No country for old men & Zodiac

C L A M P S


C     Costume
L Lighting
A     Actors
M Makeup
P Props
S  Setting




No country for old men

This film starts with the sun set fading in from black. The shots show time moving on as the sun changes its positions. For the first minute and 40 seconds there are continuous cuts showing us different parts of the desert like setting whilst a voice over is speaking.

 The first movement we see is a mill type propeller turning in the wind, we then get closer up to this and the shot changes to a pan of a man being arrested.

The setting is a lifeless desert. It is full of dull, brown colours. This setting straight away makes me think of a cowboy type film. Another thing that makes me think this is the police officers uniform and car and also the voice overs accent. The style of the police car and the officers costume shows me that this film is set in the past.

This beginning scene is an effective opening as the voice over is telling us a story in his life. The speed of the cuts showing the scenery are about six seconds which makes us carefully listen to the story as what is on the screen is calm. They get slightly faster just before we see the arrest as it is getting to the end of the voice over.

Zodiac

The opening scene creates suspense using mise en scene. They do this so to grab the audiences attention so that they watch on.
This film starts with what we assume is a couple enjoying a celebration. Although the male character is dressed casual, the female character is dressed up which suggests she has made an effort for the occasion. This tells us that they hope to enjoy the night. The opening sequenceis full of fireworks and big crowds. The firewworks give off alot of light and noise which grabs our attention.
Going from this noise and light into an isolated situation (in the car) immediatly creates tension. The girls facial expressions show us that she feels someting is going to happen. She begins to look very nervous when a car appears. When fireworks are aimed at them it gets tense and we begin to know something bad is going to happen. This makes us as an audience want to carry on watching to see what happens to them.