Unit 10 Assignment

ASSIGNMENT:

The first comparison.

I am going to be analyzing the first and latest installment of the franchise. As I believe these have some stylistic codes and conventions of action as a genre. I will only be focusing on the first and latest films from the fast and furious franchise.

Ericson Core’s first scene was a buildup and the backstory of the car chase. Which included three black high performance cars and a truck, which was carrying a container of Panasonic televisions as they were a good television at the time of the film’s release.

The start of the chase includes: a zoom in, pan and a wide shot. The zoom is on the logo on the cab door this gives more of an understanding as to what the it is referring to as before that someone said “look for Rodgers on the side of the truck.” This gives the audience a clearer understanding on what the person was meaning. The pan is from the logo to the wheel which gives a focus point on certain parts of the vehicle which draws the audience’s attention to where the director wants them to focus on. The wide shot starts off with a pan but, it is primarily a wide shot as the truck is almost about to leave the shot the cars are coming into shot and going past the truck. (see ref1) The focus of the cars are significant as this genre is action and the franchise is based around vehicles so if the film is based around vehicles and the focus isn’t on the cars or other vehicles then it wouldn’t be an action vehicle film. As this scene is important as it sets up the whole film.

Ref 1

The camera cuts to a shot where it has the car covering most of the screen. This is uncommon in action films as the director would want the audience to see what is happening in the full picture it does show the other cars and the truck but that is after it gets into position in front of the truck. After this it cuts to a shot which has a person coming out of the sun roof which gives the audience a sense of panic but only for a minute before he did what he needed then got back in. This edit helps draw in the audience as they might not have been expecting this edit as it is quick like the action on the screen in front of them. The idea of quick takes are typical for action movies as they are a fast paced way of shooting the scene but it matches the action as they are both quicker than normal so they would need something to have similar to make it blend in otherwise it would stand out.

Unlike the latest fast and furious this film has a car chase scene instead of a race at the beginning I personally believe they did his as the story of the crew has increased as they are not doing races as much as they did back in the earlier films as they have gone from street racers to a crew which deals with matters like stopping a hacker like in the latest film.

However, the 8th installment in the franchise it starts with an establishing shot of Havana, Cuba. Which allows the audience to know where it is set in this point where-as, in the first film it starts with a quick shot of a crane from a port. Which gives very little information to the audience as they will only know it is at a port but where is a different story, as they will be guessing if they want to know it might not be important but they might think they are there if they know where it is.

It does give a brief backstory to the race at the beginning as it shows how it came about. The camera angles during the start of the race is an aerial shot, which is used to give a perspective to the positioning of the cars and the extra cast as it could give some more information on the place it is held as they are racing in back streets.

The way Stephan F. Windon uses various camera angles challenges the normal codes and conventions as normally the cameras isn’t meant to move the way it did during the opening race. As they used aerial shots then a pan of the vehicles speeding past to give the audience a sense of their speed at this particular point in the film.

The sound of these scenes are diegetic in regards to the vehicles as they have to be if they are to make the film more realistic because if not they would be like trying to listen to a vehicle from far away you will try but would not hear much in regards to the motor or the tires on the surface of the road.(see ref 2) In this scene there are people surrounding the finish line of the race so if it were non-diegetic then there would be no point in having extras in that point as they would be silent.

Ref 2

The narrative structure of the fast and furious franchise follows Todorov’s theory which is: equilibrium, disruption of the equilibrium, recognition of the disruption, attempts to repair the damage, new equilibrium. As in the latest fast and furious film there was an equilibrium when Dom was on his honeymoon when the disruption happened when Sipher wanted him to turn on his team. The recognition of the of the disruption s when he makes Hobbs’ vehicle flip and he takes the e.m.p which they were trying to take hobbs says “ Dominic Toretto just went rouge.” The attempts to repair the damage is were the team try to find and get Dom back from Sipher. The new equilibrium is at the end when they are back at home after they manage to get Dom back.

The second comparison.

I am going to be analysing the first alien film and the first Predator film. As i believe these have the stylistic codes and conventions of the horror/ SI-FI genre.I will be focusing on the aliens and camera movements for the comparison as they change as the technology gets better throughout the years in between the films.

In the film the sound is a mixture of diegetic and non-diegetic as the alien has its own sound which is a hiss or sometimes a growl. There is some suspenseful music when it is near sometimes. these sounds help the audience to imagine that they are there but considering when it was made this type of sound might have been recently new as it was the start of a huge franchise which is still being made today. So even if the sound might not have been like what we know today it still made an impression on the audience when it first came out.

The first time we see the alien is when it is in the egg as the crew of the Nostromo was exploring an emergency s.o.s call and the eggs were under the ship that sent the s.o.s and someone got to close to the egg and it came out and wrapped itself around his head. The effect that sound has on the audience is the sense of reality as it has the audio right for the audience to feel like they are on board of the Nostromo.

The first scene of the first Alien film is of a corridor of the Nostromo it includes a pan which shows the corridor from a corner. This helps the audience to understand the layout of the ship which the film primarily takes place as to make the feeling of reality more dominant than it would if it just started with the cast.

The way that the alien franchise kept going, at about two films in, was to introduce another character which was the predator which was apart of that franchise before alien vs predator which then sparked an interest into the predator so they made intotal four Alien films, two predator films and two AVP films. they did the predator films to introduce a “natural predator” to the alien to make it seem like they can be killed but only by certain things.

The first Predator film was an introduction to that character which was then brought into the alien franchise as they both had a company called “ Weyland Yutani” which deals with space transport of unknown objects or beings that are found. The Predator is a being which in the films it is believed to have been a god for Egyptians in return for their protection against the aliens.

The sound of the film is diegetic and non-diegetic. The sound of the predator is non-diegetic this is because it would be a lot quieter compared to the alien as it to is non-diegetic they did this as it would be harder to film with the sound in the process as it would take longer. It doesn’t have a soundtrack for its appearance like the alien as it isn’t meant to be as scary as the horror genre would intend it to be but the alien follows this rule.

The narrative structure of the alien and predator movies follows Todorov’s theory the equilibrium is the scenes before the alien and predators arrival, the disruption is when they arrive, the recognition is when the humans spot them first, the attempt to repair is when the try to kill them and the new equilibrium is when the humans escape the aliens or predators.