Super 8

Super 8, which is an American science-fiction movie that produced by Steven Spielberg at year 2011. This film included quite many kinds of genres and it is about few youngsters who are making their own Super 8 movie, which then brought quite some mysterious events to their town. The theory that is going to be applied into this discussion is usage of mise-en-scene within a chosen scene.

Synopsis:

The movie started with the scene of mourning the death of Elizabeth, mother to Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) and wife to Deputy Sheriff Jack Lamb (Kyle Chandler). Her death is all blamed-on Louis Dainard (Ron Eldard), co-worker of Elizabeth. Few months after that, Joe helps his best friend Charles Kazynk (Riley Griffiths) to film a zombie movie. Their film involves Alice Dainard (Elle Fanning), who not only the female lead, but also helped to drive them all out for midnight shoot by sneaking out with her father’s car. Alice and Joe are getting closer to each.

Charles has all his friends to film a scene as the train station at midnight. Charles quickly has all his friends which are also casts in the film to start acting as the train passby behind them. While filming, they witness a massive derailment that destroy the train. Joe finds himself near a container, which has an unseen force underneath the steel. The children discovered the driver of that truck is their biology teacher,Dr. Woodward (Glynn Turman). He is barely alive and he points a gun at all of them to warn them keep this incident secret or they and their parents will die. 

While waiting for the film to be developed, there’s quite a lot of interesting events going on in town. During the investigation, Jack approaches Nelec due to his overhearing on the military communications on the disturbance of radio wave, but that got Jack arrested. After that, Nelec uses flamethrowers to evacuate all the people who are staying in town. Meanwhile, both the kids, Joe and Charles, found out that a large horrific creature absconded from the train when they are watching through the footage that they have took.

Everyone is then brought to the base. Joe found out that Alice is missing from Alice’s father, kidnapped by a big horrific creature. After that, Joe decided to rescue Alice with the help of Charles, Martin, and Donny. They back to town and break into Dr. Woodward’s storage trailer then found out that he was once a government researcher. Now they all understand that the alien just want to escape back to its place. They then succeed to save Alice out of the tunnel where the alien uses to hide all its “foods”. After all, it was a happy ending for all of them after the alien goes back.

During the credits, “The Case” which is the film that produced by the kids is shown and it is quite classified as a comedy to the audiences.

Analysis:

Mise-en-scene is all about settings and arrangements in front of the screen and how the story will flow at scene. Every single detail in the scene is able to tell stories or give information to the audiences from the producer.

The last scene of the movie, where Joe and Alice are both back to the arms of their fathers and watch the alien goes back to where it belongs, is going to be used to discuss for the analysis of mise-en-scene as it presents an emotional, sensation feel, that is different from the main genre of the movie which is science-fiction and mystery. The characters in front the scene are the main leads of this movie which is Jack, Joe, Alice, and Louis. The settings of background behind them has clearly shown that it was a great mess after the destruction of the alien in town. The gestures, posture and expressions of the casts shown that they are physically contact with each other as a family and the intimacy shows the importance of family bond in society. The bright lighting falls on all the four main casts makes the scene to be more focus on them. The focus of camera is on the four main casts too, rather than the soldiers and the residents behind them at the background. These focus skills drag the audience's attention to be on the main four of them as they have been positioned in the foreground of place setting. The audiences are more possibly to be able to read more expressions and gestures of them four. This scene presents an end, a completion of this film as the alien left and all the casts are back together as one.

Conclusion:

To conclude this, this film involves different kinds of genre that brought up a great storyline with exciting climax and unexpected touching ending. The great use of its sound effect had affect the pacing of audiences and helps a lot in telling every details and information about the story. It is a great story to watch after all, as it brought out the importance of family relationships and friendships to the audiences, especially teamwork among friends.

Reference links:

1. www.rogerebert.com/reviews/super-8-2011
2. www.spring2012howtoreadafilm.blogspot.my/2012/01/phillpott-mise-en-scene-in-super-8.html