Film Language: Mise-en-scene 2

Peaky Blinders

It is a serie created by Stephen Knight. That speak about  a gangster family epic in Birmingham at the end of the World War 1(1919). This serie is inspired by a the true historic story, the story of Peaky Blinders gang. 

Today, I am going to describe the 'mise-en-scene' of the first 4 minutes of the first Peaky Blinders' episode.

Setting and Props

• The setting is perfect because that represents exactly the period of the real Peaky Blinders. This is filmed on location so in Birmingham, we can see the 'custard factory'. The genre is explicit and we directly see that is a drama historic series.
• The presence of the horse, red powder, the misery and dark places, old chinatown location, smoked, old buildings, the fire, boats on the street and miriness on the floor show clearly than all the story is situated in the past. The horse's presence gives a  superior connotation between the poor people walking on a dirt floor poorly dressed and this men looking powerfull sitted on the horse with the fancy oufit. So they show the social difference at this period. 

Lighting and colour 

• This is a natural light who is used in this clip, so a sky light of the day. This is a an low intencity , who create the atmosphere gloomy, poor and dirty. 
• For the colour it is used a cold grey.

 

Casting

 

 

 

 

• Cillian Murphy is the main character who play Thomas Shelby. He is the second eldest in the Family Shelby and he is the most ambitious and the leader of them. After the World War 1 he was decorated like a hero. His family is everything and he want to make their business legitimate at any cost.
• Annabelle Wallis who plays the role of Grace Burgess. She is the beautiful and mystery barmaid who come from Ireland at The Garrison's where the brother Shelby come to drink.
• Sam Neil who plays the role of Chester Campbell. In this series, he is the Chief Inspector Campbell from Belfast who is going to clean up Birmingham. He is a brutish man completely committed to his job .
• Helen McCrory as Aunt Polly. She is the matriarch of Peaky Blinders, she looked after them since they were children.
• Charlie Creed-Miles as Billy Kimber. He controls the legal and illegal bookmaking sites at racecourses all across England, which has made him one of the country's richest and most powerful gangsters. 

 

 Costume and make up

 

• The costume are perfect to show where we can situated us in the period. This 3 piece suits represented exactly that. But the most important Peaky Blinder's costume is the cap, it is in this cap , they put blades to cut the face of their enemy. 

 

 

 

 



 Movement

 

• In this first scene , the most atmosphere who is create is the fear. Just look the old Chinese men when he ask to the other men where he is going to bring the girl. That body language is all the game of the actor.
• Another scene when the main actor arrived on his horse and everybody just run to hide of him or they know something strange is going to happen. We see the difference between this men who nothing frightened compare to all this people . On his face, he is looking really on him. We can guess by all his body language who is going to be one of the main characters.

 

 

Diegetic sound

 



 

• The voices of characters show the accent of Birmingham especially when the police men said: "Hello , Mr Shelby".
• We can hear the horse's hoof, people talking in the street , the sound of tool and the fire That's add to the meaning of this frame a feeling of old period when people was working with the coal and could walk on horse, but that give too an atmosphere of poverty.

 

 

 

Frame and composition

 

• A lot of thing has been included in the frame, like they boat on the street , this old panorama of the city of Birmingham.
• On this frame, everything is positioned in terms of Thomas Shelby the main character. We see his viewpoint.
• He is all time in the centre of the frame in all the scene, who show again how he is important in the series.



Film Analysing: Mise-en-scene

  The Exorcist

This film is a cult William Friedkin's realisation. Starred in 25 december 1973,  this is an  adaptation of the book written by William Peter Bladdy, and inspired by a true story.

Today, I am going to discribe what the 'mise-en-scène' is in this horror film.

 

Setting and Props

• The main scene are situated in this isolate family house -for this period- specially in the girl's bedroom, where everything is going to happened. This is an unusual code of horror film for this period.
•  The props are represented by the Priest 's cross, 'holy water', the vomit on the girl clothe, contact lenses and glass infusion. Some of the props that could reference to good or evil.

Hair and Make-up

• The haircut in the first video shows the period where the audience can imagine the time. It is exactly what the women had before. The young girl had a long and curly hair who looks not dirty on the first video, but on the second we can see how the thing worsened, because her hair look dirty and oily.
• For this horror film we need a specially effect make-up. The girl possessed was needed a really terrifying make up, with all the scar to have a scary face.

