My Boy Jack-Notes

Notes for the opening of My Boy Jack

Camera

• Fades In
• Establishing Shot of country side and car-setting- wide shot
• Close up of car and drivers watch/ hand- important-wealthy
• Establishing shot of fields/countryside and car - setting - wide shot
• Close ups of car - importance - money - social status
• Longs shots of car approaching - determination
• Close ups of characters faces - emotions
• Track shots - determination
• Over ther shoulder/ shot reverse shot/ mid shot - converstation
• Low angle of man -shows his importance
• View of the driver - mid shot - hand held - from characters point of view
• Birds eye shot of boys waiting and high angle shots- lower status - no authority in situation - under pressure
• Close up of characters face when reading letters - worry - shows audience this is a problem thats an important part of the story.
• Fades in
• Eyelevel shots of conversation and subjective points of view add realism

 Editing

• Action match-shots of car from all perspective
• Continuity Editing-Real time- clock
• Cross Cutting/ Parallel Editing- Two Narratives- Father & Son
• Cut- Cut from clock to car/king- Racing against time?
• Cutaway-From car to clock- Shows lateness
• Dissolve- when he takes off his glasses- shows how bad his eyesight is.
• Ellipsis-car driving/boys waiting/man arriving
• Eye line Match-conversation / when he's reading the letters/eye test
• Fade- Fade in on clock- time has passed
• Jump shots- car
• Long Take- when Jack is waiting to go in
• Short take-car- dad rushing
• shot/reverse shot- conversation between the boys
• Superimpose-writing over boys face/writing over the scene in the beginning of the clip 

Mise en scene

• Setting- driving car-Office/medical room-Mansion
• Costume-Formal suit-Navy and military uniform- glasses- watch
• Body Language- man is in a rush links to clocks
• Lighting-Outside Bright- inside dark and gloomy- adds atmosphere- spotlight on 2 people from window
• Colour- outside- bright, greens, yellows. Inside- dark colours- grays- blacks- navy

Sound 

• Diagetic sound of the clock
• Noise of the car was asynchronous with what happened next 
• sunny weather- jolly music
• string music- creates nervous atmosphere

Narrative Sequence 

• Clock ticking - narrative time
• Characters experience along with time-real time 
• high production values- Daniel Radcliffe 
• parallel time shots-but not linked 
• One-off production drama

Background

• set in world war 1, England-1914
• jacks dad was a writer-from a rich family-quite well known
• shows difference in social class 

Tv Drama

• Historical drama-music,props,costumes,dialogue make it clear that it is a historical drama
• could be aimed at teenagers or adults-due to characters and genre
• primary audience is adults as they can relate to the war
• shows that if you are not born into a correct family or of perfect health, then its harder to get a good job
• using a big star-Daniel Radcliffe- draws in a wider audience-high production values

Characters and performance

• higher class-posh, well educated and wealthy-snobbish
• all men-sexist?
• white British
• based on a true story-realism
• jack is seen as not as good-due to his fathers job

Dialogue

• Short formal conversation
• standard English
• authentic-old fashioned
• use of surnames shows that they didn't have strong bonds with each other.