Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2
Director: James Gunn
In the opening title scene of Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 Groot is in focus on the left hand side trying to plug in the music while in the background a huge fight is taking place. Despite being blurred it is impossible to mistake the fight scene occurring behind Groot. The fuzzy background ensures that our focus remains on Groot and adds humour to the scene because of how unaffected Groot is. The titles appear straight away in neon blue lettering making them unmissable, the blue is also keeping in theme with the colour palette chosen for the main title. Once Groot manages to plug the aux cord in ‘Mr. Blue Sky’, an 80s pop song starts playing. This acts as the scenes soundtrack and sound bridge even though it is diegetic. When the main title appears the shot freezes with Groot dancing and then while still being frozen the camera moves 90* so that we have a different composition when the action starts again. The scene is continuous and has no cuts so the camera tracks Groot’s movement. The song is contrapuntal to the scene but synchronous to Groot’s dancing. After the tentacle of the monster lands behind him the camera quickly moves backwards into a wide shot and the background is no longer blurred. Groot has various interactions with the other characters; for both Peter and Gamora the camera takes a wide shot and for Drax the camera goes into a close up so we can clearly see Groot’s eye movement in response to Drax’s stare that seems to say ‘stop getting in the way’. Gamora says ‘Groot get out of the way, you’re gonna get hurt … hi’ before flying back into action this again adds humour but it also tells the audience that Groot is very much like a baby that the characters always worry about. The rest of the scene continues to follow Groot as he explores and dances while everyone else fights. The CGI and colours used immediately tell us that this is a sci-fi film on another planet. The vibrant constantly changing colours creates a disco effect for Groot as he is dancing which adds to the comedy that has already been established through Groot not bothered by the violence. The colour palette consist of bright purple, pink, orange, blue and green. The vibrancy of the colours makes for an exciting almost hypnotic effect which both works harmoniously with the scene and juxtaposes it at the same time. The colours add to the excitement of the fight behind but also contrast to the violence of it. The orbs of orange fire are beautiful but also dangerous as one of them explodes this could be foreshadowing the events to come with the people whom the planet belongs to.
Stranger than Fiction
Genre: Fantasy, Comedy, Drama
Director: Marc Forester
The opening title scene of ‘stranger than fiction’ starts
with the camera rapidly zooming in onto a wrist watch. As it is moving past all
of the buildings various non-diegetic sound effects are played such as a dog
barking and a clock chiming to give the effect of the busy city early in the
morning. Once we see the watch face the asynchronous voiceover starts, at this
point the voiceover is non-diegetic. The wide shot of his dark and immaculately
tidy bedroom suggests that he is perhaps obsessive before the voiceover even
says anything. The camera then goes inside his mouth and we see him brushing
his teeth in the mirror while a pleonastic sound effect of brushing is played. The
close ups of him brushing his teeth combined with the upbeat curious music and
the editing of putting multiple shots into one shot in a collage adds comedy to
the scene because it makes such a mundane task seem interesting. The camera tracks
his movement as he walks to work and talks to his co-workers. This interaction
is not particularly social as all he is asked is to solve a maths problem they
were having, the director demonstrates how his brain works by projecting numbers
onto the screen to show him counting his brush strokes or solving the math
problem. We find ourselves asking why he is like this and how it affects his
life. Later the voiceover tells us that he is very lonely which makes the
audience sympathise for him and we make the assumption that he is lonely because
of how obsessive he is. When he brushes his teeth for the second time there is
an over the shoulder shot so we can see him in the mirror of him listening to
his toothbrush to try and figure out where the ‘voice’ is coming from. This has
an interesting effect because not only is it hilarious that he is listening to
his toothbrush with a completely straight and serious face but the audience feels as though we are invading his privacy in
a way because the over the shoulder shot makes it seem as if we are watching him.
It is at this point that the voiceover is no longer non-diegetic but diegetic as
it is revealed that he can hear the voice. This is enigmatic because we immediately
ask ‘where is the voice coming from’, ‘who does it belong to’, ‘why can he hear
it but no one else’. These questions keep the audience hooked as the film
continues.
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