Genre Analysis
Task: Choose a minimum of two genres and create a post on each genre, their stereotypes and a link to an extract to a film or show from the respective genre, analysing the use of Mise-en-Scené
Genres chosen: Horror, Drama, Science Fiction (Sci-Fi)
Saw II (Horror)
Life on Mars (Drama)
Horror:
- Vulnerable female figure
- Dominant (fe)male figure
- Clear differences between mentality of young and old victims
- Mentality differences between "smart" and "dumb" characters
- Incompetent police/detective force
- A genius aggressor, often with a motive of retribution or personal justice
- Dark atmosphere to build tension and fear
- Someone/thing aesthetically fearsome, by physicality or appearance
- A variety of sub genre content
- A mix of emotional sequences
- Different characters for different roles (e.g. a funny character, a serious character etc.)
Extract Analysis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CAQ0iZKP08
Saw II: The Needle Pit
The scene starts in a dirty, yellow room, made possible by the key lighting used. This colour might be considered to represent danger and therefore could be effective for this scene. We are shown a selection of characters, one of which appears to have blood on their t-shirt, holding significance as it possibly shows the nature of this character, whether the blood is his or not, and how this may link to the attitude he displays through his body language in the first few seconds, with his physical size possibly coming across as intimidating and has movement being swift and aggressive. He is first in the room as the others are reluctant to enter, suggesting they assume something bad will happen, yet the first characters only focus is to escape. One of the characters finds the note addressed to "Xavier" on a piece of string, possibly suggesting he is attentive and possibly the thinker of the group, as in horror films a stereotypical "brains of the bunch" is often portrayed, as well as the timid and aggressive characters we have already been introduced to. We are starting to establish a clear idea of who does what role in the group before the challenge, as to get the viewer familiar with the nature of the characters and allow them to formulate their own opinions of who is detrimental and fundamental to the group and who they would like to see killed off. Often in horror films they will leave characters in such as the brawny man at the beginning so the audience can build a disliking to him while people who were more deserving to survive are killed off. This, disturbingly, makes seeing this character killed a lot more satisfying.
It is revealed the man shown in the beginning is Xavier and completely overlooked the note/tape addressed to him, again giving us insight on his attitude. We hear a very deep voice from the tape, thus adding a sense of oddity and fear into the scene. This is the second Saw film, therefore the audience is familiar with this voice and can connote it to the awful challenges other victims have been put through and would be right to assume a challenge is soon to come for the characters in this scene. This either excites the viewer or prepares the viewer depending on their tolerance of gore and overall horror. There are often indicators in horror to something awful happening where the reader needs to prepare themselves, however sometimes the audience are either given false build up to add drama or get no indication to danger whatsoever to surprise and shock the viewer. The voice in the tape conforms to the common feature of the ultimate antagonist having a justice complex and taking it into their own hands. Saw does this particularly well, and reveals the true nature of the victims to the audience, often making the viewer feel that they really shouldn't feel sorry for them as they are there for a reason. The camera angles in this part are all mid shots or close ups of the victims' reactions to the tape, mostly Xavier's. The timer we see at the beginning, which added mystery to the scene as to what it was for, is now revealed mid way through the tape the challenge and everything is brought into context in a shocking manner. The main aim in most horror films is to get the most shock value possible, either through unprecedented scares or shocking revelations. One of the characters reveals the challenge yet we see the rest of the characters' reaction to it before it is finally revealed to us, as it is, no pun intended, the last piece of the jigsaw. We wonder what is so shocking in the hole in the floor after the close ups of everyone's faces.
