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Sean Baker’s 2022 film ‘Red Rocket’ is a drama/black comedy and a masterclass in representing a realistic lower class America. The film revolves around the character Mikey, a washed-up porn star returning to his home town in Texas. Sean Baker's filmmaking stands out as brutally realistic in the way his worlds are presented. From characters to locations to stories, he truely focuses on lives that you would never think could make it to cinema. Like other films in the drama genre, this is a down to earth story devoid of any fantastical elements that most other genres tend to contain. Like seen with this shot, the location  chosen of small town Texas has a grimey yet relatable feeling to it. Unlike many other films which would cut out the use of houses containing dirty walls, lawn chairs and parts of the house quite literally being held together from pieces of wood, Baker chooses to put small details like this to the forefront. Every shot in this film is littered with small imperfect details on the world around them which makes this film feel much bigger than what we see on screen, a truly lived in environment. This isn't exclusively for the location and props however, the costuming of the characters also help us identify the drama genre due to how mundane they seem. Very few large hollywood films would have their characters dressed in slides and pyjama bottoms for the majority of the movie but again Baker uses clothes like this all over Red Rocket. It helps emphasise the illusion that these are real people just living their day to day lives, something the genre of drama focuses on alot. The imperfect details of characters just being regular people can be seen with the use of actors as well. There aren’t gorgeous A-listers scattered around this movie but instead very regular looking people that as an audience make them feel more relatable. We could imagine running into someone like these two characters in our day to day lives. This is due to Baker's unique way of casting by finding non-actors though platforms like instagram to push the realism he is wanting to achieve in each of his films. These two characters have realistic and normal body flaws like bruises, messy or unclean hair or an unshaven face that the vast majority of people can relate to. Dramas allow stories of people who look like us to be told, people who live our lives, wear our clothes and match our aspirations and the casting choices done by Baker are perfect examples of how stories like this can be interesting and captivate an audience without the use of action or horror or any other aspect that movies tend to lean heavily on.

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Wes Andersons 2012 film, 'Moonrise Kingdom is, in part a romantic comedy by genre, however at its core it is a film about childhood and growing up leaving it fitting more closely into the coming of age genre. I believe this still from early in the film shows how Wes Anderson uses his individual framing set design and lighting as well as colour grading in a way that embodies the genre of a coming of age film.

Coming of age films usually are exemplified by an exploration of the transition from childhood to adulthood. This is demonstrated well through Wes’s use of colour. The outfit the character is wearing being bright and warm and matches with the colours of the lighthouse she is standing in, and contrasts with the warm blue sky. These colours are all bright and warm with the colour grading giving the shot a nostalgic film camera feel. This colour in the set design and costume makes the scene feel very playful, with the character resembling a doll in a matching doll house.

The blocking and framing makes her feel powerful, by placing her front and centre in the shot Wes commands the viewers’ attention to her. A miniature queen in her toy castle. The actor’s expression is one of displeasure, contrasting the bright and idyllic toy-esque environment around her and her beady binoculars gaze into us, .

The character feels shrewd and has an air of adult confidence. This persists through the film with her always feeling more perceptive and confident than one would expect from her age. This inherent dissonance is a staple of the genre and this scene does a good job of visually showing it, she feels like an adult in a doll house always being treated as a child. Obviously she isn’t an adult but she is starting to become one and all the thoughts and feelings that come with that are the core of the coming of age genre.

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The first thing that I found interesting at the presentation of the film stills was the range of different genres people chose. Initially, I thought most people would go with the easiest ones to analyse like romance or historical but a lot of drama and coming-of-age films were chosen. Seeing how people analysed these stills in relation to their various genres allowed me to see that there are elements of each genre throughout the film and that it doesn’t get lost within all the other elements in the film.

Another thing I noticed at the presentation was how you can identify the genre of the film through multiple elements of the film form, many of which you may not notice at first. For example, the still from the film ‘Stand by Me’ was a wide shot of a group of boys walking along the railway tracks. Initially, you can see how this is a coming-of-age film based on the age range of the actors and the setting of the scene, but the wide angle allows for the leading lines of the railway track to be shown going into the distance and away from the audience's line of sight. This highlights the adventure genre within the film as it conveys the journey that this group is going to be going on.

All of this showed me that genre can be shown in either obvious or more subtle ways within a film. A lot of classic genre elements you expect to see can easily be shown through costumes or settings but there are more elaborate ways you can illustrate a genre like through editing, sound or through cinematography. This highlights there is no ‘right way’ to film a specific genre but through multiple different film forms and still convey to the audience the overall genre of your film.

