V for Vendetta Cinematography Analysis

Analysis for the V for Vendetta clip above. The scene above in which chancellor Sutler first appears shows him talking to his various associates that are in high places regarding law and media. The various shot types, angles, movement and focus of the camera enable various interpretations to be made on the film.

The fact that chancellor Sutler is consistently viewed through medium long shots, medium close-ups, and close-ups, only a few long shots are used. This is to mainly set the scene and show the flag of England, the change from the St. Georges colours and the fact that the English flag background has been changed from white to black foreshadows a dark atmosphere within England at this time.

The fact that the chancellor is so often shown close-up shows his importance, in which the audience learn later that he is not only chancellor but also dictator of the country.
The camera shot used on Sutler is a low angle shot showing him being above all the others and highlighting his dominance that he has in the fact that when talking to them all he looks down.

Whereas for the others close-ups and a few high angle shots are used, this type of shot makes the characters look small and powerless compared to Sutler. The cameras focus at the start is of V blowing up the Old Bailey as the camera quickly shifts from V to the building showing the significance of the explosion being shown. V is positioned infront of Evey showing he is more important, but the consistent close-ups on Evey foreshadow that she will later have a role to play.

When Sutler addresses Mr Creedy he is the only character that comes out of black into the bright lighting for his face to be revealed all other characters are immediately shown with their faces in the bright light.

This is to show that Mr Creedy is more evil than the rest and the fact he is coming out of darkness shows evilness follows him, it also foreshadows the conflict he has with Sutler. Shallow focus is also used as a close-up on Sutler's face blurs the upper half of his face and a more clear quality is shown on his eyes and lower part of his face. This shows his quite devil-like blank stare at Sutler, this also foreshadows his lack of respect for Sutler and the fact he has no remorse.

When Mr Finch is addressed by Sutler there is a higher level of focus on his face which highlights a level of uncertainty in his facial expression, this foreshadows his lack of trust towards the chancellor.

Alice in Wonderland "Eat Me, Drink Me" Set Re-designed in the Style of Alien

Set

This is the final piece of the re-designed Alice in Wonderland set me and Jake Lee worked on. The plan was used as our motivation to create the final piece which was all hand drawn by Jake Lee from the printed  images seen in our plan at http://davidowootomofilmstudies.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/alice-in-wonderland-set-in-style-of.html. I could not contribute to the drawing of the picture due to the fact that basically I cannot draw, but we both helped contribute to this task as I was the one to print the pictures from the plan. Looking at the final design this gave the Alice in Wonderland set a kind of horror feel to it, having a innocent young girl surrounded by aliens.

Costume

Here you can see Alice in her dress featuring an alien design on it, this was done to make the costume still look like Alice's' but add an Alien theme to it, their are also claws at the top of the dress, and an Alien at the bottom of the dress, showing the takeover of Alien's over Alice. 

This is a close-up of the Alien featured on Alice's dress with the rabbit, I had chosen to still use props from Alice including her rabbit and one glove, this puts across the innocent child character in a horror.


This is the other Alien on the lower part of Alice's dress which looks like it is attacking her, it also is a very iconic alien really in the syle of 'giger' the claws on the Alien emphasised a scary and threatening style to them.


Here you can see the mad hatter with a rabbit, accompanied by an alien as well, the use of completely different characters from films seems to bring about a Gothic theme to the re-designed set. The claws of the alien are also very unique in the way Giger designed them.

Props

The original colour of the liquid inside this bottle was changed from a clear white to a dark black, this was a choice made to add the gothic Giger style that has been featured in other parts of the set design. The change in colour of the liquid creates a dark mood and a sense of evilness, this was also done so props would not be excluded from the Giger style, and doing this by not always necessarily using an Alien to represent his unique style.
 
Lighting and Scenery

The chandlier in the middle is actually taken from Alice in Wonderland and the claws from the outside are from Alien, the middle part is the Elizabethan style floor in the eat me,drink me scene of Alice in Wonderland aswell. The white and black colour contrast works well here, giving a feel that an Alien is about to appear from the lights. Using both the chandeliers and floor from Alice in Wonderland against Alien claws really gives a contrast of good vs evil. Also the use of chandelier lights separating both sides of the Alien claws contrasts good vs evil, and how the lights separate purity from darkness. The claws are above all things in the set including the chandeliers, Alice and the floor, this brings across a message of the Aliens being superior to everything and is about to take over. The claws are drawn are done in a very Giger style too.

