analysis of 3 movies

1 . How is the character established through misé-en-scene, actions, body language, camerawork?

2 . How is the plot established through a variety of means?

3 . How is setting/context created?

4 . Which genre does this belong to? How do we know?

5 . Which questions are the audience left with?

6 . Is this an effective opening sequence?

Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope

1. Darth Vader/Princess Leia: When Darth Vader appears it is instantly clear he is high up in the hierarchy with the storm troopers. They stand to attention when he enters and from his body language of looking at the deceased soldiers of both his and the rebel men on the floor with his hands on his hips he shows no care for his own men neither the rebels, he knows his importance and power above the rest as it is a very then proceeds to walk leading the other soldiers. The camera is at a long shot when Vader enters to show the audience his full attire of full black body armour and his cape, it all adds to make him look more menacing and threatening, also another thing that tells the audience he is the enemy and more important than the rest is that the music becomes very dramatic as he enters the scene. Later in the scene his strength is shown holding a man off the ground by his neck with one hand, he interrogates the man in an almost non aggressive tone but while slowly crushing his neck, this manages to make Vader seem powerful but cold hearted and merciless and when the man denies Vader they have done anything and that they are innocent Vader simply crushes his neck and throws the man down as if it meant nothing increasing his menacing image, he then commands his troops to find what they are looking for fully showing the audience he is the one in charge. Leia's attire makes her instantly seem the opposite of Vader, while Vader wears black body armour and a black cape which adds to make him seem more threatening, Leia has simple plain white robes which try to tell the audience she is one of the good characters through her clothing's colour compared to Vaders. She appears to be the damsel in distress having the rebels try to protect her following the stereotype,

2. At the opening there is a long credit scene in which through writing the audience is narrated on recent events, we are shown who the bad guys and good guys from the attires they wear. Apart from this the only narration we are given in the opening is the opening credits.

3.  We can tell the context/ setting from the location of the scene. The establishing shot is of space and two spaceships chasing one another, the rest of the scene we see is from the inside of the rebel ship and we can tell this as it is the one that gets capture and of course full of rebel soldiers inside.

4. We know it is from the sci-fi and action genre from the scenes in space the futuristic weapons and spaceships and the fact there are machines such as R2D2 and C3PO. It is shown it is of the action genre also with the shootout scene that comes very early, also the first scene after the establishing shot is the two spaceships shooting at each over while one pursues the other.

5. What are on the plans? Who is Darth Vader and Princess Leia? Where have R2D2 and C3PO fled?

6. Yes because it grips the audience almost instantly with the choice of soundtrack as the narration comes in then straight into the action scene, it makes the audience want to continue watching to see what is going to happen next.

Children of men

1. The main protagonist is shown first when he enters a cafe called "caf fine" while there news on the TV of the youngest person alive who has been killed, he is shown to be uncompassionate as all people around him look on in sadness and while he shows no care about it, he also slightly nudges a woman out his way in order to get a coffee. The fact he remains emotionless standing out from the rest makes him be represented as a cruel person. After exiting the cafe he is then shown pouring some alcohol into his coffee telling us he could be alcoholic.

2. We are given no narration at all in the opening except that the date is London, 16th November 2027

3. We can tell the setting from the scene telling us it is London, 16th November 2027. We can also see some iconic London features such a red busses and taxis

4. We can assume this is from the drama genre as it opens with a tragedy of a celebrity being murdered then shortly after a bomb is set off in the cafe the protagonist was just in.

5. What has happened, how is the youngest man 18? What happened to the world? Who is the man? Why was a bomb set off in the cafe?

6. I think it is an effective opening as it manages to make the audience curious and want to find out more about what is supposed to be going on, also the bomb at the end also grips the audience effectively making them want to see more.

Kes

1. The protagonist is established as young at first we can easily tell from the high pitch of his voice when we only see the room in dark, his home is not well kept so the audience can assume he is middle class to low class, he is however shown to be enthusiastic about things as unlike stereotypes of lazy children he actually gets himself up and gets dressed after of course going back to sleep for a while and then proceeds to run into the garden.

2. We don't actually learn much of the plot at all in the opening scene only we have found their is a bad relationship between the boy and the man through the verbal and in end physical violence they have for each over, after running into the garden and discovering his bike is no longer there the audience is shown Kes running through town clearly trying to get to somewhere or someone as fast as he can.

3. The setting is created when we can see Kes as he runs through his home town, it looks all rather poor and not well kept but also old which wouldn't be that surprising given the movie is too very old.

4. It is of the drama genre and we can maybe pick this out by having a convention like conflict between family members between Kes and whoever the man was but other than that in the opening there is not anything that really shows what genre it is.

5. Who was the man? Where are Kes's parents? What is he running to?

6. I personally find the start of the opening a bit slow and dull but after Kes actually gets up it is a pretty good opening having him run to something unknown to the audience with the theme song in the background makes the audience want to continue watching to see what it is, so I like the opening but just find the start of it a bit boring.