Media Studies homework

Essay 1

FILM: Bourne Identity

The film starts out with an enigma of the main character unconscious and floats at sea until a French fishing ship see him in the sea. The opening sequence show the protagonist (that at the moment we don’t know who he is) in danger in the form of having been shot in the back twice by survived. The protagonist has amnesia so he doesn’t know where he is, who he is. There is a French man that starts to clean up his wound by find that in the protagonist’s is a laser pen which when the button is press will show his bank account information that is in Zurich, Switzerland.

   

 The mise-en-scene of the opening sequence are the main character’s black diving suit and the French fishermen’s brightly coloured overalls but after the boat the main character is on comes to dock the main characters clothes change to slightly more colourful. The lighting at the opening sequence is a mixture of high and low key lighting to simulate night and day but also to show the cabin on the boat at time is used low and high key lighting to show night and day on the boat. The clothes and the technology showed that the film is modern and that its period the film is place in would be 2000-2006.

The first sounds are thunder and lightning which show in most film at the beginning is never good and also you hear the sea and the waves. There is a slow violin piece and also there is the sound of high winds howling away and waves crashing against the boat. Then a flute starts playing and also when the camera goes to inside the boat you hear the floorboards creaking and the dialogue of the French fishermen are happy and joking about after a day of hard work. The dialogue changes when one of the fishermen spotted the protagonist in the water to confused and suspicion and then changes to carefulness when they find out he is alive. Then the music changed to more dramatic sounds as a French fisherman starts to patch up the unconscious protagonist.

The establishing shot is a high angle long shot of a body float in the ocean this shows that someone is dead or about to die. Then the next shot is of the boat that is a long shot in a storm this show that there is a chance that they will discover the body. The next shot is a tracking shot as it is like a crew member on the ship has walked down from the deck of the ship to below deck. The next shot is a close up on the card game they are playing. Then a close shot turning into a zoom on the floating body that shows that they will find the body.

The first piece of editing is a dissolve in of the picture which is the floating body and the next bit is a jump cut to the ship and another jump cut to the crew inside the and another outside the boat.