Textual analysis

I am going to analyse the fim Final Destination 1 directed by James Wong and released in 2000. the genre is a horror/thriller genre

Narrative Structure:

I am going to analyse the fim Final Destination 1 directed by James Wong and released in 2000. the genre is a horror/thriller genre.Devon Sawa who plays as Alex Browning is heading off to Paris on a school trip. This sets the equilibrium in the film. Shortly after the students aboard the plane and ‘Alex’ has a vision that the plane their on is going to crash and kill everyone. He wakes up from this vision disturbed but assumes it’s the nerves playing with his mind, until the events that occurred in his vision begin repeating themselves in real life. This sets the disruption. At this point he freaks out and tells everyone the planes going to crash and he, plus a few others get off the plane. We see the plane take off and explode shortly afterwards, this startles all of the characters leaving ‘Alex’ shocked.  This sets the new equilibrium. Throughout the film, the passengers that managed to get off the plane begin to die in bizarre ways which leads to them linking the deaths to the order in which were supposed to die, they then use this new knowledge to try to beat death.

Genre codes and conventions:

This film used various effects to match it with the genre and keep the audience entertained. Oe aspect that the film used was mise en scene. There are various shots which show the audience watching the whole background as to where the characters are situated to give every possible detail to the audience. This also allows the audience to fully integrate with the characters in the film as if they were there too.

Sound is another thing the directors take into consideration when making a horror, when a scary scene comes up and the editors of the film want the audience to feel the full effect, they add very tense and loud off screen non diegetic sound effects to create the atmosphere and scary the audience.

In this film, when ‘Adam’ is having premonitions the director of the film makes sure to keep the lighting and colour the same as when he’s not having them. This is done to not give away the fact that when he saw the plane blow up, that it wasn’t actually happening.

The editing of this film allowed the film to correctly fit together and create all the scenes and make them look as real as possible. This makes the film look realistic which would move the audience and keep them entertained towards the end of the film.

The story line of this film fits with the generic conventions as the director used various aspects of horror scenes and mystery, leaving the audience interested and curious as to how the film will end and who will survive. The story line also fits together slowly as we are given certain clues throughout the film as too what is happening and how the characters can stop it. This is another way to keep the audience entertained as they would want to find out who dies and who lives.

The themes of the film show conflict between life and death. This isn’t the general conflict that films portray in the modern society as it usually generalises around racial differences or the differences in society.

Detailed textual analysis of 2-3 minute extract.

The section of the film that I will be analysing has a large number of aspects contributing towards the genre of the movie. The clip uses various close ups to show the audience facial expressions and what’s causing the disruption in the scene. For example we get a close up of ‘Alex’s face when he realizes what’s happening to show how disturbed he’s feeling and we get close ups on the effects that the fire has on the house and the character. The clip also used panning shots to show us the trail of blood and the trail of fire both moving fast creating a match on action effect with the blood and fire.

 The extract uses lots of mise en scene to show the audience the full detail of what’s happening. For example when the female character is struggling to stay alive, the audience get shown shots of various dangerous things. Fire is shown in the series of fast paced shots which encourages the aspect that she is in danger, also the blood around her body and the fact she’s grasping onto her neck again bring by the effect of danger, adding to that the use of props such as knifes in the scene again portray danger. This shows the audience she has very little chance of survival so they at this point would be expecting a death of a character which again, fits the generic conventions of a horror.

The scene uses high key low contrast lighting when inside the house to give the audience a full effect of the flames. Also the fact that the conventions are swapped, creates a tenser atmosphere. Usually in horror films, outside is unsafe and inside is safe, in this scene, the director decided to make the inside unsafe and the outside safe which would play with the audiences mind.

The editing and special effects of this scene allows the director to end this scene with a blast ‘literally’. We see a long shot of ‘Alex’ running from inside the house from a 3^rd characters point of view and very shortly after the house explodes. This has an effect on the audience as they at this point would be mesmerised at how ‘Alex’ manages to escape death, once again.

Close up of a tea mug

Pan up to face of character

Quick cut to a mid-shot showing panic in the characters expression

Close up of mug and we see it’s from a high school which we can relate the previous deaths too

Mid-shot of character speaking to herself

Mid-shot of character looking up

Close up of drink that she gets from the freezer

Mid shot of her closing fridge and we see the red magnet sliding slightly down

Close up of ice in the mug (that was previously filled with hot water)

Close up of crack in cup and water dropping out

Mid shot of the character

Pan down to her putting drink down showing us the bottle

Close up of her picking up mug

Back to mid shot of drink (we see her pass the knife rack that is covered by a cloth

Panning shot of floor shows audience she’s walking

Pans to close up of water falling into the computer

Close up of her face

Cut into her rolling up and item in bubble wrap

Back to a close up of water falling into the computer

Pans down showing the audience is causing electrical malfunction in the computer

Mid shot of her packing

Mid shot of her seeing smoke coming out of the computer

The character moves closer in shot making the mid shot become a close up

Close up of explosion

Close up of her hands around her neck

Birds eye view shot of her blood falling to the floor

Mid shot of woman struggling

Mid shot of her tripping

Close up of music needle falling out of place

Mid shot of new characters feet and legs which pans up  to show us character

Mid shot of man clearing fire

Mid close up of character looking confused

Close up of fire flickering up

Mid close up showing us the character realizes something

Close up which pans across the fire which then leads to a mid close up of character

Panning shot of blood dripping

Mid close up of character gripping her neck

Close up of bloody hand grabbing counter

Close up of sparks

Panning shot of fire transporting across the floor

Mid close up of woman gripping her neck

Panning shot of fire

Mid close up of character gripping neck

Close up of kettle on fire

Close up of alcohol bottle showing us the fire reaching it

Close up of explosion and her falling

Wide shot of him running turning into a mid shot

Wide shot of house

Mid close up of woman on floor (the high angle shot suggests she’s out of power)

Close up of cloth (& knifes) and her hand reaching for the cloth

Close up of her hand

Mid close up of her on the floor (birds eye view)

Close up of hand grabbing cloth over knifes

Close up of action (cloth moving slowly off knifes)

Mid close up of knife falling through her chest

Close up of other character

Mid close up of him running into the house

Mid close up of him in the house

Close up of blood on floor

Pans up to a mid close up of character looking for female character

Pans back down and we see woman on floor and bloody hand prints on the table

Mid close up of character looking down, camera pans while he walks towards woman to another mid close up of her on floor and him crouching next to her

Point of view close up woman on floor

Close up of shelves falling

Wide shot of character struggling to hold up shelves

Extreme close up of explosion and chair falling onto the knife, digging it deeper into the female characters chest

Mid close up of male character getting back up

Close up of lifeless woman on the floor

Mid close up of male character standing up, holding knife

Close up of woman on floor from a point of view upper shot

Mid close up of character holding knife

Zooms into a close up

Close op of the knife dropping to the floor

Camera pans down showing us the blood on floor

Panning shot of a fourth character riding a bike outside the house

Wide shot of guy running out of the house

Mid close up of character on the bike

Extreme wide shot of house blowing up

Mid close of character jumping onto ground

Extreme wide shot of house blowing up

Mid close up of other character shocked and on the floor

Extreme wide shot of house burning

Close up of male character looking back

Mid shot of house entrance

Mid shot of him sitting up looking

Close up of him getting up which pans to him running away from the scene

Mid shot of guy on the bike looking surprised.