AS Film Studies

What is independent cinema? -           Independent cinema explores subjects considered taboo in the mainstream film industry and are usually created on a low budget. History The roots of independent film can be traced back to when the early pioneer filmmakers at the turn of the century resisted the control of the Motion Pictures Patents Company, when filmmakers built their own cameras to escape the Edison trusts in order to relocate to Southern California where they laid the foundations of the American film industry as well as the Hollywood studio system. Conventions: studio vs independent Independent ·          It faces a series of topics that conventional films don’t take in consideration such as prostitution, drugs, homosexuality etc. ·          Aesthetics, it includes different formats and ideas, they use different techniques such as black an...

In the scene where Ree is walking her siblings to school the first frame shows them all walking with the dogs who walk freely without collars or leashes. This shows the pack like nature of the family and how close knit they are as a group. Linking them to animals represents their struggle for survival, just like animals in the wild. We also hear Ree giving her sister a spelling test which she struggles with, this relies on an understanding of social context because represents the lack of education and opportunity these children face in their situation. The close up shot of Ree behind the closed door watching her little sister in school shows her isolation from her own childhood. She lost it when her mother got too ill to look after her and her siblings and there is no way she could get it back. This is followed on by Ree looking in on the parenting classes. I felt here that she had the natural learning process of parenting ripped away from he. She had to grow up very quickly to become...

synopsis Our film tells the story of a woman who lives the same, boring, ordinary mundane life every single day with the same patterns and organisation, until one day a strange man stands at the opposite platform to her, and becomes a regular in the mornings, just like her. They begin to create a special sort of bond, almost speaking to each other through facial expressions and gestures across the platforms, never saying a word to each other. She noticed that every morning he carries  the same asda bag containing his breakfast, a drink and a granola bar/piece of fruit. The woman starts to become infatuated with this man and the audience is led to believe that she falls in love with him, as he does her. She begins to take a more forward approach by leaving sticky notes on his side of the platform, leaving a cute message very now and then, always leaving a smiley face at the end. On one sticky note she leaves her phone number, and the man starts to text message ...

The story of the toad in the tree is very similar to Ofelia’s mother’s pregnancy. The baby is making her unwell just like the toad is making the tree. This creates a parallel early on in the film from the real world to the fantasy world and shows that the fantasy world is affected by the real world. When Ofelia enters the tree, we can straight away hear the sound of squelching which really adds to the grotesque aesthetic of the film and begins to create a picture of a disgusting place. The shot of Ofelia’s ribbon blowing away in the wind foreshadow the trouble she is going to get into after this quest which makes it more sinister. The grotesque insects crawling around inside the tree represent life and the frog seems to be eating away at it, the bugs are crawling all over Ofelia almost as though they are guiding her or begging for her help. The long shot of Ofelia as she is crawling through the tree establishes the fact that the tree is dying, the roots seem blackened and some are b...

In the first the mid-shot of the door shows the above light flickering off and on this foreshadows that the nature of the heroin addiction is constantly making Renton go back, although at this point we have hope for him it shows that it is going to be a constant struggle between dark and light. In addition to this the low-key lighting of the toilet door reinforces the aesthetic of the scene because it’s one of lowest moments of Renton’s addiction. The subtitle that appears on the screen creates an extra layer of grotesque comedy, in this frame the mise en scene of the strained door and toilet sign represent how Renton’s life’s been stained by the horrors of addiction. On top of this the toilet sign is also slanted suggesting that heroin creates a crooked life. Contextually at the time Scotland was very divided from the rest of the UK because of Margret Thatcher’s early introduction of the poll tax in Scotland, which could explain why it is the worst toilet in Scotland rather than th...

The very first shot establishes the time of day as it is the behind shot of the car in a dark carpark, it also shows us that the car will become significant later on in the sequence, also it is pouring rain, which is pathetic fallacy and gives an overall mood to the scene, I think it makes it seem dreary and perhaps lonely. The next shot is a dolly in to Jake Gyllenhaal, and I noticed he is in a completely empty restaurant which could show that he is lonely however I also noticed he had put his coat on the chair next to him, these examples of mise-en-scene say that Gyllenhaal’s character is lonely but that is the way he prefers it, or maybe that he has chosen to be alone. When the waitress is talking to Jake Gyllenhaal, there is never a shot on her face, and the only time when her face is at all visible is at the beginning when the camera dollies in, and even then she is out of focus. This could mean the Gyllenhaal’s character has no real relationships and therefore he fills this vo...

The first shot of the sequence is a mid-shot of Mia Wasikowska who plays Edith Cushing lying down and the camera dollies out to reveal she is lying in a bed, the lighting is very lowkey and it’s made obvious that it is night time, the bed seems quite antique and from what is visible so does the room she is in giving a sense of ghostliness, a behind shot then makes the viewer aware that there is an empty space in the bed, instantly giving the scene an eerie feel. As the character Edith wakes up also the sound of a dog barking comes into earshot as well as some dissonant music, this non-diegetic and diegetic sound mix to give the viewer an uneasy feeling and create a sense of suspense. In the next frame, we see the dog coming into view which lowers the suspense because the sound now has a definite source, perhaps giving the viewer a false sense of security. The scene then cuts to a mid-shot of Edith and in this frame, we see only Edith and a candle which is giving off a significant ...