Moon Revision.
Opening
Cinematography:
• Blue light in the vehicle when he opens the hatch
• Establishing shots
• Opening is the only brightly coloured and saturated
• Images taken from news footage (archive footage)
• Animation
• Outside has low key high contrast lighting and inside has high key low contrast lighting
Mise en Scene:
• Spacecraft is less colourful (monochrome) than earth which makes it look lonely
• In the title screen the earth looks small
• Communication satellite
• Shot of people on the beach with factories behind them shows the binary oppositions. Representing of people ignoring what’s happening in the rest of the world
• Nearly 70% of the planet is represented as West America
• Logo significance – colour choices of grey/white/yellow, the morn sun representation and how the companies moon strategy is shown, which background links to modernism
• Fairground/amusement park place which is brightly lit
• Fires with diesel like technology
• Beautiful nature shot
• From desert to a greening desert
• New York with a full moon
• Brightly lit city
• Hal is like GERTY
• GERTY’s faces look like the faces Sam draws on the walls later on
• Outside is dirty/dark/natural which contrasts to the white/geometric inside however this clean white look doesn’t last long – Sam has a dirty baseball cap/janitor suit/space suit and wears trainers, he has defaced the dashboard. GERTY initially looked clean but now he is dirty and has post-it notes on him
• Lunar Industries logo everywhere
• Fluffy dice in vehicle – silly/irony or luck and chance
Performance:
• GERTY willingly helps Sam, will always help his needs, ‘Okay Sam’
• Sam is energetic which contrasts to the end of the film and links him to the other clone Sam
• Isolation (Only the robot is there with him)
• Sam running on a running machine is a metaphor of him not going anywhere and not having a real destination.
• Sam is leaning over in his seat – tired etc.
Editing:
• Informercial gives context to why he is in the moon and contrasts to the isolation etc in the rest of the film.
• Montage sequence
• Graphic match of the Ferris wheel to the sun which is linking to the project to something happy. But the Ferris wheel is called tsunami which could suggest the disaster that is coming. (Graphic match of brightly lit world to the sun)
• Graphic animated sequence after montage
• Setting up moral questioning
Sound:
• Music – Fast arpeggios are playful and happy contrast to the minor piano after
• Long electric space like noises
• Overhead speaker speaking about being offline links to the rest of the film
• “There was a time where energy was a dirty word”
• When it talks bout producing energy, there is a fill moon above New York (consider connotation of New York)
• Montage interacts with the dialogue
• Drums – work/productive
Narrative:
• Basic exposition
• Morality about exploiting the moon – swapping one unfitness resource for another, they haven leaned
• Binary oppositions – human/machine, clean white design/space, have’s/have not’s, West/East, nature/technology, light/dark, wealth/suffering, white/black, earth/moon.
Age:
• Use children in the advert for emotional purposes
• Sam is an adult
Ideology:
• Binary oppositions
• Environmentalism
• Capitalism (Lunar Industries) and how not everyone benefits. The running machine and Sam metaphor.
