15/9/15 - Spaced

Firstly watching Rear window, Hitchcock 1954 I wrote a few notes on how we saw the first scene through the four relationships of editing which are Spacial, rhythmic, temporal and graphic. We realize that nothing is accidental through this shot from the sweat on the main characters face to the cat running up the stairs. This is quite a unique way of editing as it was one long shot, that had no cuts for minutes. This was done so we could see the environment, we can see it is morning as people are waking up, making breakfast, the milk man came and the cat coming back home in the morning. There was no dialogue although there was diegetic sound as there as music over the whole scene for the audience to hear. Looking at mise-en-scene here we can see by all the props what people do for a living such as, when we enter the main characters apartment through the rear window we see photographs all over the walls showing he likes photos but it then carries on to show his cameras, we then realize he is a photographer and as the camera carries on panning around to explore the apartment we see a photograph next to a pile of magazines. The photograph is the original one from the magazines which explains he is a magazine photographer. This was all done without one word. We then look at the colours used showing his earth like coloured clothes and walls which instantly make the audience like him. After we watched this Hitchcock scene we then moved on to watch an episode of a TV show called spaced. Again we looked at the way of editing through this and it was very different to the way Hitchcock filmed his first scene in Rear window. This episode of Spaced was a non-linear narrative as it started at the beginning with two characters running away from someone. It then flashed back to the beginning of the day just after they met up with a group of boys. It was cut many times throughout the first scene to show how fast and where they were running to. When it flashed back to that morning it showed the main character (Simon Pegg aka Tim) getting ready to go out on a date with his girlfriend but then she blows him off by saying she had to stay late at the office to work. As he was upset about this the main female character (Jessica Hynes aka Daisy) tries to cheer him up by suggesting that they could go out together. When asked what else he would do for the night there was a time-lapse of him sat playing a game on the TV in his imagination, to which he then agrees to go out instead. On their journey out they both have a different idea of what they want to do and when explaining both ideas they talk over pictures and drawings of what the night would consist of. As they could not decide they tossed a coin the one who guessed correct would do their idea. Tim tossed the coin to which we cut to the pub doing what Tim said thus them not needing to tell the audience who won, we figure that out by ourselves. This is called an ellipsis which means they took out the thins that weren't important but still making sense. We see the time pass through the night as they are still in the pub by the repeat of coins being slammed on the bar to order more and more drinks. There is also the repeat of the drinks being slammed on the table and the repeat of both of them becoming increasingly drunk. Until this stops and Tim goes to the bathroom, this is when he causes trouble with the boys he meets up with later in the episode. They leave the pub as they don't want to cause trouble with an old friend of Tim's. Leaving his keys we follow this, the boys and the grown man as the cuts through the rest of the scene e.g. the man throws Tim's keys on the back of the truck and as this passes we get a wipe in edit to show the boys, we then wipe again when Tim and Daisy are running away to the grown man again to which the grown man and the boys meet so Tim and Daisy can get away. The way we see the time pass is by the transition edits of the wipe.