FILM ANALYSIS : Trick or Treat - mise-en-scene, camera shots, sound and music

Film analysis of Trick or Treat

Director:   Charles Martin Smith

Box Office: $6,797,218 (USA)

Distributors: 

Arsenal Filmverleih (1987) (West Germany) (theatrical)

De Laurentiis Entertainment Group (DEG) (1986) (USA) (theatrical)

Paramount Pictures Corporation (Canada) (Canada) (theatrical)

Castle Home Video (UK) (VHS)

Concorde Home Entertainment (2003) (Germany) (DVD)

Esselte CIC Video (Netherlands) (VHS)

Future Film (2004) (Finland) (DVD)

Lorimar Home Video (1987) (USA) (VHS)

NSM Records (2014) (Austria) (DVD)

Nea Kinisi Video (1988) (Greece) (VHS)

Nelonen (1999) (Finland) (TV)

Platinum Disc (2003) (USA) (DVD)

Transworld Video (1989) (Finland) (VHS)

Umbrella Entertainment (2002) (Australia) (DVD)

VCL Communications (West Germany) (VHS)

Warner Home Video (2009) (Japan) (DVD)

Warner Home Video (USA) (VHS)

 Mise-en-scene

This is the mise-en-scene in the opening shot of Trick or Treat. It is very similar to what we are going to produce as all of the details connote what the character is like, but in ours we are going to connote a quirky arty character instead of rock style music lover.

Camera Shots
The camera shots in this opening shot is also very important as they use a 

panning shot around the room at the start just like we want to do in our film. 

This will show more of the surround's which is typical in a social realist film. 

Sound and Music
In trick or treat we get rock music straight when the film starts until 5:48 seconds into the film. In our film opening we will also have music running over the top but it will be soft acoustic to start of with but then getting more upbeat as it progresses. There is also a voice over which we will do also as we can hear what they are thinking which helps the audience understand the film.

GENRE - ROMANCE CONVENTIONS: Heathers, Rushmore, Girls just want to have fun, She's all that

I have looked at the films:
Heathers
Rushmore
Girls just want to have fun
She's all that 

Key features in each film that stood out for me were these:
In 'Heathers'

 Character- One of the lead role, played by Christian Slater, is the 'bad boy' which is a dangerous character who is usually very handsome, dressed in black, riding a motorcycle and bad influence whilst also being disruptive at school. Other common features of a bad boy are that they smoke, drink, have a husky voice and swear. 

Costume- The clothes worn are the fashionable clothes of the 1980's. These could influence our main character as she will be wearing retro vintage clothing, consisting of oversized blazers with large shoulder pads, bright block colours or complex patterns, tartan and tennis skirts. This could also link to make-up as they have distinctive bright eye make-up on when going out and volumed curled hair.

Titles- The 'produced by' is in swirly curled writing typical of a romantic film and shows that this film is focused more at a female audience. The names are all in blocked white and red font which shows that it is a high school film. The wording is quite formal as they use the phrase "produced by" rather than "made by".

 'Rushmore'
Titles- The text position moves around the shot which looks vey affective as it also changes colour depending on the background it is placed. Also the colour varies from white to black but the main title is a bright red which looks very effective whilst also connoting that the film is a romantic or romcom film. 

 Mise-en-scene- The headmasters room contains a lot of dark wood and leather furniture. This isn't the exact style of furniture that we would go for but the full packed and obvious mise-en-scene is what our room will be like. 

Shot types- one of our shots maybe of a book showing the name of our chosen male protagonist so this type of shot is very effective as it uses the rule of thirds. 
 Also this shot of a newspaper that would also link to mise-en-scene relates to our film as we wanted our male protagonist to stand out as being an individual and him holding a newspaper would clearly show that. 

'Girls just want to have fun'

Titles- The font is bold and a bright orange colour stereo typical of rom-coms. Used the phrase "directed by" but not a "Alan Metter film".

Mise-en-scene- This retro Tv would fit with or retro style of mise-en-scene.
Costume- The outfits worn were typical of youths in the    80's again.

'She's all that'

 Titles- Again the font is brightly coloured using the most popular colours of a rom-com orange, yellow and red. This time the text is rounded and smooth but still bold.
Characters- As our female and male protagonists will be outcasts the main female character in 'She's all that' is a perfect example as you can tell immediately that she is a quirky individual. (Costume + Props + Make-up) This is shown by her holding art pads and paints when walking around school whilst also wearing glasses with messy tied up hair, no make up and ripped dungarees with brightly coloured teeshirts that gave her a tomboy look. The male character in 'She's all that' is a stereo typical posh popular boy like in 'Pretty in Pink' (Costume) he wore plainish clothes like jeans and tee-shirts as well as a varsity jacket. We may cast a character much like this as a love interest. 

PLANNING SHOOT 3: bedroom practice shots

Practice bedroom shot types

I tried out some different ways of filming a room and to find out any difficulties I would have on the actual shoot. Even though this is not the room that will be feature in our film it did still showed me how I would come across difficulties with panning around the whole room so I would have to pan across sections of the room. I also tried out jump cutting the takes that would be of the main girl in front of the window.