Facial expression, body language and movement

• On the first video, we can see all the terror and the fear in the eyes of the mother and her assistant. They did a really good acting, who give to the audience the same feeling. The girl have a scary facial expression, she was an incredible actress in this movie her body language was so frightening, who give really some chills.
• One of the most terrifying thing in this film are her movement, on her bed she move exactly like she was possessing and look like without articulation or without bones inside her body, that's look absolutely crazy. She can also go in the air who representing she hasn't gravity.

 

Lighting and colour





•   By using low lighting it puts the idea in the audience's mind that something could happened in the storyline later, this is because by using the low lighting it creates the connotation of danger in the audience's mind because the night is associated with crime and with spirits/ ghosts.
• The clothes colour are a lot of connotation. The girl wear always some bright dressing gown, who makes references to innocence. And show more at the audience how much now she is possessed.

I choose this frightening picture of this movie, because it is the moment where we saw for the first time really the devil inside this young girl. To see her with all white eyes and scream give to the audience the Goosebumps.





Independent Scotland, or not...

 On the 18 September 2014, the Scottish people are going to have a big decision about their independence. Alex Salmond, the first minister of Scotland, wished to make a referendum on the independence of the Scotland. After two referendum, the first on 1/03/1979 and the second 11/09/1997, they chose to make another one now. Why now? Scottish people, are they ready to be independent?


The BBC Panorama , presented by Allan Little, explored what has happened during the past four  decades. He explained that the Scottish people feel abandoned by the United Kingdom and don't feel British anymore.
Tomorrow is going to be a decisive choice for all Scottish people. If they say 'YES' they can't go back. But if they say 'NO', they will have to be confident with the United Kingdom like their parents and grandparents were.

After watching this video with my Class, my teacher asked two questions. The first was: "What do you think Scottish people going to vote on Thursday?". Out of seventeen students, nine said 'NO'. The second question was: "Should they leave the Union?". Just three students said 'YES'.

The websites of the two opposite camps are really different. The website of 'YES' is really encouraging - to be independent - it has a really good video where they explain clearly why you should vote 'YES'. Everything on this video  convinces people to vote for  independence. The slogan is "Scotland's future in Scotland's hand", to show to the people it is their decision on the future of Scotland.

 The website 'Bettertogether' is more conventional, it is 'already seen' -deja vu- and strict. They just try to show to people, if they say 'NO' it is for the security of the country,  don't take any risks. For example to speak negatively about money they posted a picture of Alex Salmond on the coin.

On the website we can see all the comments of some Scottish people and the celebrities who support this camp, like David Beckham or JK Rowling.

 The tension between the two camps is getting stronger. In the newspaper "The Times" they spoke about 'intimidation' of the national camp. All the media show is how the 'YES' camp started to attack all the people who support the other camp. This is a violation of the right to free speech.

The other interesting point is about the reaction after the result tomorrow. The result is going to come at 2 am, so people will wait in the pubs and the tension will be high. Some pubs like 'Golden Rule' in Edinburgh asked to stay open till 6 am . In the Dailymail the police found this decision really 'absolutely crazy'. 

 In conclusion , I think the vote is going to be more for 'NO'. Despite their boring website , the Scottish people should vote 'NO'. It is really risky if they leave the Union. Just  think about their money, the place they will take in the EU. The opposite camp imagine a perfect independence but if this doesn't work like they think, they can't go back. 

  

First Week in Media

            Welcome on my blog,

  My name is Philippine , I am 19 years old and I am french. In France, I studied Chemistry and I passed my Bachelor's degree. But i didn't really like it, I would like to learn about media. So after my degree, I came to the UK to Birmingham and I started to learn English to be bilingual and continue my study. This years I found the opportunity to go in South and city college of Birmingham to learn media.

 This week, it is my first week in media. I was a bit scared because it is a new college, new people, everything is different compared to the french system, but finally I lost my fear and I thought it is really good for me, my english is getting better and better and I am going to learn something I am really interested in.

 I like all the stuff about media, but I still don't know what specifically I want to do in media. I will appreciate to learn especially everything about cinema and photography during this year and I hope to find exactly what I want to do.

Happy to share that with you and see you soon.