Alice's Media Blog

Examples of:

Enigma Code

• Who is at the door?
• Why are they attacking this family?
• What happens to the little girl
• What happened to the father (Gerard Butler)?
• What case are the lawyers working on?

Action Code

•   You hear a knock on the door, so you know someone is going to go downstairs and answer the door.
• The villain stabbing the man, makes you think the man is going to die.
• We see the little girl arrive in the doorway, so we expect someone to go after her.
• After the meeting with the lawyer, we expect the father to do something rash to get revenge against the men who killed his wife and daughter.
• After the whole attack on the family, you expect the narrative to follow the case on which this is based.

Semiotic Code 

•   The prosecution represents the bad side of the law
•   The large court room represents the all theme of 'good vs evil'

Cultural Code

•  We see little beads with letters on them at the beginning, which creates the sense we are looking from a child's perspective at that point
• The dad teases the little girl about winding up her mum
• The father looks forward to a take away dinner
• We see the mother try to rescue the man before she is also trapped by the villains. She is trying to save her family.
• When we see the lawyers trying to prosecute the villains, we know they share the view that murdering, etc is wrong and must be punshied - cultural code for the world.

Symbolic Code 

• Good vs Evil
• One Man vs The Legal System

I chose a scene from The Rum Diary which is an Comedy/Drama a hard-drinking journalist played by Johnny Depp.

Cultural Codes:

• The typewriter on the desk shows us that the film is most likely set in the past, when typewriters were frequently used. It is centered at the beginning of the clip, as if it has large significance in the storyline, which we find out it does because Kemp is a journalist.
• Kemp played by Johnny Depp is in a small, dark and messy room, with a bottle of rum on his desk and an ashtray of cigarette butts. We associate this with an alcoholic, someone still trying to make their way in life, and someone quite laid back, such as Kemp. He wants to make his way in this foreign country, but he still wants to do things his way.
• All the photos on the wall in the background suggest he is interested in photography or journalism and indeed he does want to become a journalist.
• We also see lots of old, dusty books on a shelf in the background. We think he is intellectual and likes to read, but has not found his way in the world yet. He does not have enough money for new books, and is living in minimal conditions.
• His white polo shirt suggests a laid back lifestyle. He is not wearing a suit, so is not a wealth businessmen. The polo makes him look quite relaxed, in control of his life, and not making an effort to impress other people. He is just looking to make a living in this foreign country.

Film Making Conventions:
  
Technical Codes:

• Over the shoulder shot
• Voiceover 
• Medium Long Shot
• Pan around Kemp, the main character - We see things from his perspective; what he's thinking, what he sees and his surroundings.

Genre Conventions:  

• The voiceover used to reveal what is being written on the paper, but revealed as his thoughts
• The cigarettes
• The alcohol
• The small, dark, cramped, minimal living space
• Dark, low key lighting with lamp on desk - emphasises minimal living conditions and solitude of Kemp
• The sound of him tapping on the keys on his typewriter - building up as he types

This still is from the film Man on a Ledge, a modern thriller film.

Nick Cassidy, played by Sam Worthington is standing on the ledge of a building in New York City. You can not see his facial expression or how he feels, but the shot makes him seem insignificant due to the framing. The Extreme Long Shot and the High Angle make his character very small compared to the massive city. Despite his insignificance you can see crowds of people on the streets below, watching this man standing on a ledge, and making this 1 person in New York, seem suddenly much more important.

The high angle shot, also shows you the city from Nick's perspective. You are looking down and seeing what he can see. The high angle also creates a big sense of height, and looking down on the city from so high up, adds suspense and enigma to the still, because you do not know whether he is going to jump or not. The man looks like he is peering over the side of the ledge, as if to decide whether or not he is going to jump and you can tell from the shot he may have been standing there for a long time to enable such large crowds of people to gather on the streets below. However from what the man is wearing, he seems like an ordinary man. Not a businessman, not a spy, just an ordinary man which makes the viewer wonder what has happened to this man that makes him want to stand on the ledge of this building, and maybe jump off.

I chose this film still, because I like how the framing and the angle of the shot give you the view of what the man in the shot can see. He is obviously the main character, because he is very central in the shot. Many questions are raised by this still; Why is he standing on the ledge? What is he going to do? Is he going to jump? The still also represents the thriller genre very well. The angle of the camera makes you feel nervous as you wait to see what happens.

We chose to centre most of our shots around Horror, because given our limited locations and props, it was the easiest genre to represent in our shots. Horror stills often feature extreme lighting, very dark and sometimes a bright flash of light. The subject of my shot is a young women, but the shot raises questions about whether she is the victim, or the villain. She is staring directly at the camera, engaging with the viewer as if she can see someone and is either trying to get their help and escape, or is coming after them. It raises enigma in the viewers mind. The shot is also very darkly lit, with a small amount of light hitting the subjects face, creating a feeling of suspense, enigma and also horror.

To achieve this effect...
1. Dark/dingy setting - We used the school basement and turned off all the lights in order to create enigma around the shot location and the subject. Darkness creates a sense of horror and the fear of the unknown.

2. Low key lighting - We used very low key lighting on the subjects face, in order to make sure you could see her facial expression and the door frame.

3. Framing - We used a medium close up in order to make sure you could get a sense of the characters facial expression, but also the 'frame within a frame;' the character is behind a door frame, and the medium close up enables you to see this, whilst adding enigma around the characters location.

In my opinion, the best feature of the shot is the lighting, which shadows the subjects face and creates enigma, but also because it creates a horror effect, as the lighting is coming from below the subjects face, which creates shadows and casts the character in some dark/some light, which is often associated with someone half in the light and half in the dark, they have two sides to their character. The way the character is looking directly at the camera also engages the audience with the character, so they feel like part of the shot.

However, if I was to improve my shot I would choose slightly tigher framing, around the subject and her hand, in order to engage the viewer even more with the character and her 'stare.' I also would have made the lighting on the subjects face a more high key, to contrast with the dark background and to create a larger focus on the character.