In Gone In 60 Seconds, the music starts before anything else too and with this film the music is definitely an action/thriller type of music. This music, like Twister creates a bit of tension, makes your heart race and wonder what is going to happen next.
The colours are low key because it’s night, so it’s obviously dark and shadowy. This could lead you into thinking it is a horror, but then you see the Porsche Carrera 4 and know the genre because the cars are `revving’ really loud and a car pulls up in front of the camera making us jump! Again, like in the other 2 films, the best clue to genre is given in the first few seconds of the film. In here there is a clock and the hand of the clock is a road at first. The camera travels along the road at high speed, then
camera goes up and the clock hand ticks very fast. These few seconds relate to the film title very well. The scenes are very fast and so is the speed of the camera.
Various techniques are used such as wipe cut and jump cut, which are very wise techniques to use in an action/thriller. The camera also tilts very fast and moves in many ways such as panning – it switches between 2 cars that are side by side in a car chase. It also has a tracking shot following the action and is mainly in midshot and point of view. The point of view shot makes you feel as if you are in the action and the dialogue too, is very fast.
The mise-en scene focuses on car models and photos to show even further the fact that it is an action/thriller film. The genre in this film is established very well in this film – better than the other 2 films I have done.
In the Mummy Returns, we realise who the main character is straight away because many clues are given in the opening minutes.
First of all, let's focus on the mise-en scene. The Scorpion King is in there for most of the opening scene. You also know that he is the character you are supposed to be focusing on because the narrator says `the Scorpion King’ and he is the only person who appears to be different. The people behind him are computer graphics, but you don’t realise this because they are integrated into the film. The Scorpion King is the only person who has a scorpion bangle (which the camera focuses on a lot too) and a scorpion breastplate. He also has a different hairstyle and is much browner; he stands nearly twice as high as everyone else, which is why you notice him first. He has a whole range of differences.
The camera angle here is high - looking up at him to make him look extremely big, bigger than he really is. In the battle, the camera focuses on him and has close-ups and slow motion scenes with him to further enhance our knowledge of him and establish his character, which is really misleading us because it makes us sympathise with him and care about him. In the rest of the film he is a villain.
Twister also has a prologue and in here the character isn’t established as much. This is because the film is more event led than character led. The main character is known clearly though, for a few reasons. First, her name (Jo) is repeated about ten times, showing and reinforcing the idea that she is to be the main character throughout the film. Anything said by her parents is not heard due to the storm and their names are insignificant.
Secondly, she appears to be glowing - quite angelic and calm in the dark low-key colours of the sequence, whereas her parents are terrified. All this is giving us clues to what her character might be throughout the rest of the film. Her costume is also quite angelic; a white nightdress compared to her parents dark clothes.
The prologue could have been done in other ways, such as flashback, but the director chose to do a prologue because it would probably relate to the film better than her telling you `when I was young …’ or a flashback.
Like Twister, the character is not established well in Gone In 60 Seconds. This is for 2 reasons; the first being that the main character is not in the scene and the second
is the fact that the character is not in the whole of the scene. The camera however, does focus on him more than anyone else in that first scene, but we can’t really tell because the action is so fast that we don’t get time to focus on him. This particular scene is more event led than character led.
The plot is not shown clearly in The Mummy Returns and Twister because they both have prologues. The prologue is added on to help the audience and it gives extra details that do not relate to the film directly.
Both the setting and the plot have nothing to do with the film title in the Mummy Returns, because even though it’s a sequel, the Scorpion King is a new character, whereas in Twister the films plot relates to the prologue because it’s a `Twister’.
The Mummy Returns is the only film out of the 3 that has a voice-over. It is very effective technique; the director has used it to help the audience to UNDERSTAND the plot.
In Twister, the prologue is necessary for the character development of Jo. It helps us to understand what she will be like in the rest of the film in relation to the plot.
Gone In 60 Seconds gives away many clues about the plot, but also leaves you guessing because you have to ask questions about the film otherwise the filmmaker has failed to attract your attention.
Gone In 60 Seconds is chronological and so are Twister and The Mummy Returns. The title of the film Twister, tells you the plot is going to be about a twister and the words being blown off the screen also give this idea. The same is with The Mummy Returns; we get the idea that the film is about an evil mummy, evil because a 3000-year-old mummy is unlikely to be friendly.
In Gone In 60 Seconds, you get a good idea of the plot in the first scene. The mise-en scene focuses on model cars and photos of Kip (the character in the film). This shows the film is about cars and when it gets loud and a car pulls up you can see another car and you know they are probably going to steal it. The good thing about this film is the fact that it gives you many clues, but still makes you ask questions about the film.
The close-ups and slow motion scenes in The Mummy Returns and Gone In 60 Seconds let you see what’s going on in the film and make you focus on it.
The setting dictates the plot and character development and is often the reason people go to see a film in the first place along with genre.
In The Mummy Returns the setting is established very well because I would normally associate the gold and black colours, the desert, pyramids and ancient mummies with Egypt. Also, the music sounds like Arabic music that would come from Egypt, and the dialogue (both diagetic and non-diagetic) sounds Egyptian too. The costumes are Egyptian such as the scorpion bangle and breastplate. The framing of the camera is a long shot so you can see the army behind the Scorpion King and their costumes and the building, which also looks Egyptian.
Twister’s setting isn’t established quite as well as The Mummy, but we do get quite a good idea of the setting. Firstly, we definitely know that the place is probably in South
America or somewhere like that because we know that we don’t get twisters in Britain. Secondly, I noticed the southern accent that the people had in the film. I also realised we were on a farm in the middle of nowhere, which is quite common in South America.
Gone In 60 Seconds is like Twister, because you realise the setting as soon as you hear the people speak, their accent gives the setting away. However, I noticed another way in which you could pick up on the genre, the fact that the lighting and colours the director has chosen to use, also give away the setting, though not so clearly. I have noticed that in films set in America, the lighting is often high-key. Some of the cars too are American, but the sports cars – the ones that are stolen are mainly Porsches, and other sporting marques. The camera movement is varied, but is mostly tracking shots to follow the action, which also helps identify the setting. This is because you can see the scenery while the camera is moving along, but this is unlikely to be a successful method because most people would be focusing on the actual film’s plot. The audience is often looking for clues to the setting to see if anything is familiar to them and the filmmaker has to provide those clues.
Conclusion
There are many ways of putting a film together, for example panning or use of colour within the mise-en scene etc. Each one is a conscious choice of the director and is there to attract as many people as possible to watch the film. These choices can depend on the style of the filmmaker and are there with the simple intention of making the film entertaining and enjoyable.
I have discovered that genre tends to be the easiest to write about and is often the easiest to establish in a film. I found setting the hardest one to write about, this is because it is the hardest to establish in a film. I have noticed all of this by analysing the three films I have studied.
