LES SOINS DE BOUCHE

1. Brick Analysis Michela Seedanee Opening scene analysis-

2. Location Mise en scene Lighting and colour The lighting is dull and unsaturated. Like the colour has been drained. This is used to make the atmosphere feel tense for the viewer and give a negative feeling to the opening sequence because at the beginning of the opening you see the girl dead by a sewer tunnel so it keeps that negative lighting throughout the sequence because in the end you know the what is going to happen to the girl. In the thriller,brick it uses 3 different scenes of location in the opening sequence. One of these locations is in the school when the female character puts a note through the protagonists locker telling him to meet her at a certain place and time. The lockers are found in a school which is a normal place for a thriller because it is a safe place were the audience feels as if nothing bad could happen there but thriller genre uses this against you to make you feel uneasy. For example when the main character finds the note he has no one with him and the corridors are empty. Costume/ appearance of characters The main character is wearing brown suede shoes, glasses, casual clothes and a watch. The other actress is also wearing casual clothes and bangles. The glasses suggest that the main character is smart and will use this against the antagonists in the film. The brown and casual clothes show that he is not very rich but can afford clothes. The watch may suggest that he is much organised. The bangles are bright blue and are shown as important clothing that shows that character because you never see her face. Another location used in the opening sequence is an isolated place which is also common for thrillers. It is a place with no one there to help you. The location is a street that looks deserted with one telephone box on the pavement by the road. Which he gets in to receive a call from the other character.

3. Mise en scene Props Actors’ Performance The protagonist body language and expression are very calm and ‘emotionless’. He is also not surrounded by many people and goes to his locker alone. The girl character who we never see except dead at the beginning when on the phone she is very serious and you can hear fear in her voice. This is opposite behaviour to the protagonist. She also keeps hidden from the protagonist. This tells us that the character is not very popular and keeps to him. The girl’s language on the phone tells us she is in trouble and has people of a higher social status after her because she talks of a brick. This is another word for an amount of cocaine. Then after she sees the ‘expensive’ car driving past she gets afraid and hangs up the phone showing us that, that person is after her. Props used: Telephone box, cigarette, and the note left by the girl, bangles, the fast car, lockers. The fast car and cigarette are a common prop for an antagonist shows they are rich and powerful. It also shows they are ‘rebellious’ because in brick the ‘hidden’ villain in the car throws his half smoked cigarette from the car at high speed.

4. Camera Shots What is it? How is it used as thriller in brick? Close up: Long shot POV shot: Close up shots are a good way of showing the emotion of the character to the audience this is useful in the thriller with intense films, it’s good at these points to get the expression of the character’s. This emotion in brick is when the protagonist has just found his friend and female character in the film dead in the entrance of a sewer tunnel. This is a common long shot in a thriller giving the audience bits and pieces of information. A long shot shows the viewer where the character is. In brick it is used to show the location the note said to go to. POV allows the viewer to see through the characters eye their prospective . This increases the tension and feeling of the audience to how the character feels.

5. Camera Shots continued.. What is it? How is it used as thriller in brick? Establishing shot: Mid shot: Associated POV shot The establishing shot sets the scene and is a common thing used in thrillers when you want to give the viewer bits of information like where they are. Mid shots show the audience what the actor is doing and the actions he is making but only keeps from the waist up. Action is a main feature of thriller so it can excite the audience. Associated POV is much like the POV but it is a shot over the actors shoulder showing you what he is seeing but not exactly through his eyes like POV. Associated POV helps raise the tension and give the audience information of what's going on.

6. Non-Diegatic sounds During the scene of the running water and the dead girl there is film score with louder volume over the Diegatic sound which was put over in editing. Sound Editing Brick is very cutty to scenes and uses different effects to switch to these scenes for example fade. Which is only used twice. Diegatic sounds The naturally accruing sound at the beginning of the opening sequence is the running of the water from the stream near the sewer entrance where the dead girl is lying dead. Then there is the sound of the school bell ringing and footsteps walking up to the locker and sound of birds in the background. After the main actor gets the note, he waits for the person who put the note into his locker to come and here’s the phone ring from a near telephone box which is a Diegatic sound because it natural and wasn’t put in when editing and isn't background music. Another Diegatic sound comes when the fast passing car speeds past, you hear the engine.