a mid/long shot of him walking towards the hotel to get in. It is snowing heavily outside the hotel which makes me think they are a little isolated form everyone else as it is extreme weather conditions so people would struggle to get to them in this weather. This is a typical convection of a horror film as it shows how isolated they are from everyone else. The lighting is low key which to me suggests there is danger going to happen soon and again is a typical convection of a horror film. The camera pan’s to show him walking towards the hotel and goes in to a long shot of him trying to get into the hotel. 

By Jamie Harper

Group analysis

The film scene I will be analysing is the opening scene in The Quick and The Dead. The scene starts out with an extreme long shot. The purpose of this shot is to establish the location/ setting of the film, which is a desert. The shot uses natural lighting, to make the location look more realistic and make us feel like we are there. The person on the horse is riding towards the camera, which made me feel like they are the lead character, and we are going to follow them. It then zooms out and pans to the right, to show various objects on the floor, to show that someone is living there. We can then see a horse, as it tilts down to a low angle. This shows that the horse is important, as they carry people from A to B. The camera then pans right again, to show someone digging a grave. There is then a straight cut to a long shot. In this shot, you there is hardly any mise-en-scene. You can only see mountains but apart that, it’s deserted. This shows that both characters are isolated and are in the middle of no-where. Then a character jumps out in the middle of the shot, to a close up shot. I was scared and shocked at this point because I didn’t expect it and the character looks creepy and deformed. The shot uses low key lighting which makes him look even scarier and mysterious. 
There is then a straight cut to a long shot which is a POV shot to show what he can see, he can now see the danger. Non-diegetic music starts to play, which made me surprised as I wasn’t expecting it. The music tells us that something is going to happen, the action will begin soon. There is then a straight cut to a static long shot which shows the character coming towards him, implying that something is going to happen between the two. There is then a straight cut to a slight tracking long shot. This shows that the character is getting ready, and getting closer towards him. There is then an extreme close up of his gun. This shows that he is going to shoot the character. At this point, I think that he is going to kill her because she isn’t ready and he has fired a shot, which looks like it’s killed her. There is then a straight cut to a medium shot of the man, who is running over to see if he has killed her. By his performance, you can tell he is happy that he has killed her. There is then a straight cut to a 2 person long shot, which shows her on the floor, and looks like she’s dead and the man is walking up next to her. Because he is high up, the man at this point is in control and he is dominant. However, as she is on the floor, she is weak and not in control. The shot also has proxemics, as he is getting closer towards her. 
There is then a straight cut to a medium shot to show the man’s reaction and he seems happy and surprised that he has killed her. There is then a straight cut to a high angle medium shot. This shows that she is now in control and the dominant figure now. We now know that she will faking it and she wasn’t really shot. There is then a 2 person long which shows her hitting him. Non-diegetic music is used for the punch, to make it sound louder so it hurt him more. There is then a high angle med shot of the man. It’s a high angle because it makes him look weaker and not in control of the situation. 
There is then a low angle med shot of the women. At this point, we don’t know that she is a women, however we are given a clue. The clue is that it’s a Dutch angle, which implies that something is wrong, something isn’t right. Non- diegetic music plays in the background, to make her more frightening and to create more tension and suspense. The shot is also mysterious, because we can’t see the persons face, which implies that something is wrong also. We don’t even know what she looks like yet. Also, the sun is above her head, which makes her look like she has a hale on her face, like she is an angel, she is the chosen one. Therefore, the sun on her head is religious symbolism- she is the chosen one send by God. It’s once again a low angle shot, which makes her look more dominant and powerful. There is then a straight cut to a high angle med shot of the man on the floor. This shot is used to make the man look weak and powerless. In the background, you can hear non-diegetic music of whip sound. This is used as it’s a genre convention of westerns- it’s a typical weapon in most westerns which a sheriff has. There is a shadow on his body, which I think is used to show that she’s overcasting him, she is clearly more powerful as she is over him. 
There is then a straight cut to a Dutch med shot. In this shot, you can see that she is wearing typical western genre costumes- like the hat, checked shirt and cowboy boots. This is once again a genre convention of the western. In this shot, the women is also still blackened, we still can’t see her and we still don’t know it’s a girl. Therefore, I keep thinking that it’s a man, as it’s a typical western genre convention to have a male in the leading role. The shot also contains non-diegetic music, to make it more fun and exciting for the audience. When she throws her hat at him towards the camera, there is a straight cut to a med shot of the man on the floor, taking the hat off him. The camera tilts up with the man as he gets up, which turns into more of a close up. There is then a straight cut to a POV, low angle med shot as she gets on her horse- which is another typical genre convention in a western film. At this point, we still don’t know if it’s a woman or not. There is then a straight cut to a med/close up, which pans left as the man looks left, looking to see where she is going. I think the shot is used to show his anger and emotion towards the character, he clearly doesn’t like her as he also swears at her. There is another straight cut to a long shot which is used to show that he is locked up and she has defeated him. He is locked up to a carnage, which is another typical western genre convention, and is used to take characters to places with a horse. In the background, you can also see the mountains and how deserted the place is, which shows how lonely this place is. 
There is then a straight cut to an extreme close up of the lock. This is important because it shows that he is now locked there and can’t move away. This made me shocked because I didn’t expect her to win, as I thought the man would be inferior and more powerful.  There is then a straight cut to a close up of the man, which shows that he is angry and furious with her for what she has done to him. He now knows that she has beaten him and he doesn’t like it. There is then a straight cut which uses matching on action editing to a med/ close up of the character that has defeated him, and it turns out to be a women. This made me shocked because women aren’t the leads in westerns. In fact, it is a genre convention that a man is the main character in westerns, people like Clint Eastwood and John Wayne would usually be the main characters in westerns. Therefore, this film breaks the genre convention by having a woman as the main character, and I personally wasn’t expecting it. Therefore, as it has broken the genre convention, the film now seems unique and original compared to other films in the same genre. For example, the film is now more unique and different to a film like ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’, because it has a woman as the main character and that film