• Modernism – idea that there is a logical answer to everything (white background)
• Patriarchy
• Socialism
Middle:
Cinematography:
• High key lighting/functional lighting
• OTS shot
• Close up of blood
• Close up of theSam’s faces when they are about to fight
• Close ups when fighting
• When Same 2 is searching, there are many mid shots and Lon shots of him in the centre of the screen which feels claustrophobic
• Mid shot of Sam 2 searching under the counter but you see all of him – claustrophobic
• Long shot of them fighting to the side with lots of empty space make the audience see they are fighting over nothing and they have just each other and should be working together
• Close up of knife
• The camera moves down to see the knife rather than have another shot
Mise en Scene:
• Model – represents all of the Sam’s, could show how Sam could have been an artist, destruction is shocking, of a known place, suburban and perfect
• Original clone is dirtier
• Chair – Borman 2001: A Space Odyssey and anachronistic (out of time)
• Clothing – branding
• Blood – problem with clone
Editing:
• Montage of him looking around and jump cuts – don’t have change in shot length – idea of fragmentation and fast paced editing
Performance
• New clone often above (taller than) original Sam (proxemics)
• Irony that they are fighting themselves rather than working together
• Chucks model instead of gently lifting it
• Not looking in the mirror (the mirror was an opportunity for Sam to analyse the moment) and the mirror image shows multiple sam’s
• Sam watches Mary Tyler more as distraction (trash TV) – media to passively the workers
• Both sam’s attack from behind at least once
Sound:
• Builds tension
• Beeping
• Minor piano comes back – when looking (music)
• Eerie noises
• Close sonic perspective of all the things being messed with – claustrophobic
• “Eliza arrival in 13 or 15 hours
Gender:
• Not, necessarily in this scene, but throughout the film, the woman (wife and daughter) are seen as the prize/reward
• Possibly the male stereotype of aggressiveness
Narrative:
• Discussing conspiracies and how the company is using clones to save money (hating of capitalism)
• Sam 1 is in denial – sticking to idea of ideal town and life he will go back to (model)
• “Eliza arrival in 13 hours” – tension, like a bomb countdown
Ideology
• Sam 1 and Sam 2 have different points of view (Nihilism – Sam 1 believes life is meaningless because he knows he is a clone)
• Marxist – worker has limited creativity and is not benefitting from working
• Discussing conspiracies and how the company is using clones to save money (hating of capitalism)
Ending
Cinematography:
• Eliza ship has a spider like shadow
• Long shot of Sam 2 leaving which Sam 1 sees
• Long shot of Sam 2 in the building – empty without Sam 1
• Yellow and blue lighting when Sam 2 is leaving
• Zoom in to a close up of the countdown
• Close ups of GERTY could suggest a human quality to him
• Long shot of Sam 3 – meat – can’t see his face.
Mise en Scene
• Sun glasses – cool gesture – persona
• We see the countdown which contrasts to the emotional music
• Sam 3 – we can’t see his face only (meat), distant from us but the sounds of the arrival time suggest s he is human and matters too
• GERTY’s faces look like the ones that Sam 1 draws on the wall (on the wall, we can see rubbed out faces from where the previous Sam’s have drawn on the wall, as they all went through the same thing)
• Eliza ship has a spider like shadow and a red flashing light which has connotations of danger
• Rescue team have guns
Sound
• Music – the peaceful music like a clockwork toy when Sam 3 wakes up – suggest falseness
• When there is. Long shot of Sam 3, we hear the arrival time which suggest he matter/is human too
• “Getting things done” music kicks in when the signal thing gets knocked over
• Drums – satellite working
• Sad suicide when Sam 2 has left Sam 1 means that when we see the countdown, we don’t feel these, it doesn’t matter as much anymore.
Performance
• “I hope everything on eat is everything you remember it to be”
• GERTY helps – humanity
• Taking the “kick me” post it note off GERTY suggest Sam 2 felt and saw that humanity in GERTY
• Sam 2 prays before escaping
• “We’re not programmed we’re people”
Editing
• Parallel action of Sam 1, 2 and 3
• Parallel action of Eliza and machine and Sam 2 leaving
Narrative
• Reference to the new Sam and programming
• Sam played by the actor
• “We’re not programmed we’re people”
• Parallel action
• Sam 3’s humanity considered
• Narrative repletion (new Sam)
• Clone of Sam bell has given evidence (V/O) but called “either a wacko or an illegal immigrant… lock him up. The company claims to have changed the world but cant change the people. The company probably wont be shut down (determinism – no matter what Sam did he couldn’t have won). American. Compare ending to beginning
Ideology
• Existential – Sam 2’s purpose was to stand up for what was right
• Determinism
• Compare beginning and end. Starts with energy problems and how Lunar Industries helps. Ends with illegal immigrant comment – didn’t change the people with the earth and nothing has changed (determinism)
• Lunar industries admit racism (orientalism)
• Wilful ignorance in humanity – ignore issue
Film Studies 