Friday, 4 December 2015

Codes and conventions

CODES AND CONVENTIONS:


Exploring codes and conventions and illustrating through line graphs. Our task was to watch 4 film openings and show through the use of lines on a graph how tension was created, sound was shown and lastly how obvious recognising the genre was. 
-This is a key to demonstrate which line represents either genre, tension or sound. The key applies to all films analysed.


Resident Evil:
Uneasy eye contact suggested that perhaps they were familiar with eachother. Slow repetitive dietetic sound of the drum combined with the slow movement made the atmosphere tense and uneasy. The use of the birds eye view shot made the lone girl the subject. She is also being shown in the centre of the shot implies that she is perhaps an important character. The sound created a build up of tension but at the same time where there was no sound this also created tension as there were expectations for something unexpected to happen to put the audience on edge. Figuring out the genre was difficult as there were only small aspects which initiated it could be a dangerous genre, such as the red umbrella having connotations of danger and warning. Tension was also built as the camera filmed the women from ground level and gradually rose to get a view of her face, which initially seemed natural, but there were aspects of mystery as it seemed odd for her to be standing in the pouring rain without protection. 

Hurt Locker:
The genre is made very obvious to the audience due to the setting and costumes, demonstrating the genre is war based. The codes and conventions used throughout the opening also show that it is a war/ action film and is also demonstrated through the mise-en-scene, such as the props and costumes shown.

Amelie:
In the film Amelie, both the tension and genre lines remained similar, we found that there was no immediate signifiers which suggested what the genre would be. As a whole the lines remained low and straight as a result of this. However, when looking into the film in more depth I found that there was a reoccurrence of the colour red which has connotations of love and romance. These were shown through the strawberries, the cardboard cut out and her red coat. 

Jurassic Park:
As a whole the genre became very recognisable to to audience as the mise-en-scene and costumes suggested there was sci- fi aspects. The idea of sci-fi was built up over the course of the opening and almost finalised when it shows the animal escaping from the cage. The high security and helmets with dinosaurs on are also indicators of it being a sci-fi/ adventure film.



Common codes and conventions of film openings for a variety of genres we found were:
- Narration of some sort over the top, this tended to be non-diegetic as you could see the person speaking, in a majority of cases the narrator would be a key character in the film.
- Non diegetic sounds and ambient sounds to create atmosphere for the audience.
- Title sequence and credits which often suggest the genre of the film.












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