Breaking Bad - Series 4, Episode 7 - Trouble Dog (AMC 2011)
http://www.putlocker.com/file/05F4750B02CB4FAB# (sorry about pop-ups, it's the only one I could find)
I will be analysing the representations of Jesse in the sequence between 0.32 and 2.05. We know from previous episodes that Jesse has a huge amount of guilt after having to kill an innocent man in order to protect his partner and he cannot accept it.
The scene opens with a straight cut between the recap and a shot of the graffiti on Jesse's wall, this gives a very negative connotation that he is some kind of thug type figure. We then cut to a diagonal tilt shot showing the large amount of rubbish on Jesse's floor and then showing him in the left of the frame playing a shooting game with a gun controller, the amount of rubbish on the floor shows us that he has stopped caring about his house and cannot get over what he has done. The light in his room that keeps changing colour is quite low key giving a dark eerie atmosphere.
Jesse has a very worried, perhaps scared expression on his face and the diegetic suspense music coming from the game shows how he feels.
At 1.13 we get a great shot in which the camera is attached to the end of the gun controller, this shows that the gun is in control of Jesse and he is not in control of it, belittling him and showing he is not in control of his actions. This also shows us how much that his hand is shaking as he cannot keep the gun still, also showing us how nervous he is. These types of shots are used quite often in this series, there is another where the camera is attached to a shovel as he is digging.
As he shoots an enemy in the game, exactly as the enemy hits the ground, we get a panning shot for a split second of Gale, the man that Jesse killed. This shows us that he cannot get the image out of his head and that he is traumatised by it. The panning shot continues back round to Jesse playing the game again with no obvious cut. We see him shoot one enemy in the chest and smile while wiping his forehead and then he shoots another in the head, we immediately get another split second panning shot to Gale being shot in the head by Jesse, the gun sound from the game perfectly matches when Gale is shot. In the next shot of Jesse, he looks concerned rather than happy like he did before he thought of Gale. The fact that Jesse fails the mission shows how he was very reluctant to shoot Gale and only did it because he had to, in a situation where he had a choice, he would not have shot him, this is what happens in the game.
There is a pull focus shot, pulling the focus away from the screen and onto Jesse's face looking down at the ground in a disappointed manner. He hovers over the option to quit, but then decides to restart, I think this is symbolic of how Jesse made the choice to continue on in the business rather than quitting it after he was traumatised by Gale's death. When he is pointing the gun at the restart option, we see his hand is shaking profusely and this shows us that he is very unsure about what to do but as soon as he chooses restart, we see his facial expression change to a somewhat violent one. I think this relates to a previous episode where he was told to take 'no half measures' by Mike. He has made a decision of what he wants to do and that is carry on in the business.
Tuesday, 23 October 2012
Wednesday, 17 October 2012
Practice Shots
The camera was a bit shaky at times due to my lack of a tripod
Monday, 8 October 2012
SKYFALL Trailer - Textual Analysis
Skyfall - Official Teaser Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24mTIE4D9JM&feature=relmfu
The sequence opens with a fade from black into a scene of James Bond standing on top of a building, the camera is behind him and we can see all of the sights he is looking at. He is slightly to the left of the frame and it is a medium-long shot. Where he is facing, we can see Big Ben and various other monuments along with a large array of Union Jacks, this helps give a very patriotic feel to James Bond, which has always been a convention throughout the previous James Bond movies. He is dressed smartly in what looks like a black fitted coat, this makes him look fairly classy. The camera tilts slightly down to show his feet, so we can establish he is standing very close to the edge. The sense of patriotism is maintained by the soundtrack, as the first thing we hear is someone say "Country?" and James say "England".
We then fade to black and then fade into the next shot of a man running, it is presumably James but it is hard to tell due to the extreme long shot. The subject is in the background and is slightly to the right of the frame making them look fairly unimportant. The dialogue within the soundtrack shows us the same two voices with the man saying "gun" and James saying "shot".