Jamie Harper reflective analysis

Reflective analysis

My intention was to create a short 8 sequence parody part of a film that would be a little funny but also it would have a little bit of horror in is as well and one of my aims was to get the audience a little shocked and scared. We decided to add a little bit of non diegetic sound to create tension and mystery to the audience, but we had no diegetic sound as we wanted the film to have no voice because we thought the film would be better without voice. The target audience of our film would likely appeal to 15 year olds and older because I do not feel that people under the age of 15 would quite understand the film and plus it could be inappropriate for them.

The convections our film used was thriller and comedy and at the start of the film we used a short 2 second happy sequence to make the audience to think the film is a happy film, but then suddenly we changed to a much more scary scene that had some dark scary music just to create a little tension and to get the audience puzzled. The rest of the 19 second film is also a lot more tense and we want the audience to feel at unease.

We would rate this film as a 15 certificate because the film is aimed at 15 year olds and above so we feel that this film would not be suitable for people under the age of 15.

Jamie Harper scene task

Film studies scene task

By Jamie Harper

 

The scene I am choosing to study is in Batman the Dark Night Rises where batman fights bane right at the end. What happens in this scene is the cops of the city fight against bane’s army and Batman and Bane have one final fight right at the end of the film. The result of the fight is that Bane’s masked is broken and he struggles to breathe but is saved by a woman who then stabs Batman right in the chest and then Bane continues in trying to kill Batman as he is now recovered and Batman is weak.

Throughout this scene the lighting is very bright and doesn’t normally get darker and the reason I think the lighting is bright is so that you can see them fighting properly. There is a lot of high key lighting when they are outside fighting but once when they go inside to fight the lighting is a lot more neutral lighting. When Batman is being stabbed the lighting turns to front lighting to show the pain in his face as he has just been stabbed, also the lighting turns a lot more low key as well to create suspense and show danger.

