Colour

• Colour carries certain connotations which may add meaning to a scene (i.e. red = danger/passion)
• Can give a scene a particular look, feel or mood.
• Can be used for dramatic effect.

Lighting & Colour

• Can achieve a variety of effects:
• To highlight important characters or objects within the frame.
• To make the characters look mysterious by shading sections of the face & body.
• To reflect a characters mental state/hidden emotions (i.e. bright = happy, dark = disturbed, strobe effect = confused) 

Positioning of Characters and Objects within frame

• Positioning within a frame can draw our attention to an important character/object.
• A film-maker can use positioning to indicate relationships between people.

1st image: Man and a woman on either end of sofa. There is obvious tension between them shown from their body language. The positioning of objects is very symmetrical, emphasising the distance between them on the sofa. The woman has her arms crossed which is a defence mechanism whilst the man looks slightly more relaxed and his eyes are looking towards the woman whilst his head is still facing straight ahead. Neither of them look happy, and the scene looks tense. However, there is a comic element in the shot.

2nd image: A man in the foreground is deeply in focus, showing all the contours and lines on his face, scars also. In the background not in focus, is a woman with a lasso, who we assume is drawing him in although he isn't looking at her.

Facial Expressions and Body Language

• Facial expressions provide a clear indicator of how someone is feeling.
• If someone is smiling broadly, we assume they are happy but we may get a different feeling if this is accompanied by scary music.
• Body Language may also indicate how a character feels towards another character or may reflect the state of their relationship.

The character is a depressed teenager called Eden who often has suicidal thoughts. Despite having a wide circle of friends, she doesn't seem to be happy with her life, perhaps due to an ongoing romantic catastrophe. She lives in a small town on the south coast of England and she doesn't enjoy living there, she wants to get away. She is of average height, average weight, average intelligence with a generally average life.

My character profile for Donald Duck

This character was created by Disney. He is a white duck that wears a sailor jacket & cap and a bright red bow tie. His personality is famous for having a short, explosive temper but still he has a positive outlook on life in contrast to this. Towards his family he is a bit of a bully and he has great rivalry with Mickey Mouse because he wants to be Disneys biggest star. Donald Duck has been around since 1934, and he went through the second world war, shown in episodes of Mickey Mouse.

opening two minutes of a feature film

Character:

Lester Burnham

We find that the lead character of American Beauty is going to die in less than a year. He's not happy and doesn't get on with his daughter, or wife. His wife is more in charge than he is and she's a perfectionist who goes overboard with matching things like shoes and garden clippers. Their house is large and their garden is neat, it looks like they are well off. He seems like a normal, boring character but there is something making him unhappy. He's also clumsy, as he drops his briefcase on the garden path when leaving. We assume that he doesn't lead a very interesting life, as he explains he could watch his wife and the neighbours forever.

Jerry McGuire

We find that this character leads a very busy lifestyle because of the job he has. We see him taking phone calls, meeting people, accompanying sportspeople to various places all throughout the first few minutes of the film. He's dressed smartly in a suit, which makes us assume he's not short of money. He also looks well groomed. He explains that he is the person behind everything, the one who is never seen. We are then shown a photograph in a newspaper where you can only see his ear and a bit of his head which shows that he is cut out of things. We also get the feeling that he is not happy with how he's being treated, but he's happy with his job. He doesn't really seem impressed with the way that some of his clients are acting for themselves or towards other people. 

Comparison

The two characters are very different, but also have a few similarities. Jerry's personality seems to be more bossy, confident and assuring, while Lester's seems to be reclusive, upset and shy. Both of their characters contrast in that way, but underneath both are unhappy with their job. 

Ken 

This character is a pub landlord who is shown in the first few minutes of the programme singing a song whilst cleaning up around his pub. He seems happy and jolly and not too bothered with the mess that is left around. Obviously he doesn't have the best job, but he seems content with what he is doing. He sang something about dignity as he was scrubbing a toilet which gives us the impression that his job is the lowest of the low, but he doesn't seem bothered. He's also seen filling an expensive looking bottle of brandy that is on show, with some cheaper brandy. This makes us think that he's not truthful. Also, when told that a man had died he didn't seem too fazed nor upset by it, which makes him look disrespectful.

Opening Sequences:

London to Brighton

At the beginning there is a sense of urgency, everything is rushed and it was hard to figure out what is going on. We soon see that the two characters are really 'rough' and don't come from a good part of London. The woman tells the girl to stay in the toilet cubicle whilst she goes to get food. When the woman goes to get food, you see more surroundings and light and you see more of the woman and what her appearance is like. Her eye is swollen and when asked about it she doesn't explain why. She then sells herself to get money for her and the girl to get a train. There are several references in the speech to people finding them and how they have to leave quickly, but nothing is really explained. We assume that something bad has happened and they're now running away from someone or people, but we don't really know what's happening. 

The Graduate

Nothing really happened in the opening of The Graduate. We see a plane full of people looking dull and boring, no one seems happy with landing. The colours we see are dull, nothing stands out and things are clean. After exiting the plane we see him walking along next to a neutral coloured wall, he looks like he is nothing special, or will cause any trouble. Over the song, ''The Sound of Silence' airport commands are played which is probably similar to the life of education he has just been through. He doesn't seem happy about going home. 

Napoleon Dynamite

The beginning of this film is very cleverly done. We see food arranged on plates with the names of producers and directors etc on the food. Names are also written on library cards, pencils and drawings. I think this is really cleverly done, as it keeps the audience interested. Usually no attention is paid to the names at the beginning of a film but this draws the person watching in and maybe makes them take notice of the names.