Monday, 15 September 2014

Monarch of the Glen

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Monarch of the Glen:


Camera:

During the clip of Monarch of the Glen many different camera angles have been used. These have helped the representation of age greatly. Straight away one of the first camera shots is an establishing shot of the land, this uses denotation as it helps the viewer understand what the scene is about. The camera then moves on to show Amy. As she is the youngest person in the scene the camera looks down on her, this is compared to farmer McDonald as the camera looks up at him explaining how far superior he is compared to Amy because of his age. When farmer McDonald is speaking to Amy’s head teacher the camera shot is a close up of their faces to show their facial expressions all because they are older so this is anchorage as it again reinforces representation of age during the clip. Lastly when Amy and farmer McDonald argue the camera is an over the shoulder shot aiming up too show the audience the child’s point of view. This is a good use of connotation as it could have many different meanings but I feel it’s to represent  age again as it explains how far superior the older person is because the children have to look up to him.

Sound:

Throughout the clip the older characters such as farmer McDonald and Amy’s head teacher always speak down to the younger characters this shows prestigious age is. When both these two have a confrontation about the car crash Amy’s head teacher uses connotation and goes straight to the point of why Amy is missing school. He is speaking aggressively about her but not to her as he feels her age is so young she can’t be trusted or reasoned with because of her age which is good use of ideology because it’s the head teachers values and opinions being clearly presented. In contrast when farmer McDonald and Amy’s head teacher is alone they are more conversational and friendly towards each other because they both feel a mutual respect between adults which a child and an adult may not necessary have. The text may have been treated this way to represent age in such a way it’s demoralising to child as they don’t have any respect from adults. The dialogue in the background isn’t diegetic as it isn’t completely necessary but creates a country sort of mood and explains what happens on a day to day basis in the country.

Editing:

In the Monarch of the Glen the editing has been done to show representation of age. When Amy is in the scene in the truck the editing has been cut a lot more quickly as it kept switching from her being anxious in the van too cutting straight away to farmer McDonald loading up the truck. This shows age representation because it’s showing the difference between children struggling at an adult’s job to cutting to adults easily doing their job. When farmer McDonald and Amy’s head teacher are talking alone as ‘adults’ the editing is wiping so a image is replaced as it moves along the screen at a lot slower pace this is because it doesn’t change the camera angle very often. This shows age representation well, as it uses connotation as they have a lot to talk about and they have many different answers to the questions, also they aren’t as anxious as Amy was so the whole scene is a lot slower and more relaxed. The editing has used ideology very well in the sense that it creates many different feelings and outcomes to why editing has been done this way. For example when someone is feeling anxious or nervous it’s a lot faster compared to when someone is in a deep thought, the shots haven’t really been changed they have been left natural to embrace all the emotion in the certain shot.

Mis-En-Scene:

During the clip of Monarch of the Glen mis-en-scene gives you the viewer a really good understanding of representation of age. This is done in many different ways such as the differentiation in the clothes certain characters are wearing, if a characters clothes are dirty, worn and used, this means they are highly skilled and knowledgeable as they are a lot older, whereas if a character has fairly clean and new clothes these means they are a lot younger and aren’t as experienced. Furthermore in the scene where Amy runs away she only leaves on prop which is a bear this is predominantly a children’s toy which is innocent and sweet. The ideology of this is a bear is a young toy which a child would still have whereas at the same time the older characters are using big heavy machinery and lifting big heavy poles which shows the difference in age because it’s a contrast between two very different props. 

Overall the main representational issue is age. This is shown in many different ways if this is either connotation, denotation, anchorage or ideology. They all help to represent age. It has been done successfully through many different ways such as: camera, sound, editing and mis-en-scene. To me this particular clip represents age in a negative way and being young is a frowned upon. I feel this is wrong and the younger characters should be treated the same way as older characters are. Some younger people may not be more experienced but may not be more knowledgeable.

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