In Face/off, the thriller conventions have been used, the first apparent one is that there is a crime at the narrative, the reason for this is because the father has been shot. The father would be known to be the protagonist while the person who shot him would be known to be the antagonist. Another thriller convention used in Face/off is that the Mise-en-scene echoes the protagonists plight, the reason for this is that the protagonist is completely out of control, in the sense of what is going to happen to him.
The role of the Protagonist is established very quickly within the film, you can tell this because the protagonist is with a child on the horse and he looks like the child's father. The protagonist is also confirmed when the protagonist is shot and the first thing he does is shuffle. The antagonist, is idenifyed, because he starts to look peculiar, this is confirmed when he looks through the viewing screen of his gun, this reveals the protagonist in his eye line.
Film Language is used to create meaning, an example of this would be when the viewer can see what the antagonist is viewing from the guns viewer, this puts the viewer in the control position.
Mad Men
Meaning is created through the film language in Mad Men. Meaning is created through film language using; editing, camerawork, mise-en-scene and sound.
Editing is used to create meaning in Mad Men. When the two women are talking in the first scene, shot reverse shot is used, the editing is however not very fast. With slower editing the viewer gets the impression that not much action is going to take place. When the man is on the plane in the next scene the camera is moving towards him then there is a cut to a close-up of him when he lights his cigarette.
Camerawork is used to create meaning in Mad Men. When the two women are shown talking in the first scene the camera shots used are over the shoulder shots so when one character is talking the camera is on them and then when the other character is talking the camera is on them, with the viewer seeing the other persons shoulder who is not exchanging any dialogue. In the second shot the camera looks up and the sign for smoking and the light is then turned off. Then a tracking shot is used to go up the isle of the plane towards the man. After a cut is used to focus on the mans face a zoom shot is used to show the mans face at a much closer angle.
Mise-En-Scene is used to create meaning in Mad Men. In both shots of the clip all three main characters are smoking. The women and both standing in a modern expensive looking house, the man is dressed in a nice suit, this suggests a link between the scenes and people. The man is dressed in a suit but is also sitting on a plane which suggests to the viewer that he is travelling on a business trip.
Sound is used to create meaning in Mad Men. In the first scene of the clip all the sound is diegetic, this is the characters talking. In the second scene both diegetic and non-diegetic sound is used. When the air steward makes the annoucments, this is diegetic sound. However when the camera is focused on the man and is zooming towards him the music playing is non-diegetic sound.
Editing, Camerawork, Mise-En-Scene and Sound work together to create meaning in Mad Men. They all play a equal part to create meaning. If there was no sound then you would not get any meaning, the same way as if there was no good use of Mise-En-Scene, Camerawork or Editing.
Regeneration
This still shot makes the viewer feel sorry for the soldiers who are at war. The filmmaker has created an atmosphere using lighting and the camera angles. The lighting is very dull which automatically makes the viewer think that this is not a nice place to be, the dull lighting also has a sense of death. The camera shot used is a long shot, the reason why this shot has been used is because you can then see the soldiers are travelling, also by using a long shot you can the surrounding area in which the soldiers are travelling. In this shot you can see a cross with a helmet dangling from it, this suggests to the viewer that somebody has been killed here. If you look on the nature in the shot you can see that the trees have no leafs, this suggests that it is the Autumn or winter, these seasons of the year are associated with dullness and sadness.
This image also makes you feel sorry for the character because he has lost his life. The twigs that surround him are bare with no life in them so when you see this image everything in it is lifeless. The atmosphere that the filmmaker has created is similar to the first image in the sense that this war field is a very sad and lonely place to be.
In both of the above images the colour is black and white, this gives the impression that everything is a huge matter of life or death. The black and white images also give the impression without knowing what the film is about, that it is set in either word war one or world war two.
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