After a build up of tension it is finally revealed that the pit is full of dirty, used needles. This is a brilliant use of shock value, as there is a large amount of people with at least a slight sense of Trypanophobia (fear of needles) and the thought of multiple needles piercing your skin at once is truly spine-chilling to think about. The music before this did extremely well of building the tension, with the out of tune string instruments peaking in pitch at the revelation. Quick camera cuts and an extreme close up of the needles, as your able to see the blood and drugs, makes it ultimately effective. The quick change of tense to light-hearted with the pun "like finding a needle in a haystack" adds drama and gives a possible reversed effect of a pun, with puns often used to be funny, now being used to be cynical. The characters reactions to this help to further delve into their personalities and tolerance for the situation they're in, even though Xavier expresses his reluctance to partake but his eagerness to escape, the look on the black-haired woman's face looks a lot more reluctant with the addition of innocence and sorrow. The camera cuts to this woman more often as Xavier begins to see her reluctance and weakness. He then targets her and attempts to physically overpower her, showing us that Xavier is truly dislikeable by praying on the weak and vulnerable through gender and physicality. He would never target either of the 2 males as they have a, admittedly small, chance of resisting, whilst the other woman looks a lot braver and stronger than the other.
The potential scenario which the audience thought "he wouldn't..." begins to unfold as he hoists her up by her arms, with a high angle shot capturing her fear, the vulnerability of the situation she's in and the danger and pain she is about to face, the audience begin to prepare themselves. She is thrown down, with her scream of agony and the breaking of glass fulfilling it's purpose and making the audience cringe, the tempo of the scene is dramatically slowed down as the woman stays frozen, almost shell-shocked, in the pit as everyone else slows down as we await to see the woman's reaction and whether she is capable of getting the key to the door in time. The non-diegetic sound in this part is high pitched and relates to the connotation of shell-shock, as in many platforms of media like video games and films, mostly about war, after someone goes into a state of shellshock, they also lose the sense of hearing to a high pitched continuous drone. This is added so the audience can relate to her situation as much as possible. Xavier comes to realisation the quickest and overcomes it fairly easily whilst we assume the other characters are still in shock as he demands her to "hurry up" despite what he's done. The camera is free moving to add realism to the scene and make the audience feel like they're there with an almost point of view angle of the action. As the other characters start to look at him as if to say "what have you done?", he looks as though he is starting to regret his decision after the disapproval of the group as they come to terms with what's unfolded, suggesting that he is aware that he is dependant of the co-operation of the others to survive and has possibly squandered the chance to escape with his abrasive and under meditated actions. The needles in the woman's arms are an effective use of props as they work to disgust the viewer even more.
Xavier tries to keep composure and to remain insistent while trying to shadow his disgust at the situation, as the timer is running out the tension is growing to see whether she can overcome this and find the key. The audience have time to give their opinion on whether they could do the task in hand given the situation, which is a common theme when watching a horror film like Saw, however these films attempt to make it so that escape is as against the odds as possible and to have a majority of audience think that, given the situation, they would not be able to complete this challenge. The camera cuts between the time remaining, the woman's efforts of retrieving the key and people's reactions rather quickly, possible in an attempt to disorientate the viewer. Slow motion is used when she throws needles to the side of her in complete urgency, which is a good use of editing as it makes the scene seem more painful. The time isn't shown much to make the audience wonder how long is left and whether it is a possibility that she could retrieve the key for longer, however the time is shown more and more after around the 20 second mark to make the audience think the likelihood of escape is less and less plausible and to add tension. She finds the key with 10 seconds left and now the pressure is on Xavier, with 10 seconds left the likelihood of escape has went from extremely unlikely to extremely likely which adds drama. At this point we want Xavier to escape, not for his benefit but for the others' benefit, also being a dramatic change, but as we see he doesn't make it in time, making the audience take an even bigger disliking to him for not doing his minimal part of the challenge of just opening the door. Xavier doesn't take blame to himself and we can assume he blames the women from the pit.
Overall, I believe this is one of the most effective scenes in horror history, with a fantastic balance of everything people like to see in horror and one of my favourite scenes in film.