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Genre: Murder Mystery

Scene Context: In this scene, towards the end of the film, Detective Poirot is walking up to the table of all the potential suspects behind the murder committed at the beginning of the film. Here he will proceed to explain all the evidence gathered and tell us who the killer is.

Composition: With all the potential suspects sitting in a row at the table gives them a sense of equality, meaning the audience has no way of knowing which person/people may be more suspicious than others based on where they are positioned in the scene. The detective walking in from the light gives the illusion of being the saviour-like figure to these suspects as he will now reveal whether they are innocent or not. This highlights the mystery genre as the audience is unable to tell who has committed the murder.

Lighting: The main source of light coming in from the end of the tunnel creates a contrast between the suspects sitting at the table and the detective walking towards them. With Detective Poirot being in the light it clearly highlights to the audience that he is on the ‘good’ side while all the suspects are for now on the ‘bad’ side.

Overall Effect: With both composition and lighting, the audience clearly understands the character's status at this point of the film, thus creating a mystery as the audience still has no understanding of who the killer is. The lighting also furthers the emphasis of the mystery genre as the contrast it creates shows a clear distinction between the two possible sides in this case.

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The still is from the 2020 film ‘Dinner in America’, which follows Punk singer Simon, known as John Q, and social outcast and John Q obsessed Patty as they fall in love while causing havoc in suburban Detroit. It is from a scene in which Patty, on the left, has invited Simon to her family home in order to evade the police. It is a comical and flirtatious scene in which Simon attempts to fluster Patty.

The costuming of the characters helps to infer their personalities to the audience, as well as keeping in touch with the comedy genre. Simon, the frontman of a punk band, wears a bomber jacket and a backpack, with an unkempt shaved mohawk hairstyle. He is presented to us as cool and edgy, while also being laid back, as is evident in his almost careless appearance.

Patty looks stereotypically geeky, with her hair tied up, an untidy fringe and large glasses. She also wears a stained smock. The differences between the two create an opposites-attract feeling, and Patty’s stained smock adds to her comically dishevelled appearance. In terms of colour, Simon's outfit is lowkey and dark, whereas Patty's is bright and attention grabbing. This emphasises the contrast between the two characters, as well as giving us more of an insight into their personalities: Simon is understated, Patty is bold.

The blocking of the characters infers the romantic interest between the two. Simon is quite obviously interested in Patty, with his body turned towards her, standing very close to her. Patty seems almost nervous, with her body turned away from him. She is unable to maintain eye contact with Simon, but he watches her intently. The fridge itself hems the characters in, forcing them to stand close to one another, with both the fridge door and Simon acting as barriers on either side of Patty.

The mundanity of the setting and the props aligns with the usual realism of a comedy/romance film.

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I was really struck by the sheer variety of stills shown by my classmates, which to my memory contained no repeats. I saw so many different films of varying genres, all of which grabbed my attention through the groups’ presentations. I learned a lot more than I thought I would from everyone's individual analysis of the varying components in relation to genre, and I also learned from myself by speaking aloud what I saw rather than just typing it. What I learned is that while genre can be quite a broad term and can be difficult to pin down, we can also very easily spot some of the genre hallmarks or tropes very easily within the formal elements of a film, for example in the mise-en-scene.

The presentations have also encouraged me to do a bit of further reading on genre as I think gaining a better understanding of it will help me greatly in creating our own genre film without creating something that could potentially be a bit directionless if it didn’t stick to the specific things expected of the genre. We discussed in class what may happen if a film didn’t meet an audience's expectations, which was something I hadn’t really thought about before and which has gotten me to think a lot more about what I personally would expect to see in, say, a comedy or drama.

I think that genre to me is currently the way in which we categorise films so that we can generally predict what we might see on screen or what sort of story we might find. I think it's helpful because sometimes we have a very specific idea of what we want to watch in mind, and we want our expectations to be met.

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Film Still – Selecting a Shot – Winslow's Nightmare

The Lighthouse (2019) – 1:46:41

Genre - Horror/Fantasy

Cinematography:

The small, almost square aspect ratio used to film The Lighthouse mimics the cramped setting of the titular location and enhances the feeling of entrapment experienced by the characters. Here the darkness of the room appears to expand beyond the confines of the frame, creating an unnatural void which isolates the doorway and by extension the character of Winslow. The doorway is center framed, drawing attention to this panel of light. This links back to the horror convention of events happening in dark, isolated places which leave characters vulnerable.

