2. At the start of the sequence, the audience is greeted with an
establishing shot of New York, this is to set the scene, and
show where the film is set, so that the audience know the
surroundings of where the characters are. Whilst the opening
credits roll the camera flies over the city, whilst non-diegetic
jazz music plays in the background. The music is quite calm,
and may give the audience an idea that this is quite a calm
film, and is quite casual. Whilst the credits still roll, the
camera changes from an establishing shot and fades to a
longshot of a New York City street, as the camera tilts down
to show the scene.
The credits then fade away, and the longshot of the busy city
street is shown, you can see the period of time this is set in
through the costumes of the men and women on the street.
As you can see they are all pretty much wearing quite
classy/smart clothing. As most of the men wear suits and the
women are wearing dresses or smart looking clothing. This
shows that New York City can be a place of wealth, and is a
very busy, business type place. In the frame the audience can
also see the typical new-york taxis and policemen on the
streets, within the busy commotion.
3. An elliptical edit is then used from the street and a transition
is used to show the audience a long shot of a boxing
ring, low-key lighting is used around the boxing ring whilst
the rest of the room has low-key lighting.
Diegetic, synchronous sounds are used in this short clip
whilst in the boxing ring, as the audience can hear the crowd
clapping, and people in the audience shouting things
towards the boxers.
The camera then cuts to a low angle, long shot of one of the
corridors outside the boxing ring; the audience sees a
dark, silhouette of a man leaning against a wall smoking.
The man cannot be identified due to him being in the
dark, this scene uses typical film noir conventions with this
character, as the costume he wears consists of a hat, suit etc.
and is smoking in the dark against a wall. In this scene, the
audience sees a woman run from the end of the corridor, as
she gets closer to the camera whilst she runs from the
shadows, the audience then sees two men running after
her, they both come from different corridors in this scene.
The camera angle remains the same throughout.
4. A continuity edit is then used and the camera cuts to a
long shot of the woman still running away from the
men, noir style lighting is also used to create shadows
in this scene, as she runs through shadows and
through light. The audience can still hear the diegetic
sounds of the boxing crowd, as you can still hear them
clapping and cheering from the first clip of the boxing
ring.
More continuity edits are used to show the pace of the
woman running away from the two men, a long shot
is used to show her run through the doors of a bar,
and then the audience can see the two men who run
after her. Once the women is running through the bar,
another long shot is used from the end of the bar, to
show two men sat at the bar, and their reaction as they
see the people running through the doors. The lighting
used is mainly low key in these places, with a small
amount of high key lighting to show a small amount
of light in these scenes. The low-key lighting is used to
create the film noir effect, to generate shadows and
darkness around the characters.
5. The two men then finally catch up to the women they are
chasing, as a continuity edit cuts to a medium shot of the two
men stood side-by-side to the women, with her in the middle.
Lighting is used well and correctly in this shot, as the three
characters in the middle of the frame are well lit in quite high-
key lighting, whereas the background of the characters and
what surrounds them is low-key. This is to create a type of
‘spotlight’ around the characters and to tell the audience that
they are the key characters in this frame. The sound used is
mainly dialogue, whilst the audience can still hear the boxing
crowd although it is quiet.
The woman then walks away from the two men for a
second, and a medium close-up shows her in the light, the
camera then slowly zooms out to show a medium shot of the
woman, and the two men then surround her side-by-side
again. The sound used is non-diegetic music, which sounds
quite mysterious and matches the scene and also matches the
film noir vibe – as it sounds quite mysterious. The camera then
cuts to a longshot of them stood still, and the characters walk
away. Whilst they walk away, a pan is used to the right to show
the bar. The man at the bar stands up from his chair, and walks
in a direction which is quite close to the camera, as it tracks
the character and shows a medium close-up of him.
