Textual analysis of 'The Stepfather'.

Searching for locations for our opening to our thriller.

As we searched for locations we came across a pond which may be suitable for our thriller opening. 

As we searched around the pond we soon realised the pond was not suitable as it was not large enough for our task to be filmed nor was the amount of tree's enough to match the amount we wanted 

Another reason we did not like the location was the emptiness of the location, we wanted to film in an area where it would be over crowded with trees. Evidently here it wasn't. 

Textual analysis of opening to seven

OPENING TO SEVEN

The opening sequence to seven reveals a lot about the characters and the storyline to come. It suggests that there is a contrast in how the two detectives work. One is a man who values his job and his money, presents himself well etc. Whereas the other is a man who, although is passionate about his job, presents himself quite differently. The titles give the audience a glimpse of whats to come throughout the whole film drawing in the viewer to keep watching. Here is what I noted down after watching the opening 5 minutes several times.

Mise en scene He is very well presented, wearing a suit, values his job. Tidy apartment. Contrasting from the scene straight after in the other man’s flat, very untidy and messy, dead body on the floor. The location where the two characters are talking outside looks fairly, rough and not well kept, which shows the man uses his money wisely to make sure he is well kept and tidy. He as a person contrasts from his area. Metronome symbolises his life ticking away. Morgan sleeps the right hand side of the bed maybe showing he wants someone next to him or he’s lost someone and is used to the routine of sleeping on a ‘side of the bed’.

 Camera Angles. During the street scene brad walks into people showing he’s not familiar with it, but Morgan knows where he’s going-tracking shot. Extreme close up shots, title sequence, emphasises what it’s about. In the sequence certain words came up.




Sound It begins silent but cars driving past, emphasises silent. Morgan doesn’t care about the noise; he’s used to the amount of crime etc. Sets the location/genre. Finished on Morgan and lightning strikes, when he falls to sleep, signifying that something worse is going to happen.

Barthes Narrative Codes.

Roland Barthes invented 5 narrative codes: This is when the audience will 'presume' the next logical step of the actor. For e.g. Packing a suitcase- the next logical step would be to see them leave to go on a trip/holiday/leave to somewhere else. Mystery code/Enigma code- This is where the audience is meant to think if they carry on watching they will be shown the answer to something, for e.g. seeing body parts of a 'killer' throughout the film and at the end revealing their full faces etc. The semic code-This is where things have symbols for things for e.g. garlic hanging from the walls would represent a vampire being around or near their house This is used to make sense of the cultural/social side of the character. In James Bond films there would be Aston Martins and Martini's showing his wealth etc. This is Binary Opposites, black v white, hot v cold, male v female etc. In our preliminary task we used 3 of these codes: Code of opposites, action codes, cultural code. Code of opposites was used when me and Rachael were talking on the stairs, I was in a dark blue colour whereas Rachael was in a light pink showing the contrast of good and evil. Action Code when Rachael walked up to the door implying that she was going to walk through, with that being the 'next logical step Cultural code, it was cloudy showing the typical weather in England, we are white showing our ethnicity. We spoke with a British accent, we wore stereotypical western clothes,hinting we were English.