Mise en Scène:

Winslow’s room is claustrophobic. The ceiling is only barely taller than the doorway at its highest point, beginning a downward slope beyond the doorframe at both ends. This makes the room

appear narrower than it truly is and adds further layers to the claustrophobia as it feels as though Winslow can only move in one direction – towards the door. We/Winslow are made aware that this is a finite space. The doorway and what lies beyond it is only so far away. The lamp does not illuminate the room and provides no comfort, instead serving to highlight the darkness of the foreground and the closing gap between Winslow and the door. The light beyond the door sets the viewer on edge, as within the context of the film this light all but confirms another presence in the home. The camera lingers on the hallway as if reluctant to continue beyond the threshold and uncover the unknown presence. We feel trapped in this cramped room as the fear of the light, or what lies beyond it, is keeping Winslow at bay. The image of a dimly lit corridor should feel isolating, but here we are all too aware that Winslow is not, in fact, alone. The horror from this shot is derived from the fear that at some point Winslow will have to pash the threshold and confront the source of the light, as we are shown that he has nowhere else to go.

Production Design -

The paint appears old and cracked in the dim light, adding to the unsettling atmosphere. The crude doorway places the building’s construction sometime in the past when coupled with the adjacent oil lamp. This creates a sense of unease as it conjures images of the archetypical haunted house and invites us to imagine what foreboding hallways lie beyond what we are shown. The blank walls give the impression of cold, hard material that accentuates every creaking floorboard and provides an interrupted canvas for shadows to be drawn.

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Ingmar Bergman’s Seventh Seal is a surreal display on morality and the agonising reminder of the meaninglessness of death, extracting all its themes into each formal element of this shot. Through this still, we see the imposing stature of Death (Bengt Ekerot) as he faces down the knight in shining armour, Antonius Block (Max von Sydow). In the costume design, we can point parallels between the two characters and how each of them can be seen as the foil for the other. Furthermore, the lighting on each character works to highlight their facial features and the human traits of Antonius Block paired with the inhuman look of Death. With all this in mind, we begin to paint Ingmar Bergman’s picture of a world in which humans are pawns, life is temporary, and death is as meaningless as losing a game of chess.

Death beads down on Antonius who tries desperately to keep his cool, through the blocking of each character and the size of death we begin to understand that Bergman wants to convince us of the overwhelming power of death. With the abstract nature of death, Bergman creates a visible manifestation of its power by blocking Bengt Ekerot in a way that emphasises the size of the character. Audiences’ eyes will first latch onto death’s face, and then at Antonius’ reaction, and then down at the game of chess, in an almost triangular rhythm, emphasising the cycle of always returning to death. Using this triangular framing of key visuals and the blocking of Death’s character, Bergman emphasises not only the physical power of death, but also the metaphorical, inescapable power in that everything returns to death.

Bergman dresses Antonius in shining armour to contrast Death’s dark, enrapturing cloak, highlighting the differences between the two. Antonius’ silvery attire presents his character as someone real and physical; the heavy armour implies there’s something to protect, something fragile. This is in direct contrast to Death’s cloak, which presents him as an otherworldly figure that has no need for armour. Furthermore, the stiffness of Antonius’ armour locks him in place, the audience relates to him as human, whereas Death’s overhanging cloak seems endless, seeming to sink into the dark environment. With this, Bergman emphasises the constant of death, highlighting that Death’s formless cloak allows him to be everywhere at once, unlike the frail reality of Antonius.

In this dark world, Bergman places emphasis on the lighting of each character and the surrounding environment to further enrobe the two in complete darkness. While shrouded in darkness, the pockets of light to highlight Antonius’ face portrays his wavering emotion, further allowing audiences to relate to him. Facing him, the pocket of light that glows onto Death’s face presents his snickering grin, as if he knows he has already won. The surrounding area is also blanketed in this darkness, with the pitch-black sea behind the two figures, showing how small the two are in the vast world. This also creates the illusion of the sea being its own chessboard, and with the pockets of light on Antonius (dressed as a Knight) and Death (dressed as a Bishop), Bergman forces audiences to view these two as pieces in a surreal chess game that encompasses their lives. Through this, Bergman again creates the vision of a world with meaningless death and faltering morality.

With all of these formal elements combined, Bergman uses this single shot to present all of the key themes from The Seventh Seal, allowing audiences to sink themselves into the world of surreal, historical drama. We understand the physical power of Death, and the meekness of human life from the blocking. Bergman makes us face the surreality of Death’s appearance in comparison to Antonius’ standard knight attire. The meaninglessness of fighting this abstract force is then heightened when we are faced with the idea that the two are simply characters on their own chessboard. Forced to live out a narrative in which Death is certain, Bergman makes us relate to the frail body of Antonius, making us feel uncertain about our place in this grand world, but also understand the courage it takes to fight the absurd when loss is a certainty.