Yet again another fade is used, this time we see James as a silhouette in a doorway, though he is not centre frame, he is clearly the focus of the shot as the doorway is where all the light is coming from and the fact he is standing in the doorway means that he is blocking a large amount of the light that is entering the room.
We fade to a shot of a shooting range where the target looks like a person, as the soundtrack says "murder". We then cut to a shot of James and the man 'interrogating' him and realise that the dialogue before this shot was not non-diegetic but instead a sound bridge from this shot and James says "employment", this signifies that he sees killing as a neccesary part of his job. Though technically there are 4 people in the shot, the two in the foreground are just silhouettes and have their backs facing the camera which makes this almost an over the shoulder two shot of James and the interrogator.
The camera moves to the other side of the two characters, this time it is a two shot and is a medium shot. We can see that James is wearing what looks to be a prisoner's clothes where as the interrogator is wearing a nice suit with an identity card attached to his left jacket pocket, making him seem very official. We can no longer see through the window in the room where the camera was previously as it is one way glass, people can see in but not out. This makes it seem like more of an interrogation as they do not know who is watching from outside. The walls are quite grotty and not very nice which makes it like a prison. James is sitting upright in his chair with perfect posture and the interrogator is slouching which makes it seem like James is taking this more seriously than he is.
As the interrogator mentions "Skyfall", we cut to a close up of James' face to show his reaction, then immediately cut away to a shot of a man with a gun standing in a room which looks like it has been ransacked with a man sitting dead (possibly sleeping/ unconscious) in a chair, for just a split second and then we cut back to James' reaction. This shows that "Skyfall" provokes memories, likely bad due to the nature of the memory.
We cut to a three shot of the people looking into the interrogation room, we have the one in the background and the one in the foreground both slightly out of focus with the one in the centre in focus, bringing more attention to him. However as he looks towards the woman in the foreground, we get a pull focus shot putting her in focus and him out of focus.
We cut again to a close up of the interrogator repeating himself "Skyfall" and then James confidently saying "Done". We cut back to the original shot we started with when we were first shown this room, as James gets up and walks away.
We get a high angle shot of a city at night with all of the bright lights on the buildings, then we cut to a woman standing in the window of her hotel/apartment room which suggests a possible love interest for Bond.
The next shot is a panning shot of Bond walking into a room and firing two shots from his gun, these two shots fit perfectly with the music, connoting that James is in control of the soundtrack. The camera is at a slight low angle in order to show his power and also we notice that he is wearing a very smart black suit to show that he always likes to look classy.
We have a shot of coffins with Union Jacks draped upon them. The next shot shows James on a boat in China, he is centre frame, with the camera low angle and he is still dressed very smartly with a bow tie and a handkerchief sticking out of his jacket pocket.
We see a shot of James running down a road in London which has a lot of traffic along with a large number of police vehicles. He is running the opposite way from where the police vehicles are headed which seems to show he is running away from something that his happened, he has a concerned look on his face. Despite running, he still looks very smart with his suit.
We get a shot at 1.01 of James walking down a dark corridor and as he comes closer to the camera, the small amount of light shining through settles upon his eyes leaving the rest of his face in darkness. This is an interesting shot as it makes him look like quite a dark character which has not really been shown before.
We then see a silhouette walking away from a burning building, we cannot tell who this is however it does not look like James and is more likely to be the villain of the movie.
The trailer ends with James Bond saying "there's a man coming to kill us, we're gonna kill him first" and then a rapid montage of action shots and then the iconic 007 logo with the 7 looking like a gun.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24mTIE4D9JM&feature=relmfu
The sequence opens with a fade from black into a scene of James Bond standing on top of a building, the camera is behind him and we can see all of the sights he is looking at. He is slightly to the left of the frame and it is a medium-long shot. Where he is facing, we can see Big Ben and various other monuments along with a large array of Union Jacks, this helps give a very patriotic feel to James Bond, which has always been a convention throughout the previous James Bond movies. He is dressed smartly in what looks like a black fitted coat, this makes him look fairly classy. The camera tilts slightly down to show his feet, so we can establish he is standing very close to the edge. The sense of patriotism is maintained by the soundtrack, as the first thing we hear is someone say "Country?" and James say "England".