The camera angles change a lot throughout this whole scene and I think the director has done that to try and show how important all parts of the scene are in this film. When the police are walking to fight Bane’s army the camera angle is long shots to show the whole army and also to show all the policemen. The camera then does a medium shot on the leader of the police to show his significance in this scene and also the camera zooms in a little bit when he is shot and dies. When Batman and Bane come face to the camera goes to a close up to show the anger in both of their faces and then zooms out to a long shot to show the whole of the fight and so that you don’t miss anything. When Batman is stabbed and in pain the camera goes to a close up to show of the pain he is in and the camera also goes to a extreme close up to show how far the knife has actually gone inside him and the agony that is caused by him being stabbed.

There is a lot of diegetic sounds throughout the scene but also there is a few non-diegetic sounds for example when there is shots being fired and also when people are getting stabbed as that is not happening right now, that has already been pre-recorded. The film doesn’t use music and I think that it doesn’t to create suspense in the scene and to focus on the fighting between the two main characters.

There is a lot of tracking shots in this scene as the camera is trying to track all the action so the camera follows the action and moves along with it. There is also a lot of zoom on to characters to show how important they are during this scene.

Jamie Harper- Horror films task

Horror films are made to scare the audience, make hem jump and make them scream. They contain your worst nightmare normally and are aimed at people who love a good fright. They have been around for over 100 years and there is thousands of different versions of horror. Not one horror film is normally the same, although they have the same type of scary character or thing they normally have a different plot and all horror films are made for one thing in general. That is to scare the audience as much as they possibly can.

One film that I have seen from the horror section is Dawn of the Dead. Dawn of the dead is about a huge zombie take over and how the zombies are erasing the human race by biting them which then turns them in to a zombie. One scene from the film is when a zombie bites a woman who is minute away from giving birth, so when she gave birth she gave birth to a zombie baby who instantly went on the hunt to kill humans. The effect on me from this film is that because I watched it quite a young age it made me to believe that the film was real life and could actually happen. I know now that this could never happen but the effect this film had on me was quite distressing due to certain parts in the film, for example when I just mentioned previously. 

Another film that I have seen from the horror section is Freddy Vs Jason. This film is about a creature called Freddy who has claws and is forever trapped in hell due to Springfield residents forgetting about him. Freddy also has no powers at this point but in an attempt to gain his powers back he manipulates a person called Jason who wears an ice hockey mask and carries a machete with him. One scene from the film is at the end where Jason and Freddy are in a huge epic final battle with each other. In the end Jason wins the battle and walks out of the lake carrying Freddy’s head and he winks then the film finishes. The film doesn’t really have a scary attempt on me but I find personally quite funny how they are just fighting cutting each other’s fingers off and still managing to fight as if nothing has happened.

Another film that I have seen from the horror section is Chucky. Chucky is about a killer doll that goes round killing humans. Chucky has a wife and between them they go round killing humans as although they are only a doll they are pretty deadly and as they are just a doll they are very misleading. When they are with family it wouldn’t take long for chucky to kill the family that own them as chucky has many different plots to kill the family that owns them as he is a very clever doll with the plans he comes up to kill the families. The film has quite a disturbing but very unrealistic effect on me. I find it very odd how a little doll is just so deadly and kind of creeps me out a little bit because of the gruesome ways of killing people that doll does. I also find it very unrealistic how it is a doll that is killing so many people and is just so deadly and it’s a little funny as of course it would never happen in real life.

Another film that I have seen from the horror section is Friday the 13^th. Friday the 13^th is about a man called Jason who wears an ice hockey mask and carries around a machete. He lives on a lake called Crystal Lake and murders anyone that enters the lake to camp. There is this one girl called Whitney that he doesn’t kill as she resembles his late mother so he just captures her and keeps her in his layer. In the end Jason is killed by Whitney and her brother Clay. I find the film very interesting as I think it has a very good plot to it that I really like and the effect on me that it has is that is quite frightful but I like the whole plot and story line to it.

Another film that I have seen from the horror section is A Nightmare On Elm Street. This film is about a creature called Freddy who has claws and is always appearing in this girl called Nancy dreams. The film has quite a scary effect on me as at the end of the film Freddy is seen dragging a woman with him and that image always sits in my head as I find it pretty scary. The film is very unrealistic and makes me fright a lot and leaves that effect on me.

