Looper - Official Trailer

Textual Analysis - Looper - Official Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AXwtch744A

The trailer starts with an extreme close up of a pocket watch ticking, it cuts back to a close up of a hand closing the pocket watch and then cuts again to a long shot of the main character placing it in his pocket.  A close up of the main character raising his gun and then a tilt down shot of a character with a bag on their head appearing in front of him. As soon as the character begins to shoot, it cuts to the 'Tristar' logo.
 There are several shots of the Loopers to show us who they are and as soon as the narration says Loopers, the camera zooms into a sign saying "Looper's guns here".
 There are low angled shots of the Loopers and high angled shots of their victims to show that the Loopers are more powerful and their victims are helpless and weak. The high angles are used when the main character shoots the man with the bag on his head and also when he drops the body into the incinerator.
 When there is the line "never let your target escape even if your target is you", we get a lot more close ups of the characters in order for us to see their reactions more rather than in the very first scene where the main character started shooting right away.
 When the main character is getting shot at, we get a panning shot of him running through the apartment in order for us the be able to see the whole scene within one shot rather than having to use more than one. As we see him falling, a crane shot is used to capture all the action, and it is put into slow motion to make it more tense.

The first sound we hear in the shot is the diegetic ticking of a pocket watch which the character is holding and this sound bridges for the next two shots where we would be too far away to hear the ticking, yet it is still at the same volume.
 Throughout most of the trailer, we have a narration (presumably by the main character) explaining what time travel is and who the Loopers are etc. in order for the audience to fully understand what is going on as it would be very confusing if this was just replaced by ambient sound or music.
 The Loopers are very in control of the music throughout most of the trailer, for example, when a gunshot is fired, it cuts to the next shot. Another example is the shot starting on the sound of a door being kicked open.
 There are ambient sounds such as the zoom of the 'hoverbike' driving past the camera, these sounds we expect to hear and without them, it would be abnormally quiet (apart from non-diegetic sound).
 We get several more examples of the Loopers being in control of the soundscape, when our character drops the body into the incinerator, it cuts to his face and then he shuts the door and it cuts again.
 We get sound FX in the action scene between our main character and his older counterpart for example the noise of the thrown weapon hitting him and the sound when he is punched in the face.
 We then have a montage of a large amount of action shots from the film accompanied by music, the shots all fit perfectly with the music and the shots all cut with the beat. The trailer ends with a character pretending his hand is a gun and firing it, as he does so, there is the final drum beat of the music as it cuts to credits.

In the shot where the Loopers are walking through the street wearing suits, we get 2 moments where the camera purposely goes out of focus to fit with the music. As the three characters in suits put the bag over the man's head, we get a film grain effect to show that this has happened in the past and then we cut to him appearing in the present day where there is no film grain effect.
 There is a constant cross cutting between the first scene and the other scenes, we are shown the first scene 3 times, each time it is different with the third being the main characters future self being the one being killed. As he raises his head, we get rapid shot reverse shot between the 'two' characters eyes to show the similarity and also to show us they are staring at eachother.
 As we see the main character falling out of the window, it is in slow motion, fitting with the idea that when you think you're about to die, everything slows down and also so the audience can see what's happening rather than the shot being half a second long if it was at full speed.
 At the end of the scene, we cut between the actors names and various scenes of them in order for us to know which actor plays which character.

The pocket watch shown at the beginning is quite old and antique, this shows us that he has had it for quite a long time, rather than using a fancy wristwatch. The victims of the Loopers have a bag put over their head when they are killed, this makes their death somewhat less dignified as they are denied their identity and cannot even see who is going to assassinate them. The Loopers are quite classy and fairly wealthy, we are shown this by their expensive cars, fancy suits and the general way they act.
 In the future, there is a flying motorbike which is a stereotypical thing that people always think of when they talk about the future, also in the background there is a car which is very rusty and looks out of date.
 The three criminals are all wearing the same clothes, the same suit with the same hat, this makes them lose their individual identity and makes us identify them as a group rather than separately.
 When the narrator says the line "loopers are well paid", we are shown the Loopers watching some girls dancing, showing us what they get up to in their spare time.
 The character picks up a piece of paper saying "11.30" and we immediately cut to the shot of the same pocket watch from the beginning which reads 11.30, as this happens the target appears who is the main character's future self.

