Cape Fear textual analysis

Cape Fear


Immediately we hear diegetic sound of running water, then calm water, the soundtrack is then played which is very dramatic and repetitive, this is contrapuntal as the water is calm. The colour of the water is green and brown which gives us the impression it is dirty. The typography is then displayed across the screen appearing in different places. The writing is in italics which gives us the impression something is not quite right. As Robert De Niro’s name appears an eagle is pictured coming towards the camera symbolising Robert’s character as a hunter. The bird of prey is hunting and foreshadows what may happen in the film, as the bird appears the music becomes lower making the bird appear more sinister and showing importance of the bird.
The title is then displayed across the centre of the screen, the music becomes louder and crescendos’ the water is related to the title. The water is Cape Fear.
An extreme close up of an eye is then shown, it appears be under the water making us believe that that person must be drowning. The pupil is also moving which makes it look like the person is scared and struggling. An extreme close up of a mouth is then pictured also beneath the water. This is showing us all the senses and giving the impression of someone being trapped or drowning.
A close up of a man’s face is then seen higher than the eye and mouth which makes it look like the man is looking into the water rather than below the water. The music in the background diminuendos but is still repetitive. As the music gets lower, the mans face disappears drawing importance to him.
A mid shot of someone’s upper body is then seen under the water. The water then from the top of the screen drips from a murky green brown colour to blood red. The colour coding of the red screen represents danger and blood.
The water is the split on screen and as it ripples it looks like a heart beat monitor and the water is red again this foreshadows that maybe someone’s going to get hurt in the water.
Above the water there is a shadow of a man the water is green again and green represents envy and jealously maybe he wants to get revenge on someone. The mans shadow then fades and in the background under the water a drop we don’t know what it is it could be a tear or blood. The screen then rips to red again making us think the drop was blood.
While the screen is still red an extreme close up of women’s eyes is shown her eyes are also red making it appear she’s a victim. Her eyes then go from red to a photo negative effect maybe what she is saying has already happened. Her dialogue “my reminiscence” backs up the idea that what she’s saying has already happened.
In the background it is raining heavily this relates back to the theme of the lake and water and also reflects the mood of the film it is scary and sad.
The camera slowly zooms out revealing the girl bit by bit this creates tension and also draws importance to her as the central character. Her white top makes us think she is innocent and young her buttons are done up all the way to make her feel secure.
The scene then cuts to a room and the camera slowly goes down revealing more of the room. The pictures on the wall are of evil dictators there is the main one of Stalin and others of superheroes around it. The man obviously idolises them and the power they had, which maybe he wants.
A close up to mid shot of a mans back shows him working out in front of the pictures which makes him look like he is bowing to them worshipping them. On his back he also has many tattoos the main one we see is the American scales of justice which makes us question if he is guilty this is then reinforced as the camera shows his books he has which are all law books. Which show us he is patriotic and searching for justice. The books are also old which show us he is intellectual.
As the camera retracts we finally see where this is set and he is in jail.
The man turns around we see more of his tattoos. He has six lightening bolts on his hips which relates back to the super hero idea and of power, and a broken heart maybe this relates back to the girl and the revenge he wants. As we see him completely turn around the music gets lower creating more suspense.
As he leaves his cell the camera follows him around and the take is a very long one building up even more suspense. He also leads the policeman around showing his position of power and also relating back to the idea of power from the pictures. He has also been in a cell on his own isolated, which again gives us an idea he is in a position of power.
He leaves the jail in old fashioned clothes again reinforcing the idea he has been imprisoned a long time. The thunder in the back ground is pathetic fallacy creating even more suspense and making him seem menacing. As he walks towards the camera the music becomes increasingly dramatic foreshadowing the idea of calm before the storm we know something bad is going to happen.
The close up of his face links back to the face we saw in the water at the beginning, we know now he has something to do with the water, we know something bad is going to happen involving him and the water.



Georgia Day

Editing our Preliminary and choice of music

Georgia Day and Roberta Leary chose to allocate a lesson completely towards the editing of our preliminary task. The footage included lots of jump cuts and the shots did not flow. Georgia and Roberta had to cut some shots to ensure that the clip would not confuse our audience. Our music that we put into our clip is contrapuntal because the music is fairly fast paced, but the action taking place is slow paced. This could be seen as ironic and humorous. We decided this makes a contrast with the serious script and the happy and exciting music. We added the music at the opening scene and the music continues to play as the girl walks towards the room. The music cuts off as the door slams shut. After a few lines of dialogue the girl gets up to leave the room, as she reaches for the handle and opens the door the music starts to play again. This is an added sense of humour.

