Batman analysis

Batman; The Dark Knight

We looked at the Batman; The Dark Knight to get some inspiration, ideas and understanding of how it’s eye catching to start thrillers. As this is an action thriller it meant that the beginning of the film was all done very quickly and a lot happens in the first 5 minutes of the film. I’ve attached a clip below to show the first five minutes that my group watched to get an understanding of what type of shots, sound and lighting is good to use.

 

The two scanned images below show the work that I've done to analyse the thriller in my media lesson. I wrote down the main shot types that they've used and which ones were mostly interesting, and spoke about CLAMPS a little bit.

At the beginning of the film, the very first shot is an establishing shot used which shows the city and where scene has been set which makes it easy for the audience to understand that the scene is in a city where there is a lot of people. Then as the camera zooms onto a window, it breaks because a man shoots into it to break it. Then there is a high angle shown of the two people loading their bags and guns. My whole group really liked this type of shot, because it shows what the characters are doing but also what’s happening in the background, so we’re hoping to use this type of angle in our own work when we create the thriller.

High angle shot

We all really loved the idea how the murders and robbers face’s aren’t show, which leaves the audiences thinking what has happen, and from this section of the film we got some ideas for our thriller. Throughout the whole five minutes there is dialogue about the joker and the robbery which keeps the audiences interested. There is also tense music playing which creates a tense atmosphere, making the audience think that something bad is going to happen soon.
There is also a lot of tracking shots used which my whole group really likes, because we’ve seen many thrillers that use tracking shot and it looks very effective, so we’re hoping to use this type of shot at some point in our thriller too.

Tracking shot - Single shot

They have also used many close ups to point out the objects which are important in the film such as the bag which is shown on the screen print below. We found this shot very interesting, because it engages the audience with the little details of the film. So we’re hoping to use some close up to show particular parts in our thriller.

Overall I think after analysing this film, it really has helped our group to realise what types of shots are good to use and what would look most effective, also including the CLAMPS as all these elements are also very important. We will continue to research other thrillers, to fully understand what types of shots and sound is good to use in the first five minutes of the thriller, especially in the opening sequence as that is quite crucial to get the audience’s attention.

By Anastazja Stanowska