Sequence #1 Drive
Student name: James Lee
Date of post: 7/9/14
Topic and relevant lecture weeks: Week 3 Lecture
Contextual Information:
Director – Nicholas Winding Refn
Title – Drive
Year of creation – 2011
Dimensions (Aspect Ratio) – 2.35:1
Genre – Neo Noir Art-house Action Crime Thriller Film
Image URL / origin – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuUvRb2TqNA
Content – One of the opening shots of the movie, it features a man driving through the streets of, what looks like Downtown Los Angeles. The radio broadcast of a basketball game plays in the background. The car pulls up outside a warehouse, where three hooded men quickly pace from across the road and proceed to break into the warehouse complex as the camera pans and follows their journey.
Analysis using Compositional Interpretation
Colour analysis – The streetlights casting yellowish tones to where the light hits, where blue hues arise where light is not cast. It creates a very antagonistic scene with the strong contrast in tones. The contrast also works to create a sense of tension and an implicit struggle between good and bad. The colour works to enhance it.
Light – The lighting, whilst ambient and soft, is artificial in nature, coming from the streetlights and other random sources such as car lights and shop fronts. The quick changes in light sources due to the intermittent street lights also creates a sense of tension and unease with changes in light, colour and contrast.
Mise-en-Scene
Frames: The sequence features a typical wide screen ratio (2.35:1) (IMDB, 2011), which is standard in most modern feature films. The way the sequence is framed is quite unorthodox and erratic however still all receptive information is within the shot, with little need for inclusion of information outside the frame. Refn’s use of combining and intertwining the three screen planes is extremely engaging and helps to assimilate the audience with the environment and the main character. The frame plane helps to show the blankness and calm nature of the driver. While the geography of the area is not explicitly known, the mix of the geographical and depth planes help to show the inner city background and implicitly set the scene.
Shots: Most of the shots in the sequence are head and shoulder shots, focusing on the facial expressions of the driver. The shot distance then becomes longer and longer, where the final shot of the sequence is a panning long shot of the other figures. The closer the shot, the more the viewer feels a connection with the figure, the further away the figure, the less the connection is. Most of the shots are in a shallow and sharp focus. Refn uses the shot focus to guide the viewer’s eyes. Whilst in the car the Refn uses a shallow focus to direct the eye to the main character’s facial expression. He then re-focuses to a deep focus to draw the eye to the other figures. The camera also positions itself as a third person, seemingly a part of the sequence, yet only observing.
Montage – The cuts in the sequence are all unmarked and out of rhythm with the beat of the music. The cuts are quick and help to give a sense of tension in the scene; this is further compounded by the calm, yet serious look of the driver. By cutting out of sync with the music it gives the sequence an uneasy feel as if something is off beat or amiss.
Sound – The sequence features three sources of sound. The first and most predominant is the music track; it seems to build up the tension, yet draw out the experience with a slow and bass filled beat. The second source is the radio. While it helps to break the overpowering music, it actually subtly sets the scene by hearing a man commentate an NBA (basketball) game. The announcer heard saying, “19,000 fans on their feet here in the Staples Centre in Los Angeles.” When shots changes to the car stopping, the radio falls silent, helping to establish a sense of space, reaffirming the camera as a third party participant. The camera cuts back to inside the car and the radio begins again. As the car is in park and the camera changes to a deep focus the music fades back to a background capacity. The sequence is very Art Noir by definition with the lack of speech from the characters, relying however on outside sounds and expressions to help the story along.
Expressive content – Expressively Refn is trying to build suspense and tension. This is perfectly done through the subtle use of sound, colour and the un-rhythmic cuts of the scene. However due to the drawn out nature of the scene Refn has still been able to keep viewers engaged, without boring them by adding subtle changes in sound and filming.
References
IMDB (2011). Drive. Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780504/
Sequence #2 2001: A Space Odyssey
Student name: James Lee
Date of post: 7/9/14
Topic and relevant lecture weeks: Week 3 Lecture
Contextual Information:
Director – Stanley Kubrick
Title – 2001: A Space Odyssey
Year of creation – 1968
Dimensions (Aspect Ratio) – 2.20:1
Genre – Science Fiction Film
Image URL / origin – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wJQ5UrAsIY
Content – In this single shot sequence an astronaut in a space station is seen entering a chamber via the hatch at the top of the screen. He proceeds to climb down the ladder and then walk down a path to his crew-member at the bottom of the screen.
