Film Viewing Practice Essay (Re-Do)

The clip opens with the classic marvel logo, but in the background, you can already hear the dramatic tone of the clip starting to come through. I don’t know anything about these characters, but just based off the music, camerawork, and editing I can almost defiantly tell you that they have a love relationship. The back to back close up shots on their faces let the viewer get a better look at their facial expressions, and with talented actors like this, that is all they need to tell a story. Next, we are met right away with an unpleasant siren noise and an office full of frantic workers. Before hearing a word out of anyone’s mouth, I already know that something important is happening. The second that the man (Who seems to be the leader of that particular office) picks up the phone, the alarm turns off and the office goes completely silent. Based only on the body language and the silence, I know that whatever the person is saying on the other line is very important. Something that I noticed that I thought I should mention about the scene following the phone call, during the conversation between the man and the women, the camera is filming at the perfect angle so that we as an audience can see the look on the woman’s face as she is talking to him, while in the movie, the man cannot. Something that I have noticed that goes on in a lot of movies is that when a new (most likely more important) scene having to do with a character from the previous scene, the camera will zoom into that particular character’s face as if we are about to see into her mind. Something that usually goes unnoticed to the normal viewer, is the shift of music emotion in the middle of a scene. During this clip the men keep frantically running around telling the woman to do things for them, and the background music is quite fitting, fast paced and a bit loud. All of the sudden, her eyes catch something off camera and the music shifts, it is now slower and more beautiful, but at the same time has an underlying sadness too it, she is looking at a picture of her love interest from a year before. The last we as viewers saw this “Mystery Man” was before he went into a large battle, so we can only assume that he is no longer with us. Another thing that brings many movies (Including this one) to life is the costuming. They must get the costumes perfectly so that they reflect the feeling they are trying to provoke, and the time period they are filming for. In this case I noticed one thing in particular, all the men in these office scenes are dressed almost exactly the same and look almost exactly the same. Older white men with white or black hair, with either blue or black suits. The second that the women is left alone in the office, the scary red light on the phone and alarm go off again, and instantly, the music is brought back up. But this time, the music provokes curiosity in the viewer due to is whimsical and mysterious notes and rhythms. When I saw the light go off, I thought that the woman would be very nervous to answer the phone, but just with a little bit of music, my mind was changed. Something that is really hard to get right in a movie is a fight scene. Due to my theatre background and interest in the process of movie editing, I know that every single instance of one person hitting someone or something, the sound is dubbed in afterword’s, and is not live. Something I noticed after the fight had happened and the man behind the counter was looking for the female agent, there was a very dark and gloomy music playing in the back, but if you listen in the back you hear the upbeat song playing on his radio, which gives the scene some playfulness and excitement. At the very end of the clip we are given, she uses a mirror to see around the corner, we know this because we can get a straight of view, without the camera’s reflection showing up, with just a little bit of editing. Many of the key parts of movies are often missed by the normal audience, which is why I highly enjoy looking at movie clips and analyzing them more heavily.