To Kill A Mockingbird Media Essay

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To Kill A Mockingbird Media Essay

Immediately, in the opening scene of the film adaptation “To Kill A Mockingbird”, the “Black & White” separation, of that generation is displayed by the colour of the film itself, black and white. The issues and ideas of the film are brought on by the techniques used in the opening scene.

 It begins with a jewellery box, centre pictured, with, what seems to be, a picture of a town, presumably Maycomb. Looking closely at the picture, the town is situated in amongst open land and fields.  In the centre of the picture lays a big white patch, the town. Outside this predominantly white area is, as I said before, fields and open land. This area outside the town is dark, as if black, which suggests that the majority white population of Maycomb is attempting to exclude “Blacks” away from their town.

 Piano music then gently blends in with the opening scene, presenting a child like image and hearing perspective. The camera then zooms in on the box, and two hands, a child’s, move over the box, grasping the lid in an exaggerated fashion, with both hands, as if trying not to damage the box, possibly trying to point out its value to that child.

 At this stage the music stops and the child hums softly at a lower volume, thus focusing the viewers attention to what they are looking at and not what they are hearing. The contents of the box are then revealed, as the camera continues to zoom in, forcing the viewer to concentrate on the contents. A watch, a key, crayons, marbles, a doll and a pen are the main objects focused on at this stage. The camera, still zooming in, now focuses on 3 main objects, the watch, the key and the doll. Looking at the objects, they seem to be “tired” as it were, having no materialistic value, indicating that they are of sentimental value.

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 An almost silent ticking, then merges into the scene. This is a clever way to attract the attention of the viewer to the watch that is in the box. Looking at the watch, you can see, that it does not work, emphasising the sentimental value of the contents of this box. Then, by changing the camera angle, the viewers are drawn away from their concentration towards the watch and are now forced to look upon the next frame.

Several crayons lie blatantly on a table as if desperate to be noticed, standing out in the crowd, as ...

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