Donni Darko analysis (editing)

In the film Donnie Darko, the editing is a significant part of the film. Without it, a lot of the film would not be able to be made.

I think one of the most interesting special effects is when the watery effect seems to lead the characters around. This is very confusing for the audience because they really do not have a clue what is happening, and adds to the mystery of the film. We can see that Donnie is the only person who can see this. We can tell this from the expression upon his face, and the other characters are going on with their every day lives. This may subtly build up tension as we can see from his puzzled face that he has never witnessed this before. Then the camera pans back round and his expression is back to normal.

There are a large variety of camera shots, a lot being over the shoulder camera shots. This gets the audience involved in the conversation, drawing their attention to what is being said. There are also a fair few establishing shots, which is expected as it is the beginning of the film and the audience is new to the characters and mise- en- scene.

The camera cuts throughout the shots are very quick and sharp which the audience may not notice, but are vital to give it a professional finish.

Without the editing, it would be extremely difficult to hazard a guess as to what genre of film it is, as nearly all the special effects show sci-fi/fantasy type goings on.

Momento film analysis

‘Momento’ is a very unique film, in the sense that it is essentially reversed to create an effect that not only makes the viewer think, but also to break the rules of the Thriller genre. Throughout the film we gradually discover that what we saw at the beginning, was not what we thought to be the start, but in fact turns out to be the ending.

The creators have used two narratives in the film, which run throughout and show past and present, except we see them as the other way round in the film. The present is filmed in black and white, even though this would usually represent a flashback. The alternative narrative which is filmed as the present, but in fact is the past, is filmed in colour. This really gets the audience wondering about the film.

I think that the film has been shot in the peculiar way to represent Lennie’s frame of mind, which is distorted somewhat from reality.

The film uses deception throughout, not only in the characters but in the narrative itself, as it’s deceiving the audience from start to finish, ( or end to start ).

There is a lot of Non-diegetic sound in the scenes that I watched in class, but unlike other thrillers which use music that builds up tension, this does not. The music isn’t tense at all and creates no suspense whatsoever, but is still there for effect.