(Plan) Alice in Wonderland "Eat Me, Drink Me" Set Re-designed in the Style of Alien

The purpose of this task was to help me become familiar with recreating a scene of a film, along with exploring creativity as there were many ways to approach this task. For this task I worked with Jake Lee and took many ideas from both Alien and Alice in Wonderland and incorporated them together to create one set design. All the way through the task I asked myself whether the work we produced could  possibly be used to create a film set. Doing this a lot of times we looked at our work and we had to make sure every action taken in creating a set was relevant so we created reasons for everything done. For example the reason why we used a massive background from Alien was used as we believed it was a very artistic and unique design by Giger, and it went well with set designs from Alice in Wonderland, all pictures used were relevant as they were either props, characters, costume or setting. All in which would realistically be involved in the set of a film.We also used photoshop to edit various characters, costume, props and set designs from both Alien and Alice in Wonderland and combine the both of them together to give it a more realistic feel.

Work Expectations for Film Studies

Film Review - V for Vendetta

Film Review - V for Vendetta Essay

The film V for Vendetta is based upon the graphic novel which goes by the same name, written by Alan Moore. The main characters in the film:
Natalie Portman plays Evey Hammond,                        John Hurt plays Adam Sutler,
Hugo Weaving plays V,                                                Tim Piggot-Smith plays Creedy,
Stephen Rea plays Eric Finch,                                      Rupert Graves plays Dominic,
Stephen Fry plays Dietrich,                                           Roger Allam plays Lewis Prothero.

V for Vendetta is set in a future dystopian society in which people live in a totalitarian country (England) and are oppressed by the government.

The film comes under the thriller genre, involving a lot of fast paced action along with suspension, violence is also included at various points, but is not focused on through the use of gore differing it as thriller rather than a horror. Along with this, the plot of the film is centred on tension and characters are introduced through suspenseful situations. For example the character of V is introduced as he rescues Evey from being raped.

The film has the typical type of Hollywood style of shooting using high quality cameras, and different aerial views of places, for example shots of Big Ben are taken from the sky as an outsider view of it. A lot of high quality filming was enabled due to the high product budget of $54 million, and fake explosions that take place in the film are enabled to seem very realistic due to the graphic quality and editing used. Obviously like many films, parts of the film are filmed over a period of time, but it is edited well as when watching the film it is evident it has been put together well. Colours used in V for Vendetta, seem to at times represent the current mood of a certain scene. A bright orange colour represents the explosion of Big Ben at the end; perhaps to represent all the pain, death and oppression suffered that has led to the revolution which is visually represented with the explosion.

V is portrayed as mysterious at the start and the plot of the film revolves around his back-story and up to his death the audience are still discovering things about V. This keeps the audience engaged in the story as V’s motive for terrorism is only revealed late on in the film keeping people curious. Also V for Vendetta is able to be quite a unique film even though it has been influenced by many real life events. For example, the persecution of a lesbian character Valery in the film is drawn from Nazi persecutions of homosexuals during their reign.

Freedom is something heavily referred to in this film. It challenges the totalitarian state system and the theme is linked in with different things. For example the use of propaganda by the government in the film makes people think a certain way and have little mental freedom. The theme of terrorism is a big part of the plot, due to this being the main objective for V to achieve. It raises the question of whether terrorists are freedom fighters or anarchists.

The main message for me gained out the film is based on Evey when she says ‘He was all of us’, in referring to V when he dies. This being that V represented normal people all those who are oppressed by their governments and victims of totalitarianism. From this I believe it highlights the importance of unity within people. In addition to this, all those who were the oppressors or were part of the totalitarian government were brutally murdered. V was also murdered which gives an impression his judgement was also deserved. This gives a message of what goes around comes around; along with that no-one escapes judgement.

References:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0434409/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta_%28film%29
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=main&id=vforvendetta.htm