Extract Analysis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tsgVt3kX8U
Life on Mars: No Heroes
The scene starts with a low angle shot of a man (Reg) walking into a room. This particular clip is close to the end of the show, so we are already aware he is a figure of authority and power, however just from the camera angle alone, as well as the use of the gun prop, we can assume he is in control. On the other hand, the next camera cut is of Gene, Annie and Sam (left to right), and with the use of the low angle shot we can again assume they are in a position of vulnerability and are at the mercy of Reg. The setting is of a dark room, presumably a store cupboard, this could be symbolic as, stereotypically, dark is bad and light is good, so we could possibly surmise since the room is dark they are not in a good position. Sam has a sense of urgency and uneasiness in his tone as the camera is close in on his face, we are able to see the sweat on his face which enhances the realism and makes his fear believable. The room is quite compact and small, and combined with the use of close camera shots of the character's faces could work to make the audience feel a sense of claustrophobia. The low key lighting used on Reg's face is very effective, as it brings the same effect as a torchlight under a person's face as they tell a scary story. Further through Sam and Reg's conversation, Gene interrupts with "if you kill us..." while the camera is still focused on Reg's face, possibly to show the audience his reaction to Gene's bold start to his statement, and also leaves us wondering what else he's going to say when the camera focuses on him, with the potential of a dangerous and tense threat. The lighting on Reg's face shows us the movements of important things to understanding someone's facial expression, such as eyebrows and lips, without detail. This makes thing's such as his smile when talking about killing them a lot more sinister. As he raises his gun, we see everyone tense up while the camera still looks down on them, this adds tension and is an effective use of the prop. As he starts to focus the gun on Sam, the non-diegetic music builds up and the camera cuts to a close-up of his face, with this we cannot see where the gun is therefore it adds more tension to the scene. A ticking sound is slowly faded into the scene as both characters stare each other down in another successful effort to build the tension before the cut to the next scene, in which we find out the ticking is coming from the clock counting down to 2 o'clock (the time Reg threatened someone would die).
Sam's face is thrown in front of the camera's focus of the clock, which links the 2 together before the scene has even unfolded. We can tell the clock and Sam have a link, and the audience will know it is counting down to his death. The scene then cuts to a mid-shot of Sam and Reg in the office of the building. This puts the scene into context quickly and dramatically, as the gun is pointed at Sam's head. We are able to see both character's body language in this shot as we see both are jittery and nervous. This cast's doubt into the viewer's mind, as if Reg had a confident stance and more specialist clothing, he'd be a lot more threatening. We see the gun shaking when we get close up's of Sam's face, who is almost on the brink of tears. The emotion of both the character's makes for a tenser and more emotional atmosphere to the scene for the viewer. We find out the location of Annie and Gene after this point, putting the scene further into context. The now diegetic sound of the clock becomes more prominent as more pressure is put on Reg, this also creates tension for the viewer, as now a number of scenarios can take place with the whole scene in context. We then hear a narrative from Sam that links to an earlier moment in the episode with the sound of the room slowly fading out. We then here the sound build up to the peak of tension where we expect Sam to be shot, then we hear the gunshot but see the gun from Reg's hand hasn't been shot and experience a moment of confusion until the camera cuts to a gun pointed in the air, thus revealing to the audience that someone has a chance to save them. We then find out it is a rival department of detectives who got into an argument with Gene and Sam before raiding the office, adding irony and relief to the scene, with quick camera cuts helping to aid the confusion of the viewer. A stare down at gun point then takes place and the audience's relief is quickly replaced with tension again, with a 'not out of the woods yet' kind of atmosphere now in the scene. This stare down results in Gene being shot and again another emotional switch for the viewer, from tense to sorrowful and hopeful that he is not dead. At this point, the audience think Reg is the overall winner and are still waiting on that stereotypical happy ending to take place, which becomes a possibility when Ray questions what's all over him, turning out to be whiskey. The tension is not supported at this point, the integrity of the characters death is compromised to the point it isn't a possibility for him to be dead by the reaction of his peers. We find out Reg shot a whiskey flask in Gene's pocket, and the writers use this to add some comical relief into the scene as the audience realise a happy ending has been achieved and the drama of the scene has ended.
This scene displays all the good qualities for a well made dramatic scene, with a lot of emotional switches and massive build up of tension, it takes the viewer through a rollercoaster of emotions, which is exactly what the writers and cast would want from the scene.
