Mise en scène: actor types

The Best Man Holiday is a drama and comedy that can definitely be watched as a Christmastime film throughout the years. It is about a group of college friends who reunite after 15 years and they realize that old drama as well as old feeling can resurface. They are invited over for the holidays and old rivalries, secrets, feelings, love lives, and habits come are re-ignited on this vacation. They also find out that one of their friends is dying of cancer and the purpose of the vacation was to re-unite them for the first time in a while and possibly, the last time. The three actors that I decided to analyze were Morris Chestnut (Lance), Regina Hall (Candace), and Nia Long (Jordan). These characters are very unique to me and I felt they’d be the easiest to categorize. I feel that Morris Chestnut would be more of a character actor because he has played in a very wide array of movies, most of which he starred in, but because of his ability to adapt to what the script calls for. Regina Hall, I believe is a personality actress. This actress plays in mostly comedy movies and she exhibits a very goofy and funny personality on screen as well as off screen. She acts the same in most movies so therefore I feel that her personality is what makes her such a good actress. Nia Long I feel would be more of a star because of her personality as well but her persona on and off the screen is one that keeps her followers and other movie watchers very interested. She plays in many films and she has been seen in many different genres but she has a distinct personality that makes her a star. Singling out Regina Hall, I feel that she will always be placed in the same category because of her recurring experience in the comedy genre. I believe that this category is definitely hers and it is actually hard to adjust when she does play roles where her main goal isn’t comedy.

mise en scène: sound

The movie that I chose to analyze is The Call. This movie is about a 911 operator who has fails to save a young girl whose house was invaded by a kidnapper. While on the phone with the victim, she is alerted that the intruder was leaving because he couldn’t find her and the phone disconnects. The operator (Jordan) calls back and this is what alerts the intruder that someone is there and he finds her. Upon finding her, Jordan speaks to him and says that he shouldn’t harm her and he replies with a chilling “it’s already done” and hangs up. He then kidnaps her and Jordan later finds out that he kills her and discards her body. After this incident, because the ring back was the reason this young child lost her life, she retired as an operator but continued to work as a teacher and trainer to new, incoming operators. While showing around a set of new potentials, a similar case arises in one of the newest working operators who panics and asks Jordan for help. She takes on this call and helps the child (Casey) the entire way. When the killer arrives to his underground torture chamber, he takes Casey out and realizes that she has been on the phone the entire time and becomes infuriated. He puts the phone to his ear and Jordan tells him that he should just let her go and not cause harm to her and this killer replies with “it’s already done.” At that moment, Jordan realizes that is the killer from her past case and she then makes every effort to go find and save Casey herself. She tracks down their location, goes there, has a head to head battle with him, save Casey, and they end up leaving him tied to one of his torture chairs with intentions of telling the police that she found Casey in the woods with no trace of you. He then he says that they can’t do that and Jordan replies with his disturbing response of “it’s already done.”
The different categories of sound that were used in this film were dialogue, sound effects, and music. This movie was very suspenseful and thrilling so the parts where there was struggling and fighting, cars speeding, people screaming and weeping, and doors slamming were very intensified and gave the movie that “made you jump” aspect. The sound effects and the supporting music is definitely what influenced the quality of this movie. Most of the time, the sound was outside of the music because it was that vigorous, building music that led to the big scare that makes the audience jump. An example of this would be when Jordan gets to the torture basement of the killer and she is slowly creeping to where he is. The orchestral music helps build on what is happening and it gets you to the edge of your seat because it makes you absolutely dying with anticipation. Inside sounds could include when the killer set the gas station attendant on fire when he pours the gas on him, you could then hear when he flicks the lighter, and you can finally hear the flame expanding when he becomes engulfed in the fire. Another intense moment where a helpful man alerts the kidnapper that paint is spilling out of his drunk (where the kidnapped Casey is stored trying to get someone’s attention) and he pulls over where this citizen follows and asks if he needs help. When the kidnapper returns to his car, suspicious, he began to dial 911 when suddenly his window is smashed by the kidnapper and his glass shatters. The kidnapper then starts to continuously hit him and knocks him unconscious and stores him in the trunk as well.
Goodykoontz, B. & Jacobs, C. P. (2011). Film: From Watching To Seeing. San Diego. Bridgepoint Education, Inc.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1911644/fullcredits/

