Chloe_3257_Scene analysis - Lost in Translation
3323_Yawen_Scene Analysis
Scene Analysis
Yawen Song
August 2010-08
Memento
Scene Overview:
Memento is about a man with anterograde amnesia which renders his brain unable to store new memories. The scene I chose to analysis is the very beginning part. During the opening credits(Which portrays the end of story),it is shown that Lenard kills Teddy for rape and murder of his wife.
The whole scene was shown in reverse order. At the beginning you only can see someone’s hand keep shaking a photo of a dead body. Then the pictures on the photo became more and more unclear and disappear into blank at last. Then the photo goes back to the camera, now it is cleared everything was going reversed. Then at last it shows the person who took the photo was the one who murder the person in the photo. The music is long, slow, pretty heavy that feels something series, the music changes when photo back into the camera. It became quiet and much more intense and weird feelings that you can feel clearly something goes not right.
The story of this scene is the end of the whole film’s story. It is unique and attractive by using reverse technique at the first scene of the film, and also give audience an idea that the movie would show in reverse order to tell the story.
Almost all the shots were CU or ECU during this scene. Only one Medium shot on Lenard after photo goes back to the camera. The first shot was long and no movement. Then the second shot become shorter and got tracking shot movement. And then every shot become even shorter. At last, after it reverse to Teddy’s death, everything happened really fast and with in very short shots. Those short shots attract the audience attention; let audience have strong interest about what was happened.
Editing:
Time:
00.00.44-00.02.00
00.02.00-00.02.11
00.02.11-00.02.13
00.02.13-00.02.15
00.02.15-00.02.17
00.02.17-00.02.20
00.02.20-00.02.22
00.02.22-00.02.24
00.02.24-00.02.28
00.02.28-00.02.30
00.02.30-00.02.31
00.02.31-00.02.32
00.02.32-00.02.34
00.02.34-00.02.35
Editing Style:
The scene have both many short sequences and longer sequences. A long sequences at first half of time, then it change to lots of short sequences. The style have a huge changes, which give the audience a unexpected feeling about what was happening.
Shot Analysis
Shot 1: 1 min 14 seconds
Shot Size: This is a Extremely close-up, you only can a photo and part of a hand.
Sound: In this scene, we only can hear the soundtrack and the sound effect when the hand shaking the picture.
Color: The back ground is gray, and a little bit green. We can tell it should be in somewhere internal. And the picture in the photo is full of blood. Generally it’s a pretty dark and intense feeling the color present.
Text: You can see a little bit words tattoo on the hand, but hardly read it. And the credits come up in the middle one by one slowly.
Shot 2: 2.5 seconds
Shot Size: Extremely Close-up. The blood flows reverse to the up.
Sound: The background soundtrack only, but the music become much more intense.
Color: Blood flows on dark color surface. It gives thrill and uncomfortable feelings to the audience.
Character Analysis:
Characters: Leonard and Teddy
Characters relationship: Leonard killed Teddy.
Movements: Everything goes reverse in this scene. At beginning, we can see Leonard’s hand shaking a photo. Then the hand puts the photo back to the camera, Leonard put the camera back to his suit and watch something for a little bit, then a pistol goes into his hand, he kneel down and point the gun to someone in front of him. Then a bullet comes back to the gun and gun fired and at last Teddy watched back and shout at Leonard loudly. The shots at beginning are pretty slow, and the shots become faster and it became really fast at the last.
Scene Analysis, Nancy, 3383, Lost in Translation
Lost in Translation
By Nancy_3383
Aug 16, 2010
1. Scene Overview
In the night, the two main characters Bob Harris and Charlotte met each other in the bar of the hotel. Both of them came from America and they are all feel very boring and lonely here in Tokyo. They sit in front of the bar and keep talking.
Through the talking, Charlotte knew Bob had a not good experience in his marriage, maybe there are some troubles between him and his wife. He came Tokyo to do a whiskey advertisement and miss a chance which could make more money. And also, Charlotte told him her husband is a photographer, got married for two years, causes her husband working here in Tokyo and she has nothing to do, she came with him.