Analysis using Compositional Interpretation
Colour analysis – The colours used depict a space that is unnatural and man-made, the glistening white chamber overpowers the shot. Hues of blue are cast from the shadows and help to enhance the sense that the men in the shot are in a truly artificial space. The spotless white and blue colours project feelings of a sterilised and uninhabitable space, devoid of natural colours.
Light – There is only one main light source in the sequence. It is situated on the column above the second man sitting down in the galley. It casts an artificial yellowish tone upon the scene. It also is used to guide the eye toward the first mans destination, as if reaching the pot of gold.
Mise-en-Scene
Frames – Kubrick’s 1967 masterpiece was shot in a widescreen screen ration (2.20:1) (Berger, 1996), one of only two films Kubrick filmed in this widescreen format (Warner Bros, 2000). This widescreen format worked extremely well for other scenes in the movie to show the isolating nature of space, however in this sequence the widescreen format does not do the scene justice. If the ratio was smaller it could really help to create a sense of claustrophobia. The screen frames are quite closed, as the chamber the sequence is shot in is isolated to begin with. All other information is not valued or needed. Kubrick’s intersection of the screen planes in this scene is both disorienting and masterful. By removing a sense of up and down on the geographical plane Kubrick is able to cause confusion.
Shots – The singular shot is from a long distance, showing the majority of the space. It is not too far away to recognise who the men are. Kubrick has used a deep focus to show everything in the shot. The combination of a long distance zoom and deep focus helps to define the area in which a lot of the action takes place and familiarise the viewer with the space. The shot is on a fixed position high up in the chamber with an overhead angle of elevation. This overhead angle and the fixed position of the camera help to establish a feeling that a third person is viewing this scene. This is further compounded by the camera slowly panning too follow the moving character. It gives the impression that someone is spying on the men in the scene.
Montage – The sequence analysed is a single long shot, which does not have enough supporting information to analyse the editing components.
Sound – The start of the sequence features the tail end of a music track, extended from the end of the last scene, supposedly done to join the cuts together. The music then fades out to nothing. The closer the man is to the camera the louder the actions he is performing are. Pressed buttons and the ruffling of clothes can be heard. However the further away the characters are the less to hear. This further solidifies the fact that Kubrick intended to make the camera the spying third person. The absence of sound also helps to re-affirm the isolation of the men in space. Ominous and looming is the sense of aloneness, far away from external human contact.
Expressive content – While unassuming and seemingly out of place in the scheme of the movie, this scene is pivotal in showing the fact that the men are not alone. While HAL (the artificial intelligence computer) is shown in previous scenes, it is not until now that we are suggested that HAL is ubiquitously everywhere on the ship. The slow pan builds a sense of uneasiness and invasion of privacy, especially when the men are just going about their every day business.
References
Warner Brothers. (2000) Frequently Asked Questions. Kubrick Films. Retrieved from http://kubrickfilms.warnerbros.com/faq/general_faq.html
Berger, J L. (1996) Aspect Ratios. Widescreen.org. Retrieved form http://www.widescreen.org/aspect_ratios.shtml
Moving Images Further Critique
Both sequence provide a third person point of view to give the appearance of a third entity in the scene. This is especially evident in the 2001 scene, to show that HAL is ever watching the astronauts. In Drive the perspective is used to show the facial expressions of the characters, in a scene devoid of speech. Subtle uses of sound, or lack of sound, also add another layer of meaning to the sequence. In 2001 the lack of sound helps to solidify mans isolation from natural society and help to frame HAL’s limitations. This isolating theme and a sense of limitation is also compounded by the lack of gravity, showing how unnatural human life is in space. While 2001 plays with these themes, Drive helps to build a sense of tension and unease.
In both scenes it seems that the mantra was to keep it simple. There is no receptive overloading and the meaning or feelings both scenes are trying to evoke can be extracted with ease. For my personal design style I wish to emulate this mantra. I do not want to convolute the meaning my designs are trying to evoke with over embellishment.
Funky Town Theories - KIB207 
