As research for our practical, we had to do a textual analysis of a film, that corresponded with the genre our group wanted to emulate. I chose Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, as it is one of my favorite teen comedies. The first thing we the audience sees, is the distribution company logo with accompanying music, for this film the Universal logo and orchestral track are parodied, being put into a retro game 8-bit styling, this tells the audience the general feel of the film, like a video game.
After the distribution logo, we hear an opening narration, with almost a transcript in bold black letters, appearing on a white background, the narration is comical as it describes Toronto, Canada as a 'mysterious land'. Following this is a tilt shot, which is a very effective transition from the transcript, the shot stops on a medium/long low angle shot of a house, which sets up the scene. We can also tell that the setting is cold, as there is snow on the roof and on a tree, there's also icicles hanging from a roof. We hear a characters voice before the shot changes, to a medium/long shot of the characters in the kitchen, this aids in the transition, because we haven't just automatically changed scene, we are intrigued by the voice, and so it lets the director change scene to show us where the voice is coming from. The medium long shot lets us establish the setting and the characters in it, we see three characters sat down at the table, who are well lit, and one stood up and darker, from this we could interpret that the character standing up is different from the others, a black sheep character, this could also be shown by the fact the other characters are looking at him. While there is a conversation between Scott (character stood up) and Kim (character sat down), an over the shoulder high angle shot is used (over Scott's shoulder), we could say this puts Kim in a weaker position, and that she is not the character we should be focused on. Low angle shots of Scott show he is that he should be the focus of our attention, and that he is important/powerful than the others. The other two characters Stephen and Neil are shown at relatively eye height, this could show the relationship between these two characters and Scott, because being guys they'd probably have similar interests, while Kim being the only girl might feel left out, so she is shown in high angle shots. There are close ups of each of the characters faces while Scott talks, showing there reaction to what he says, we could interpret this as almost a point of view shot. This then switches to an over the shoulder high angle shot of Kim, we could say that she might be jealous (the topic of conversation being about Scott's new 17 year old girlfriend Knives Chau), this may lead her to be weakened by her jealously, because she speaks in monotone and is quite expressionless, she tries to carry a 'tom boy' façade. A medium shot of the group shows that the attention is still on Scott, and shows the emotions of Kim and Stephen, but Neil is blurred in a narrow depth of focus, this could show he's not important.
When Scott answers the door for his girlfriend Knives she is shown in high angle, she is shy so this might reflect the weakness that comes from that, but this could also be a point of view from Scott as she is shorter than him, and vice-versa for Scott. When Stephen comes into the frame we are in an over the shoulder low angle shot from Knives' point of view, this most likely represents her shyness and stature. When Stephen shuts the door to talk quietly to Scott, we zoom in to a two shot close up, this probably represents that the conversation is meant to be isolated from the others, and to show the characters emotions.
As I can not get the clip uploaded as it is not online, I've linked the trailer to prove it exists:
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