In this scene, there is no background music, just two characters talking. It is good for audience to focus on what they are talking, and it fit to the sad theme. This scene shows Bob and Charlotte met each other and it is good for promote the development of the plot.
Duration:
70 seconds. From 00:32:15 to 00:33:25.
Mise-en-Scene:
In the bar, the two characters are sitting together and keep talking. Charlotte get a cigarette from the box, the waiter serves her a cup of wine.
Shot Size:
It is the medium shot in all this scene.
Colour:
The colour in this scene is dark, the main colour is black, there is a little white light shooting from bottom. Because it is in the bar, the dark colour to show the environment. But the more the colour express is the mood of the actors. They are both unhappy, the colour just like their feelings in here, it is very sad. And the whole black background make the two characters more obviously, it is very easy to make audience put the focus on the two characters.
Sound:
There is no background music in this scene, just the dialogue of two characters. It makes their talking more clearly. It is successful to make audience concentrate on their dialogue. People will know this is the beginning of the story in the two characters, they know each other from this scene, the reason they came to Tokyo, and the basic background information of these they two.
Dialogue:
The dialogue shows the content of talking between Bob and Charlotte. They talked why they came here, and some basic information about theirselves, like marriage, job and life. They talked slowly, and not loudly, making the atmosphere very quiet.
Contrast Dominants:
The whole background is black, and the colour of both characters’ dressing is dark, that makes the two faces of the characters contrast strongly on the colour. That definitely attracts the audience’s eyes on the main characters’ faces and what they are talking about. And there is no any sound in the background without the dialogue between two characters, the voice of the characters contrast with the background. It could be a feature of Sofia that she likes to use many strongly contrast to attract audience’s concentration on where she want.
Lighting:
The lighting in this scene is not strong, the background is dark. There is just little light come from the bottom shoot on the two characters softly. It makes the atmosphere very soft and peaceful. The very important usage of the light is to tell the audience where they are supposed to look.
Screen Graphics/Composition:
This shot is very simple, without evolution over time. The two main characters show on the center of the screen all the time, to make audience’s eyes follow the movement of characters.
Editing Style:
There are just simple cuts in this scene, which are all directly cuts. One is from the front of the characters, another is from the side, which Bob faces the audience or Charlotte faces the audience. It is quite a simple style for editing. It shows the plot straightly, making the whole story clear.
Time:
The time of this part maybe need a little longer than others. It is the first conversation between the two characters, they met each other, they need time to talk to make them from strangers to friends, or other relationships that unknown. This scene needs characters to show their emotional world, it maybe needs a bit of time to express the real feelings in heart of the characters.
Transition:
There is only one type of transition, which is jump cut. It is very simple, fit to the whole style of editing. It expresses the plot directly, making the story easy to understand.
Camera Angle:
The camera is put in the front of the two characters, just on the eye level, not too high or too low. It is a very regular angle, it just makes the whole plot simple, and to express the emotional feelings of the characters is the point.
Camera Movement:
No camera movement. The camera just be put there to record the conversation of the characters simply.
Lens Used:
It is just normal lens used in this scene. There is no great depth to the shot. As before, the focus of the audience is on the conversation between characters.
Depth of Field:
I think this is a shallow focus only because Bob and Charlotte are the main focus in this shot. It is not necessary to see clearly the surroundings. The background is slightly blurry to direct one’s eyes to the main characters.
Character Relationship:
Bob Harris is a famous actor, but he has the bad experience in his marriage. He came to Tokyo to make a whiskey advertisement, cause the translation problem and the difference of culture, he felt boring and lonely here. Charlotte came here because her husband’s work, her husband is a very busy photographer, even didn’t concern about her. She has nothing to do here, just decorating the room, swimming or smoking to spend time in her boring and hopeless life. When these two people met each other, cause they have the similar life experience, unhappy in their marriage, having the same emotional feelings, they became friends or even over friends.
Subtext:
All the information that we gather from this scene comes together to portray that the characters will have a special relationship, because they are so similar on feelings. But they are different, they have totally different lives.