homework.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/sep/24/facebook-generation-y - This article talks about people who have social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter and how this can affect people’s life with a job, it implies that because of Facebook people are losing their jobs and could possibly result in more people losing their jobs in the future. My opinion on this is that I think that many people use social network sites to interact with people and have fun by uploading pictures, so however it will not affect people’s lives in the future when it involves jobs and health care settings. 

Taken

Summer Project

                                                 Summer Research Project

Movie – Taken

Director:  Pierre Morel

Produced by: Luc Besson

Written by:  Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen

Starring: Liam Nesson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen

Music by: Nathaniel Mechaly

Studio: Europa Corp, Canal+

Release Date: 28^th September 2008(United Kingdom)

Budget: $26.5 Billion

Box Office: $226,830,568

A sequel Taken 2 is set to be released in October 2012 

The main character Liam Nesson who plays Bryan Mills is being represented as a father figure who loves his daughter, as he is a retired CIA field operative he is doing his job to get her back which represents the father he is. The father is shown as a protagonist as he is the leading character which implies that he is the hero of the movie (Propp). The character is being represented by the audience itself, for example most of the film is used by dull colours which represent him as this makes him a super hero when saving her because he uses violence throughout. The character is being represented in this way as he is on an adventure to find out why his daughter is being kidnapped and by who, it has been shown how much he cares for his daughter Maggie Grace who plays Kim Mills. Liam Nesson is a hero like figure which represents him saving his daughter as this is a typical stereotype protecting his daughter. The representation is fair and accurate as he is protecting his daughter as normal fathers do from when they are born as they have a significant role in the child’s development, the suspense and mystery in the movie engages the audience throughout the movie (Enigma Codes – Barthes). The story starts of being happy and when Kim gets kidnapped in the middle everything goes serious and sad and when Bryan finds Kim everything goes back to the start as being happy (Todorov - narrative).

Taken starts off with a clip of a birthday party, a close up of a party hat which then engages next into a close up and straight into the clip of a young child opening her presents which shows that this is based on the girl, the background sound are kids talking which suggests that it might be a kids birthday party. Gentle music is played for the mood of the scene, makes us the audience anxious of what is happening. Close up shows less background as it concentrates on the face to show the audience how the actor is and the importance of the shot, as it shows her facial expressions as she is opening her presents, the camera angle of the shot is ‘eye level’ as it zooms in and out to show it being a handheld camcorder, the handheld shots are mostly called ‘fly on the wall’ effect as it moves around everywhere in and out of each scenes with the different speeds, this gives the audience a great effect as this is called ‘shaky camera’. The next clip is of the cake being brought and candles being blown, as soon as this happens a next scene comes along of a man instantly waking up while he was sleeping on his sofa, which implies that he was having a dream of maybe his daughter, as it is a medium shot as well as low key lighting as the setting is dark and dull, and then moves into a long shot of him in his house as it focuses on his entire body which also shows the setting he is in, e.g. living room. After the video when he wakes up he picks up a piece of paper, as he gets out of the seat a medium shot of a picture frame of a teenager girl riding  a horse. Another shot takes place in the day where the sound starts with cars moving and horning as it has been shown as the daily life of people working, traveling etc. the lighting that has been used is high key lighting of the road when he goes to the shops to buy a gift, as he enters he gets a warm welcome by the shop keeper which shows that he goes to the store quite a lot, as he buys a gift he wraps it with children’s wrapping paper which indicates that the little girl in his dream could be the child he is wrapping it for.

 The next scene moves onto a huge house party, camera movement ‘pan’ as it moves horizontally while following the main object which is the mystery guy ‘Mr Mills’ as he is kept in the middle of the frame, high key lighting to see what is happening in the setting as well as diegetic sound is being used as people are talking, music playing by a band, when he gives the present to his daughter Kim, she walks off to see her other present while leaving the gift on the floor, from there it goes from happy to sad as the mood starts to change, the lighting changes from high key lighting to low key lighting, as he goes come a close up on his scrap book of Kim’s birthday pictures, the images from the scrap book of the clips that he had in his dream in the start of the movie. Bryan takes his daughter to the airport as she is going to Paris with her friend Amanda, and sees a leaflet of a European tour in the car (extreme close up) which indicates from Bryans facial expression that he didn’t know about this, bright lighting to show the expressions on his face as it is set during the day. When Kim lands in Paris she meets a guy called ‘peter’ who drops them off to their apartment as he asks questions about themselves, as he walks away(medium shot)  he takes his phone out as he looks mysterious and speaks in French ‘Fifth floor, two girls around 18’ which indicates that he is not what he seems, this could relate to enigma codes (Barthes) as it creates suspense to the audience who this ‘Peter’ guy is.