Jamie Harper- summer task 2

2. My favourite film of the summer 2014 was Grown-ups 2. Grown-ups 2 is a comedy film and is a sequel to Grown-ups. The main characters are Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Kevin James and David Spade.

One of the key aspects of the film is when David Spade’s 16 year old son comes to their town to visit him. This is the first time David has seen his son and his son instantly hates him because he left his mum. In one part of the film David tells his son he can’t pick him up from school because he is helping out at the soup kitchen but in reality he is hanging out with his mates and his son sees them jumping from a cliff into a river so decides to slash his dads tyres on his truck.

Another key aspect of the film is when Adam Sandler decides to throw a huge house party and invites all of his mates and pretty much everyone from town. Just before the party Adam’s wife decides to tell him that she is pregnant and at first he is quite disappointed and a little sad but eventually he quite likes that she is. As the party is close to finishing, about 100 college kids gate crash the party and demand all the older people who are at the party for a fight and in the end there is one huge massive fight that brings all the older ones closer together though.

Another key aspect of the film is when Adam decides to take over the school bus run, along the way he picks up all his friends and when they are approaching school he saves son from getting hit by the biggest kid on the bus as his son sticks up for a girl he likes a lot. When they were finished with the school run they decide to go to the wall mart and bump in to members of their rival gang rom grown-ups 1, but then Adam realises that he is going to be late for his daughters dance show, so manages to get a police escort from two police officers that he knows and they manage to make the dance show in time. At the end of the show when Adam goes to get his daughter he bumps into the dance instructor’s boyfriend who happened to be his bully from when he went school.

I really enjoy this film because it’s classed as a comedy and personally comedies are my favourite type of film. Adam Sandler is probably my favourite actor of all time as I think him such a hilarious character and never fails to make me laugh and in Grown-Ups 2 it’s no different. I think the whole film in general is just really funny and the characters in the film are so great and really do get you laughing. There really isn’t much of a plot to the film but I like that there isn’t as I think it works with the way it’s been wrote, as its just one funny scene after another and that is why it is my favourite film of 2014!

 

 

Jamie Harper- summer task 1

1.      The fault in our stars managed to become a box office success because of the book that was written before the film came out. The book was hugely popular and was mainly read by women and young teenage women as it’s a romantic story but different to your typical love story. The main two characters are called Hazel and Augustus. Hazel suffers from terminal thyroid cancer and Augustus suffers from osteosarcoma and they meet at a cancer patients support group.

One reason why it became a huge box office success was partly due to 5 Instagram users who helped make it such a success. Those five Instagram users managed to reach more than 350,000 mentions and this has reached over 16 million people on Instagram through numerous likes and comments involving the fault in our stars. Those 5 users were selected to view the film before anyone else as they were selected based on their likelihood to have an affinity for the film.

Another reason why the fault in our stars became a huge box office success was because of how sad it was. It sounds odd but because it brought tears to people’s eyes many people wanted to see it again as they loved how sad the film actually was. The film brought most people who went to see it to tears as it’s such a sad film but this is one of the reason’s it is hugely popular. Because many people went to see it more than once it contributed to it becoming a huge box office success.

Another reason why the fil is a huge box office success is because of the characters who play Hazel and Augustus. The person who played Hazel is called Shailene Woodley and the person who plays Augustus is called Ansel Elgort. The actors have been praised massively for the way they acted during the film making it feel as if it is real life and they bring real life emotion when actin which brings tears to the audience as the play the role of the main characters so well and really make the whole story really believable.

Another reason why the fault in our stars become such a huge box office success is because it is a contemporary drama. This made the film very successful because in the past 15 years drama films have not really done as well as other genres but the fault in our stars is much different as it is a rare drama that hugely popular and because people were seeing that it was a popular drama, they were going to see it meaning it was becoming even more of a box office success.

One more reason why the fault in our stars became such a huge box office success was because at the time it was released as a film there weren’t very many films aimed at women. The fault in our stars is mainly aimed at women and most people in the audience were women so due to the fact that there were many films aimed at women, this film became a success as women had a film in the cinema that they could go watch.