Media codes and Conventions

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Film Codes and Convention

In this essay, two films’ opening ten minutes, “Pleasantville” and “Hero” will be compared. Pleasantville, directed by Gary Ross, had taken the idea of a stressed teenage child, who can’t seem to fit in with the crowd, and made his dreams come true. He and his sister “escape” in to the world of Pleasantville, therefore this film being a hybrid between teen romance and fantasy.  While, on the other hand, Hero, directed by Zhang Yimou, is a narrative of what it means to be a hero. Set in ancient china, the story possesses love, duty and honour. While Hero is an historic epic Pleasantville covers two distinctive periods in time. Due to these features the genre of both films are completely different; Hero being a Legend myth type of film whereas Pleasantville a teenage fantasy.  

Both films introduce their story lines in different ways. In Hero the story line is perplexing yet the basic foundation of it was clear, to convince the King and obtain the reward. This was done by the use of dialogue and flashbacks. In Pleasantville the story was exposed by the TV repair man. Due to him was the story able.

The genre of Pleasantville is Teen Fantasy; this is obvious as the story is about two teens as by going into a sitcom makes it a Fantasy. Hero, on the other hand is an Epic Ledged/Martial Arts. This is known by the cinematography used by the director. The fighting and setting, the sounds and lighting, all add up to the genre.

In the opening of Hero, Nameless is shown as a well trained swordsman therefore at some point of the film there would be a battle. In Pleasantville, David has trouble getting dates; this may lead to love problems in the duration of the narrative.

The audience of each movie are both the same, both are over twelve. This is due the fact that in Hero there is lots of action which may be bad for a young child and in Pleasantville some words.

The themes behind Hero are: love, fighting, honour, ritual, respect, pride and loyalty where as the themes in Pleasantville are: love, friendship, freedom, humour and the belief that destiny can be changed.

Most but not all of the themes are established in the first ten minutes. Honour and ritual are expressed when the people wearing robe are in formation with a huge path in the middle for Nameless to walk through. There is evidence of special visual effects via the use of CGI to create the mass group of people. Humour is shown when funny things happen for example the teacher and what the pupils are being taught.

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Pleasantville has a much more intellectual moral whereas Hero is a movie with much more traditional values.  

Each movie introduces the main characters in different ways. They use media tools such as lighting, sound and shot types and angles. In Pleasantville, David and Jen are both introduced by either of them being in the each shot and in Hero; Nameless is communicated as the main by his speech.

All the main and secondary characters are introduced in the first 10 minutes. In Pleasantville there really aren’t any secondary characters whereas in Hero the king is defiantly a ...

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