The Walking Dead - Season 2 Episode 12 (AMC 2012)

Representations
The Walking Dead - Season 2 Episode 12 (AMC 2012)
http://www.zzstream.com/2012/03/walking-dead-season-2-episode-12-better.html

I'm going to be analysing the representations of Rick and Shane in the scene where they are looking for the prisoner in the woods (start 32.45 end 40.00)

Right at the start of the scene, when Rick and Shane exchange dialogue, Shane is on the left hand side of the screen where as Rick is on the right, this helps to show how they are opposing each other. Also, Rick chooses to wear his police uniform which represents him as a more positive character as police are supposed to stop crime. Shane chooses to wear black, representing him more negatively, also the fact he has shaven his head  tends to stereotype him as a thug.
 Shane tells many lies such as the prisoner took his gun, the audience know he is lying and can also tell that Rick also thinks he is lying, though he has no proof. He gestures for Rick to lead, and Shane follows him, watching his every move, almost stalking him.
 We then cut back to Daryl and Glenn examining the dead prisoner's body, they discover his neck has been broken and he has no bite marks, they instantly assume it was Shane as it is the obvious answer however neither of them like to say it.
 We then cut to a long shot of the are that Rick and Shane are entering, in order to establish the scene, this scene is chosen rather than the woods so that it would be less dark and there would be more open space for action. The next shot is a medium-long shot of the two characters emerging from the woods with Shane still stalking Rick. Rick begins to start making acquisitions saying the "barn door was shut when T-Dog rolled up" and Shane makes a stupid ambiguous comment "I saw that too" at this point not even really trying to hide the fact he did it because he knows he has Shane in the perfect position that he wants him.
 Rick stops, without even turning round and puts his gun away in it's holster and says "so this is where you plan to do it" and he knows that Shane is going to try to kill him because he wants to be with Lori. Shane lifts his gun, he is on the left of the frame facing right and it cuts to Rick on the right facing left and he questions Shane. Every single time it cuts between these two characters, they appear on opposite sides of the shot in order to really show their opposition.
 Shane puts his gun away and puts his hands up asking for Rick to raise his gun at him but Rick plays the 'good cop' and refuses, he wants to do everything he possibly can to stop either one having to kill the other.
 Shane tends to shout or talk in a very gruff voice, where as Rick talks quietly and tries to talk him out of it in a civilized manor.
 Now Shane gets angry and points his gun straight at Rick's head instructing him to "Raise your gun!". Rick continues with the 'good cop' act, telling Shane that he will have to gun down an unarmed man. Shane seems to have no problem with doing this despite being a former police officer. Shane is strongly represented as a very selfish character here as he will sacrifice others for the good of himself, even killing his 'best friend' just so he can get with his wife.
 Rick tries to reason with him trying to make him put down his gun and walk back to the farm, telling him about Lori and Carl who he loves. Rick moves towards Shane who still has his gun pointed directly at him and he goes to lay his gun on the ground but Shane grabs it. Rick immediately pulls a knife out and stabs Shane in the chest, Shane tries to shoot but misses.
 Rick lays him on the ground and says "Damn you for making me do this Shane", he stands over his body until he is dead and begins to cry because he has been forced to kill his best friend for the good of his family. Though technically Rick should be represented badly here as he just murdered his best friend, he did it to protect his family and also because Shane was a danger to the rest of the group and probably would have killed more people if he had stayed alive.

To sum up, Shane is represented as a traitor and a villain because of the sort of things he says, how he looks and also his actions. Rick is represented strongly as an honourable character who will do anything to protect his family, he is not seen as selfish as if he were alone he would have let Shane shoot him.

Intro

This blog is going to be used to submit my AS Media Studies work