la la land - 708 words

La La Land, known as visually appealing, having the story driven by visuals. With vibrant and classy tones to set emotions within characters, attaching the viewers with such gripping situations. As the main characters are known as Seb and Mia, a film documenting their love story from start to end. Showing that in life, the Hollywood reality isn't always the beautiful ending people promise. With scenes such as the 'photoshoot scene,' I believe it creates an awkward presence within Sebs' feelings. The scene starts with a medium shot of the photographer facing towards the eye-line of the viewers with him looking through his camera. With this shot, I believe it gives me a perspective of what the musicians are seeing. With a bright background consisting of the umbrella lights that most photographers use, contrasting from a dark foreground of the photographer. With colours such as browns and blacks for the foreground and whites and creams within the background. The diegetic sound coming from the musicians playing and a flash that the editor used in advance as a cut. Therefore starts the next shot of a camera pan between the different musicians' expressions of engagement when playing the instruments for the photographer. However, Seb portrays a dissatisfied expression, showing this side of the job isn't exactly something he's fond of. Which is a massive contrast to Emma's character at the time, she loves what she is doing however, the publicity is doing her any justice. With that compared to Seb, someone who is getting the publicity but not the enjoyment, we truly get to see who is more passionate about their job and what it means to them. This scene shows the lifeless enjoyment from Seb, despite his love being with his instrument, he's fallen for something else. Someone to be exact. For me, if I wasn't enjoying something in my life anymore, I would let it go. But, in Sebs eyes, his jobs is the only way he can provide for his life. This scene particularly isn't driven by words, the cinematography and the characters expressions tell the story. That is what La La Land is like in the movie, it's telling a story through emotions and your eyes, not your ears. Which is different from a film like Winters Bone, the story told through your ears, which shows the reality of what your life is like. You process more by listening because it's more truthful to you. Except La La Land is an alternate reality, a film unrealistic with the constant happiness and the moments of joy that the characters were hoping for. However, this film is not about the man who runs off into the sunset with the love of his life. That's what they want us to believe, that's where some truth from reality seeps in with this film, not everything goes right. In all honesty, how do people find musicals entertaining, in my eyes, you're stripping the truth from the emotions and replacing it with a Disney effect, like Austin and Ally? A show where everything breaks out into a song. That's not entertaining. It's cringe and uncomfortable. That's what took the enjoyment out of this film. Thankfully the most gripping and enjoyable moments include no singing. Which to me is a win-win? This type of film is not particularly my style, the awkward dialogue, the bright and over the top clothing and colours. Love which has been taken to the next level. Although some shots have colours which have thought through emotion, I just feel as this movie is a whirlwind of colours that it's not visually appealing. To conclude this, La La Land has its ups and downs, which one of the downs is this scene because it's just not entertaining at all to me. Some people may find the lip-biting funny and shows humour to the film. Except for me, it's just not funny, is it? Very awkward and doesn't really drive the scene in an intriguing direction. Would I recommend this film to anyone? Yes and no. Due to the fact, your interests are very different, meaning you may like parts of the film and hate the rest. La La Land for me doesn't have a steady line of interest.

Pans Labyrinth Analysis - Louie Cope

Pans Labyrinth Analysis Clip 3

In the sequence from Pans Labyrinth, where Ophelia is walking through the forest and the mise en scène of her wearing a white and green dress holding a book, can be a direct reference to Alice and Wonderland. We can see this in a tracking mid-shot from the waist up, showing simplicity with focusing on Ophelia reading the book while walking into the forest.

Which follows with match on action of the horses moving through the forest with it being a tracking long-shot of the horse moving through the trees to cutting to a shot further away to show more horses in the area. The mise en scene of the lighting in the sequence with Ophelia and then the horses, have a lot of high-key lighting due to them filming during the day. Such as the horses flying past the shot, we can see an excessive amount of back-lighting shining between the gaps of trees. Which can make the darker subject seem more prominent in the shot. 

The colours between the long shots of the horses and Ophelia in the forest, have a distinctive comparison to nature, due to the prominent colours of greens, browns and yellows. This gives a more beautiful look to the shots, as fantasy films have a stunning aspect to the visuals. The use of editing in this sequence, makes the flow of it smooth. With the use of invisible editing. For example, the transition of the camera panning across the tree, following with the next tracking shot of the camera leaving the tree to reveal Ophelia walking in the frets. The use of this makes you think less of the editing and makes you more engaged in what's going on because its different points from other characters in the same location, whilst still using the same amount of lighting as before and sticking to the natured look. 

The mise en scene of the dirty shoes with a close up of them meaning 

that they're an issue as they were gifted by her mother and she ha snow gone against her mother by keeping them clean. Which can end up with her mother being upset. This shows the length that Ophelia  will go to for completing her quest with her ending up ruining things. The reference towards this shot can be linked to Alice and Wonderland and also The Wizard of Oz - two very well known fairytale films, Guillermo del Toro's approach to this was to give links between the fairytale franchise to show the importance of the shoes which can have a deeper meaning towards the characters.

With the following tracking long-shot of Ophelia walking up to an unusual shaped tree, which is shaped like the fauns horns. The mise en scène can reference towards a gateway to the world of magic, by using the faun shaped tree to show that signs of supernatural can be in the most obvious places. The director wanted to show theres not much difference from both worlds. Whereas besides the shape of the fauns horns, the shape of the tree is the shape of the woman vagina, can link to the vast idea of birth throughout the film from her mother struggling to the idea of the birth of her life to magic.

In this shot the mise en scene presents a warm tone towards the atmosphere due to the orange colours in the scene which can show the presence of fire, which ends up with it emitting warmth. The forward tracking shot of Ophelia crawling is taking us with her on the quest she is up-taking.  

Sketches of Shot Ideas

Blade Runner Analysis

The Blade Runner scene starts in a dystopian world which
creates a dark, monochromatic atmosphere, however, the music
which is created from the diegetic music played in the
street, is an opposite to the representation of the scene as
the music is very jazzy and romantic. The shot is started
with establishing shot of the street in the city. In the
establishing shot, we get the sense of the surrounding, with
the rain. The rain is used through pathetic fallacy as rain
gives a sense of a sad and gloomy atmosphere. The scene cuts
to a close up of Deckard at a minibar in the street when is
approached by a character. Deckard's character emotions
portray a bothered and annoyed look, meaning hed preferred if
he was left alone. The scene changes to Deckard being
forward tracked by the AI which is followed by a fight scene
that brakes out, used with Foley sounds to give the
impression of a hard-hitting punch on Deckard, the dialogue
of the Ai is portrayed with aggression as you can hear the
grittiness in his voice. As an over the shoulder shot of
Deckard being held by the AI, we hear a gunshot without
seeing it, this is a shock towards the viewers and the
characters as we both don't know where it came from. Then the
scene cuts to a shot of Rachael at a low angle shot holding
a gun saying shes the powerful character in this situation,
which was pointing towards the two other men. The frozen
expression of Deckard tells us that he doesn't know what going
on as he couldn't see who shot the AI. Throughout the entire
sequence, the way the director has positioned the shots
within the characters, creates a crammed world, as in the
shots you can see so much being presented in one shot. The
characters within the shots have been positioned within the
rule of thirds to give an organized flow to the scenes with
many over the shoulder shots during the dialogue of each character.