By Roberta Leary and Georgia Day.

Preliminary Task

Aim: Film and edit a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple lines of dialogue. The task should demonstrate match on action, shot reverse shot and the 180 degree rule.

For our preliminary task we had to create a short film. In this film we had to prove that we could include continuity editing, match on action, 180 degree rule and dialogue. We started by creating a story board showing exactly what we would show, the camera angles, shot time and what would happen in that shot. We had to carefully plan out exactly what would be in the shot, the shot size and the lighting. Storyboards helped us carefully plan our shots and when it came to filming we looked back at our storyboard and we all knew exactly what to do, the props needed, lighting and mise-en-scene.

In one lesson our teacher allowed us to view and make comments about the previous year 13 preliminary tasks. We learnt a lot from watching them and took notes when watching. Our notes had good points and bad points. The good points include the humorous aspects and the almost perfect cuts and flowing film. Although some dragged out too long with jump shots and the continuity did not flow easily enough. We took some notes on points we have learnt from them and they included the editing of our filming. We need to ensure that our shots make sense and flow well enough.

We all put ideas forward for the storyboard and combined all our idea to come up with our final decision, which was to record a short film which consisted of Roberta Leary and Maria Rostkowska acting out a series of short scenes. Georgia Day and Maria Rostkowska recorded the scenes and decided on the final angles of the shots. We decided to shoot part of our preliminary task in the school corridor. We picked this area because the mise-en-scene was plain therefore all the attention was on our main characters. We only included a small amount of dialogue as we did not want our film to ‘drag out’ and we did not want to bore our viewers. We are very satisfied with what we have completed so far. However there is still a lot more to do such as editing.

The production of our preliminary was fairly quick. We adapted to the filming almost straight away as it was easy to use. However we did come across some problems. In one particular shot we panned the camera across the room to follow the person inside, but the camera was stiff and jolted which has made the quality of the shot almost too bad to use. If we had a chance we would have filmed the shot over, but unfortunately we ran out of our allotted time.

The preliminary task gave us an insight on the filming side of the task. We now know how to create an effective storyboard and how to deal with the time allowance. We can now overcome our mistakes and move forward in the production of our thriller task. The actual shooting of the task was quicker than we first expected, but if we had a second chance we would have taken more time to make each shot even better. By taking a longer amount of time we could have planned precisely where we would film the shots and the props. The storyboard contributed effectively to the planning.

During the editing process we encountered very few problems one of which was erasing jump cuts. When filming we did not think about how untidy they would make our short film look, this dragged out our editing production time.
Now we have had experience in the editing process when it comes to the main task the editing will take less time and we can improve due to this experience. Filming and editing the preliminary was a very useful process as this has given us enough experience to produce a good main task.
People have found our task easy to follow and understand and also that it flows well.
The preliminary task matches our story board exactly, this proves that our short film turned out precisely as we expected.
Our preliminary task was great experience and gave us an insight into the world of filming.

By Roberta Leary and Georgia Day and Maria Rostkowska

Storyboard of Preliminary Task

Preliminary Task

For our preliminary task we had to create a short film. In this film we had to prove that we could include continuity editing, match on action, 180 degree rule and dialogue. We started by creating a story board showing exactly what we would show, the camera angles, shot time and what would happen in that shot. We had to carefully plan out exactly what would be in the shot, the shot size and the lighting. We all put ideas forward for the storyboard and combined all our idea to come up with our final decision, which was to record a short film which consisted of Roberta Leary and Maria Rostkowska acting out a series of short scenes. Georgia Day and Maria Rostkowska recorded the scenes and decided on the final angles of the shots.
We decided to shoot part of our preliminary task in the school corridor. We picked this area because the mise-en-scene was plain therefore all the attention was on our main characters. We only included a small amount of dialogue as we did not want our film to ‘drag out’ and we did not want to bore our viewers.
We are very satisfied with what we have completed so far. However there is still a lot more to do such as editing.

By Georgia Day and Maria Rostkowska