Analysis of Films in our Genre

January 22, 2010

We took inspiration from each of the films two-minute openings however on these films YouTube didn’t allow us to copy the link to our post due to copyright laws. The first two-minute should be interesting and make the audience want to watch more, in our film we end on a mystery to keep audiences interested, which is why we chose these films to look at, as they are of a simular genre of which we are trying to re create.

Schindler’s List

When researching films of a similar genre to our own, we found Schindler’s List to be very inspirational, many aspects we want to include in our film our inspired by research into this film. The context of setting a film around the second world war is similar to our film and the black and white effects used is something we want to use at points. Additionally, the film circles around the horrors of the holocaust, a part of history that we felt would be interesting to explore and possibly inform people. The music in the film is sombre and dramatic and it seemed to capture the mood perfectly, something we really wanted to achieve. Schindler’s List is about a german business man who defies the horrific events of the holocaust and likewise we had a german as our main character who eventually rejects the holocaust. We took inspiration from costume and mise en scene from this film, in our film we show Germany with a shot of the Wannsee conference building and Schindler’s List had many shots itself in Germany.

Sin City

Only the first 2 minutes illustrate the research we explored with the film Sin City, which was the red colour effect in black and white. The colour correction technique was something we strived to use at some point in our film and we wanted to show the swastika in red contrasting with the overall black and white scene. The technique is artistic and we wanted to challenge ourselves with editing by incorporating unique and interesting visual effects. The context of the film doesn’t match our context however this clip illustrates the colour correction technique we wanted to use.

The Pianist

Similar to Schindler’s List the context is similar however this film is in colour, which we use at points in our film. The Pianist has a very good soundtrack and the dramatic piano music is something we want to include in our film. The Pianist is from a Jewish perspective however our film tells the past of a Nazi and seeks to challenge audiences without being controversial.

The Reader

This film revolves around the theme of the holocaust and very much alike to our film reveals a character’s past throughout the theme through flashbacks and reflection, however in ‘The Reader’ this is done in court scene’s. The mystery and revealing of secrets is something that we really wanted to have in our film as it adds to the tension and excitement.  The Weinstein Company write that “THE READER is a story about truth and reconciliation, about how one generation comes to terms with the crimes of another”. This follows the concept for our film as our Nazi character tries to reconcile and the teenager comes to terms with the crimes of his generation.