Next scene of a close up of Kim picking her phone up from her bag, she goes in the toilet to speak to him and sees Amanda being taken by couple of men, close up of her standing in the bathroom, high key lighting to show more of her facial expressions as it shows that she is scared and terrified and cries with fear, the background music is mysterious which engages the audience. As Bryan Mills is a retired CIA he has the equipment which is why he recorded the conversation, he tells Kim to shout out everything she sees which will help Bryan to help find her, this indicates that he is going to Paris, close up of the equipment he pulls out, recording device, stereo to play it loud as he is sitting in the dark the lighting is dull lighting (Barthes – enigma codes). Shots of the guys walking but the audience can only see their shoes, because we the audience cannot see who they are it creates suspense and mystery of why they took them, While Kim is laying down under the bed a close up of her talking quietly, she smiles while telling Bryan ‘There leaving’ and gets dragged out which is an eye level shot which shows her screaming as the camera is places on the floor so the audience gets a feel of what it is like. Kim shouts out ‘beard, 6 feet, tattoo, right hand, moon and star’ giving Bryan an idea of the people who kidnapped her, in the background we as the audience can hear glass smashing, screaming, and floor board creaking as well as someone breathing heavily on the phone, close up of Bryans face which shows his facial expressions, it shows him looking furious and angry while there is instrumental music which is suspicious and makes the audience engaged.

Kim and Amanda are kidnapped to become prostitutes, Bryan goes to Paris and investigates what happened, he starts off by finding ‘Peter’ and hits him as he escapes Bryan starts to chase after him on a busy motor way and Peter gets killed by a truck hitting him than  he breaks into the apartment, many of the  shots are been used e.g. close ups, medium shots and eye level shots, he follows it step by step and they show clips of Kim getting abducted and the voice over of the recording while he follows the steps, music playing in the background. However throughout the movie low key lighting has been used for this type of movies as the genre are action, thriller and crime, low key lighting indicates that there is a sort of mystery going on which engages the audience as there is quite a lot of killing, fighting and adventure in this movie which targets the type of movie for this film. During the middle he finds the guy who was breathing heavily on the phone when Kim got kidnapped as his name was ‘Marco’ as he kidnap’s him and tortures him in a dungeon, low key lighting has been used for this scene as he is torturing ‘Marco’ the facial expressions on his face was terrified and scared.

During the movie everyone gets hurt or dies as Bryan goes step by step to find his missing daughter and most of them are shot in the dark which emphasises the scene more. However at the end he finds his daughter and she runs and hugs him, a close up shot starts to zoom out until it is a long shot, it shows the image of them head to toe and the setting in the background which is in the boat, high key lighting is being used which means filler lights are being used as it is seen as a lit scene. Low key lighting can be known as a symbol of danger. Hero vs. villain which is Bryan Miller and the Albanian people who he was fighting which can be shown as the theory of Levi Strauss (Binary Oppositions). Sound Bridge has been used when they are hugging and the next scene is when they are at the airport and Kim runs to her mum, as the sound from the first scene starts to carry on even though the image had changed to another scene, Close up of Kim hugging her mum, it focuses on their facial expressions as they both are crying.

Next scene of Bryan pressing the doorbell (Extreme close up), Kim asking Bryan ‘Where are we’ and Bryan says ‘I told you it’s a surprise’, the camera focuses on the door and Holly Valance who plays ‘Sheerah’ opens the door and they come in and the door shuts and the screen goes all back which shows it to be a happy ending. Calm peaceful music starts to play and then loud and rock type of music starts to play.

The hero is created by the way it has been shown about his identity of him being a retired CIA field operative, it shows the audience that he protects people and their lives, this instantly makes the viewer’s aware that he is a hero, however the villain is implied when they abduct the heroes daughter and speaks to him on the phone, with a loud and deep voice. Taken belongs to the genre of action, thriller and crime as this is based on finding a CIA field agents daughter, where he does everything to get her back, including killing people which is why it links to these three genre’s.  The text has been distributed in many ways to promote the film, and these includes making a minute trailer to be shown on the television during breaks of programs as this enables the audience to engage with the movie as they can go and watch this when the movie is being viewed in the cinema’s. the text is more likely to be held as billboards around different area’s to consume a wide range of people which helps attract their audience, as well as posters to attract their attention. 

Links about Taken 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/movie/125815/taken - The guardian (Taken)

article about the movie taken and related links to do with Liam Nesson

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2012/jun/22/taken-2-trailer-liam-neeson - the guardian

(Taken 2)

Trailer on the new movie of Taken 2 which is coming out on October and 

what the plot of this story is going to be about to inform the audience 

about this topic as it targets the audience to watch this.

http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/ReviewComplete.asp?FID=135695 – The empire

http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=35085- the empire

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0289830/reviews - IMDb 

http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/review.asp?DVDID=118002 – empire magazine


The movie also has their own official Facebook and Twitter page which helps them to promote their movie and there up coming new movie Taken 2 this gives the chance to their audience to watch and find out what is happening with the stars and celebrity's for example the Facebook fan page of Taken includes images of the actors from the movie and what they are getting up to and the new trailer of 2012 as well as couple of images from the movie to give a couple of hints which will appear from the movie which targets the target audience to watch this movie, this is called interactivity as they are interacting online to help promote the movie as it attracts a wider range group of people. Social networking sites such as Twitter has over 3,000 followers.