I have decided to do an analysis of a 5 minute film by some other A level students as i think this will give us more output into what we want from our film, It was edited on I movie just like ours will be so the outcomes are realistic to us. The films’ in black and white and is called Wrong Turn. I chose this film becasue it was made by A level students like us, and also it was edited on Imovie and that is the software we are using so watching and analysing this film will give us a lot of ideas because everything they do we could probably create too.
Here is a link for the short film,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rw72aMfI7kc
The film starts with a bluesy piano and bass making up the score, the first title in white over a black background reads the production company, and then it soon switches to this fuzzy dim lit picture of an overhead high angle shot of a man walking. We cannot tell who he is because we cannot see his face, there is a little jump cut and it jumps to him moving forward. The music changes when the man appears, a saxophone comes in and drums come into the score but they are of different texture they seem to be more driving than the angelic blues of the piano before. The next title reads A Low Budget Production. The organ comes in and the man who is lit from the left hand side cocks his pistol whilst lifting it to the air the picture is so distorted we cannot see any of the features of his face, perhaps this is to suggest he is very mysterious, the way half his face is lit could mean that there is two sides to this man. The next title reads “In association with Quick Short Home Movies,” Then a short close up as the man lowers his gun until it comes into the camera. The music builds up suspense and we here a gunshot as the last title is shown, the title of the film Wrong turn. Throughout all the blurriness and distorted flashing black and white images the black background underneath the title of the film flashes white as we here the gunshot, this is very dramatic. The next shot is a close up of an eye still very fuzzy but the fuzz sort f pulls into a clear picture, like you would pull a focus. But the image gets sharper. The director’s title is shown. And that bring an end to the title sequence. I think the title sequence is quite good as it doesn’t go on forever but just gives you what you need to know, it is not boring either and gives you a kind of insight into what the film may be about with the scenes in between each title. The music carries on through into the start of the movie, I do not think that it is clear enough that it is the actual start of the movie, I think this is down to the music not changing. It is quite confusing. The titles were very darkly lit with high contract, and there was this old television feel to it all. Most of the music was non diegetic, the music for example, but sounds like the gun cocking and the gun shot where all diegetic.
First scene, the score is still playing the same music as the title sequence but the picture is not as distorted, the first shot zooms from a close up to an extreme close up onto a box being held by an actor. It gets closer and pulls focus so you can see that it is white powder, possibly drugs. Then the next shot is to the side and is a close up again, the actor tips the powder onto some kind of surface he is sitting at. The next shot is an eye line match in the point of view of the actor, then an extreme high angle shot from over the head of the actor the camera moves slightly as he collects notes from his pocket, as the saxophone wails on the score, there are a series of jump cuts of him cutting up the drug with a credit card then a shot which appears to be hand held but has the attributes of a dolly shot. Gets closer to the substance, the cameras quick shots move around the substance and this gives us a feeling of rush, a mixture of close ups and extreme close ups also speed things up. More jump cuts, as he separates the substance into lines, and even more as he prepares and rolls his notes. This gives us a meaning of urgency as the jump cuts get more and more often, the director tries to portray the actor as being excited, There is no diegetic sound in this scene, only the music which keeps on playing, as the actor has rolled his note and he bends down to snort the substance we see an extreme close up of the substance moving up the note and then we see the actor’s face for the first time, he looks like a young adult about 16 or 17. More jump cuts as he snorts each line and lifts his head back, the music gets more dramatic as the last line has been dealt with, and we see an extreme close up of his face.
The next scene is of him putting his coat on the lighting is still kept very low this maybe to produce an essence or eeriness, still the director uses jump cuts but now this could be to display the actors confusion in his drug addled mind.
The next shot of the next scene is a dolly high angle shot looking down on a road, as it pans up it is cut to a car approaching, the score is still playing and violins come into the piece, now another diegetic sound as he pulls the handbrake. A close up on the actors face and the camera trembles and moves slightly, his face looks troubled. However he gets out of the car and the music becomes rockier, the next shots are medium shots of him walking with his gun in his hand, as he stands under the streetlight the contrast is very high. He cocks the gun and as he shoots a white flash appears on the screen to match the shot, this is very amateur, and doesn’t look too good, at this point he is lit from the right hand side as he raises the pistol in his other hand. He runs towards the door.
Then the next shots are in slow motion, as the door is forced open we hear a smash and a few medium close ups of him holding both guns in the air. He starts to climb the stairs, he walks into a room and we see a familiar high angle overhead shot, the one we saw at the beginning of the film. The score is now fully fledged rock; he wanders round the house apparently looking for someone, an eye line match occurs and he is looking at a door. He loads his gun then the man he is looking for opens the door and an eye line match to what the new character sees occurs and it is of the main character heavily lit from the side again, and the camera may be set at a low angle to convey that the main character has some kind of significance over the new character. He points his gun continuity editing used between these two scenes on the lowering of the gun. He shoots once and the new character when he drops his gun it is dropped in slow motion,. When he gets the pistol out it is the same shot as the one in the titles and we see these flashes on the screen with every shot and then a shot of the bloodied boy dying in the shower. We see another shot which featured in the titles the eye shot is repeated again. He walks out of the house and shortly after we see these flashback types of scenes, the shots fade in and out of black onto another shot, the shots are mainly of the boy in the shower dead. There is a very interesting shot where the camera is above him in the shower and in slow motion it spins around a little bit so the picture blurs. The score changes as we see these flashbacks it goes spooky and tense. It soon changes back to rock though as we see the murderer walking he stops with his back to the camera, then suddenly on the last shot we see a close up shot of his face, and then the credits roll.
Conclusion
The film has an obvious drug influence so maybe is classified as a gangster related genre, I think it was very graphic and under the BBFC guidelines i think it would’ve been made an 18 or a 15, for reasons like obvious hard drug abuse and the very violent gory murder.
The title sequence was good and I thought that the high contrast images worked great and how the film later on involved the images to give the viewer an explanation was a really good idea and it worked well. The way the music did not change when the titles were over and the film began did not work, it left me confused not knowing if it had started or not. I also did not like the lack of diegetic sound; it made me feel as though I was not involved in the film. Plus the lack of script and dialect was also a bad decision; it did not feel like a film. However the score was very good for this film, I like the interchange between the soft blues at the start to the heavy rock at the end.
The use of Editing in this film was very interesting, the director had filled the film with jump cuts which worked very well, especially around areas of confusion. It worked brilliantly. The use of continuity editing was also present, and a few uses of temporal editing and eye line matches.
The director had used lighting to his advantage, he used a lot of side lighting to put across the feeling that the main character was maybe two faced, or he was not all there. Although all the film was really dark I think it worked reasonably well.
I think the film had a good use of camera angles it varied them which made easy viewing; the director used angle shots to portray the characters importance. The director used tracks and also had a few hand held shots too. This helped vary things up a little; it stops it from getting boring.
Overall the film had little plot and the lack of dialogue was really disapointing, in our film i would like to maybe introduce some jump cuts as it really worked on this film, i would also like to add lighting tricks, and a score would be nice to have for our film. Also i think this film lacked focus tricks like pulling focus and deep focus, shallow focus i think they are very important in films. The black and white option was contraversial but i really dont think that film would have worked in colour.
