Lina Johansen: Blog

Blade Runner (Scott, 1982) vs The Lady from Shanghai (Welles, 1947) These are screenshots from one of the romantic scenes in each film. The setting in both scenes are very dark but with different sorts of lighting. The lighting in BR shines through some blinds which is a characteristic in classic film noir. In TLFS the lighting is high contrast low-key lighting which is basically the film noir lighting. In TLFS they use a soft focus which they don't use in BR. As you can see in the two screenshots there is a similar use of camera angles, two over the shoulder shots. In the scene the women are both very vulnerable, being overpowered by their men.

A screenplay is a totally different art form from writing a novel or a play. In a novel the story usually goes on in the main characters head where they tell about their inner thoughts, ambitions motives and describe what they're doing. In a play the audience is the fourth wall and they get to eavesdrop the life of the characters stories on stage. An actual screenplay is a visual medium of where the storyline is dramatised. It's told with images, in dialogue, and description and in the context of a dramatic structure. A screenplay is about a person, persons, a place or places doing their thing. All screenplays follow this structure; a character doing their thing is them taking action. All screenplays have three pieces; a beginning, a middle and an end. When you have all the pieces the structure of the story is complete. They don't necessarily have to be in the same order but without any of those parts, the story is no longer a story, it's incomplete. A paradigm is ...

Name: Melvin (Melly) Valerie Gender: Female Age: 22 Height: 5'8 feet Hair colour: Red Eye colour: Grey Personality: Stubborn, short-temper, argumentative, loud, addictive personality, cynical, sarcastic, Inner thoughts: Thinks she's superior, lives a rebellious life because of her strict childhood, doesn't talk to her parents. Situation: Her relationship is her pride and joy but she finds out that her boyfriend is gay and drops all her bad attitude to get him to change his mind. Starts to stalk him, ends up getting in trouble.

Powerpoint presentation  https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByddJOGQ_IX8MEY2ODRDYWdybWc/view?usp=sharing

The Lady from Shanghai scene analysis The Aquarium scene: Mise-én-scéne: Lights flickering through the movement of the water in the aquariums in the background creates an uncertainty in the scene and makes it feel a bit eerie. There are also visible silhouettes of the fish, sharks and octopuses. Performance:  Michael and Elsa step closer to each other as they profess their undying love for each other. As the tension starts to build when they read Michaels confession they move further apart and walk around to create a more dramatic dynamic. Their facial expressions are quite bleak and neutral even though it is a very dramatic scene. 

The Lady from Shanghai Character Analysis "Michael" Michaels' a seemingly charming young gentleman. In his opening dialogue he's calling himself a fool, which implies that he's not the most proud man. The character Michael is meant to seem innocent by the way he narrates a flashback of how he met a woman, the classic femme fatale of film noir. He tells a story about how he met the woman in a carriage, passing him by in Central Park, late at night. He described how beautiful she was by saying "once I had seen her I was not in my right mind for quite sometime". He also pointed out in his narration that "some people can smell danger, not me" which once again implies that he perceives himself as a fool. As the gentleman he was he offered the lady a cigarette, which typically appear in film noir, to show her his romantic interest. To his surprise the Lady says she doesn't smoke, but takes the cigarette anyway to flatter him. Whilst this e...