Today's lesson we have been applying camera, editing, sound and mise en scene to a variation of clips e.g. Boyz of the hood.
The first 6 minutes of this clip really gives a clear and worrying perspective of what went around in this time and in this neighborhood, showing the racism and how the same race are willing to kill each other.
In the beginning you see nothing but hear brutal and offence language being projected out as if someone was arguing, you then hear a subtle siren sound in the background where it then goes into a fade and the shouting stops.
As terrifying and shocking words appear on the screen the sound in the background is loud frightful screams, this is known as diegetic sound which makes you feel how you are meant to when reading the text. They want you to be scared and worried so they put screams in the background to make you experience it for yourself. They add in a young boys voice who says 'They've shot my friend, they've shot my brother' This makes you already feel sad and concerned before the film has started, they are warming you up for the whole film itself.
The black background immediately flashes to a stop sign just as all the screaming stops. This represents one of the sematic codes which is where you have to think of the additional meaning to what the stop sign means, not just thinking it is a plain stop sign but much more.
The transition from the stop sign to the street is sudden and has no graphical meaning within it, however the camera shot is a long shot so that you can see what everyone is wearing, you can also analyse the background scenery. They have done this so that it allows the audience to see and really feel the reality of what is going on here. The two girls are wearing fashionably nice outfits with denim and red jackets followed by short skirts. The boys are slightly more covered up with long trousers and long jumpers.
There are a few transitions between the two boys as they are talking, after that it goes from a high camera shot and drifts to the left to see them walking, this gives you a real feel of the walking because not only are they moving but so is the camera.
It then makes a sudden transition to the poster with gun shots through it, at the same time it shows the bullet shots you also hear a loud gun shot this is also a diegetic sound, making you feel how they want you to.
When focusing on the red blood it then has a graphical transition to a painting with a red background, this is really effective and subtle with the way it does this. The last painting that is shown is a drawing of a police helicopter, the camera then slowly zooms out and pans left so that you can see all of the paintings until the camera keeps going on a constant role allowing you to see the whole classroom until it finally reaches the teacher.
The scene between the young black boy and the older white female teacher uses a few binary opposites which consist of
Big and small
Higher class and lower class
Old and young
Because of these binary opposites the teacher treats the student with a lot of disrespect because she thinks she is higher and better than him. You tell this by the way the camera catches a close up of her face, looking disapproval and smug. The close up of the face allows you to really feel the emotions as well as see them.
In the scene after the school scene it uses a voice over narration while the boy is walking and a fight is going on, this is also known non diegetic sound which creates more of an affect as it makes you feel different to how you really should. Ad the fight goes on you would normally feel tense and worried but you're listening to the speaking and feeling the complete opposite called contrapuntal.