We then fade to black and then fade into the next shot of a man running, it is presumably James but it is hard to tell due to the extreme long shot. The subject is in the background and is slightly to the right of the frame making them look fairly unimportant. The dialogue within the soundtrack shows us the same two voices with the man saying "gun" and James saying "shot".
Yet again another fade is used, this time we see James as a silhouette in a doorway, though he is not centre frame, he is clearly the focus of the shot as the doorway is where all the light is coming from and the fact he is standing in the doorway means that he is blocking a large amount of the light that is entering the room.
We fade to a shot of a shooting range where the target looks like a person, as the soundtrack says "murder". We then cut to a shot of James and the man 'interrogating' him and realise that the dialogue before this shot was not non-diegetic but instead a sound bridge from this shot and James says "employment", this signifies that he sees killing as a neccesary part of his job. Though technically there are 4 people in the shot, the two in the foreground are just silhouettes and have their backs facing the camera which makes this almost an over the shoulder two shot of James and the interrogator.
The camera moves to the other side of the two characters, this time it is a two shot and is a medium shot. We can see that James is wearing what looks to be a prisoner's clothes where as the interrogator is wearing a nice suit with an identity card attached to his left jacket pocket, making him seem very official. We can no longer see through the window in the room where the camera was previously as it is one way glass, people can see in but not out. This makes it seem like more of an interrogation as they do not know who is watching from outside. The walls are quite grotty and not very nice which makes it like a prison. James is sitting upright in his chair with perfect posture and the interrogator is slouching which makes it seem like James is taking this more seriously than he is.
As the interrogator mentions "Skyfall", we cut to a close up of James' face to show his reaction, then immediately cut away to a shot of a man with a gun standing in a room which looks like it has been ransacked with a man sitting dead (possibly sleeping/ unconscious) in a chair, for just a split second and then we cut back to James' reaction. This shows that "Skyfall" provokes memories, likely bad due to the nature of the memory.
We cut to a three shot of the people looking into the interrogation room, we have the one in the background and the one in the foreground both slightly out of focus with the one in the centre in focus, bringing more attention to him. However as he looks towards the woman in the foreground, we get a pull focus shot putting her in focus and him out of focus.
We cut again to a close up of the interrogator repeating himself "Skyfall" and then James confidently saying "Done". We cut back to the original shot we started with when we were first shown this room, as James gets up and walks away.
We get a high angle shot of a city at night with all of the bright lights on the buildings, then we cut to a woman standing in the window of her hotel/apartment room which suggests a possible love interest for Bond.
The next shot is a panning shot of Bond walking into a room and firing two shots from his gun, these two shots fit perfectly with the music, connoting that James is in control of the soundtrack. The camera is at a slight low angle in order to show his power and also we notice that he is wearing a very smart black suit to show that he always likes to look classy.
We have a shot of coffins with Union Jacks draped upon them. The next shot shows James on a boat in China, he is centre frame, with the camera low angle and he is still dressed very smartly with a bow tie and a handkerchief sticking out of his jacket pocket.
We see a shot of James running down a road in London which has a lot of traffic along with a large number of police vehicles. He is running the opposite way from where the police vehicles are headed which seems to show he is running away from something that his happened, he has a concerned look on his face. Despite running, he still looks very smart with his suit.
We get a shot at 1.01 of James walking down a dark corridor and as he comes closer to the camera, the small amount of light shining through settles upon his eyes leaving the rest of his face in darkness. This is an interesting shot as it makes him look like quite a dark character which has not really been shown before.
We then see a silhouette walking away from a burning building, we cannot tell who this is however it does not look like James and is more likely to be the villain of the movie.
The trailer ends with James Bond saying "there's a man coming to kill us, we're gonna kill him first" and then a rapid montage of action shots and then the iconic 007 logo with the 7 looking like a gun.
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