Mise en scène: Lighting

Non-Stop is movie that stars Liam Neeson (Bill Marks) as a federal air marshal who becomes trapped in a dangerous and murderous cat and mouse game with one of the passengers who choose to remain anonymous. Julianne Moore, who also stars in this movie as the passenger that sits by Neeson and shares many personal moments with him and sticks by him through the entire conflict whereas everyone else has turned suspicious towards him. The cat and mouse games involve a hijacker that texts Neeson’s phone threatening to kill a passenger every 20 minutes if they don’t receive the money that they want. It ends with Liam finding a bomb on the plane, stacking things against it towards the back of the plane, finding the hijackers, the co-pilot safely landing the plane, and all the passengers survive. The lighting used in this film is extremely broad. When looking at the cover of the movie, it covers three point, high key, and low key; all three different types of lighting methods used. The three point lighting brings out the character because Liam Neeson is emphasized while the background is blurred but lit well. When watching the movie, low key lighting is mostly used when the passengers are all sleep and the plane is flying at night and Neeson begins to quietly wander through the aisles trying to fathom if these threats are just a joke and where they are coming from. High key lighting is used when the hijackers are discovered and the plane is being monitored by air forces due to the fact that they believe the plane was being hijacked by their federal air marshal himself. During the fighting scenes low key lights were used once again but when the back of the plane exploded, high key lights were used to enhance the explosion and action. Finally upon getting off the plane, the scene was lit pretty well but still had the appearance of smog and smoke from the explosion which gave it a relieved but dreary feeling.

Good Deeds; Tyler Perry

Title: Good Deeds

Writer: Tyler Perry

Director: Tyler Perry

Major Actors: Tyler Perry, Thandie Newton, Brian J. White, Rebecca Romijn, Jamie KEnnedy, Phylicia Rashad, and Gabrielle Union.

Release Date: February 24, 2012

This film is about a wealthy businessman who is soon to be getting married who falls into a new “project” that seems to turn his entire view on life around. Tyler Perry stars as Wesley Deeds in this film and his fiancée is Gabrielle Union (Natalie). He juggles the stress of his business, keeping his brother in order, trying to make a very large step in his career, and the new stress of the night janitor (Lindsey) who he starts off just helping but begins to fall for. As a very humble man, Wesley notices the struggle of a hardworking, single mother who holds one of the less significant roles in his business. Because of the social hierarchy that was given at Deeds Inc., Lindsey introduced Mr. Deeds to a new realm of real for which he never expected from anybody but he began to like it. As Lindsey, a very modest woman who’s definitely struggling with her young daughter, begins to realize that things are getting worse before they even have a chance of getting better, she began to open up to Wesley and realize that he is an actual kind, caring person that genuinely wants to help her. Throughout this, feelings are thrown around the normal routine that his fiancée is used to is suddenly switched up and the engaged decides that they might not be ready to get married. Following the advice that he received from Lindsey, he decides to move to Africa in hopes that Lindsey will come with him. The movie ends with Wesley and Lindsey kissing on a plane while Lindsey’s daughter, Ariel covering her eyes in a “kiddie,” “eww, cooties” manner.

The film is presented chronologically and the aesthetic choices that were made in this movie contributed to the general effect on the audience greatly. I believe the editing and the lighting help to develop the intensity of the movie throughout the entire film. When it comes to editing, the shift between the different stories and events happening is one that definitely creates a lot of tension between characters, especially all of the altercations between Lindsey and Mr. Deeds when she is unaware to exactly who Tyler Perry’s character really is and how important he is. Lighting in certain scenes such as the scene where Lindsey takes Mr. Deeds on a ride on a motorcycle and they go to a remote area and have a picnic and kiss accidently but romantic show the true feelings actually shared between them because everything is bright and beautiful and has a light tone. Whereas, in the scene where Wesley returns home late at night after visiting Lindsey’s house with his emotions flaring uncontrollably. This scene is dimly lit with Gabrielle Union sitting on the living room couch and asks him if he slept with her to which he re plies no and she believes him but they then decide that they love each other but are not yet ready to get married. Cinematography wasn’t very big in this movie considering it was more of a drama and love triangle type of thing. Foreshadowing was a definite “thumbs up” in this movie. As stated earlier, the earlier disputes between the Deeds’ brother and Lindsey were ones that definitely was sure to raise some eyebrows for the relationships between these characters later in the movie. I feel that if the film were to have a different presentation style the general effect on the audience would have been less impressive.