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:
28th 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
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
(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/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.
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.
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