Essay for representation of the character Jack from Lost - Mr Nicolle

Representation of Jack (Lost)

The opening scene of Lost we see the character we are representing which is Jack; we see him lying in a bamboo forest, we later find out this is due to a plane crash he was on. Jack is wearing a smart dress code including: smart trousers, shirt and blazer. This represents that Jack must have a high, professional job; possibly a doctor or businessman. These clothes have got rips and holes; we assume this is likely to be due to the fall from the plane during the crash. He is represented in the first scene with injuries to his face and we also notice Jack touching and in pain due to an injury on his chest but we don’t see enough to know what he has done. Throughout this essay i will explain the scenes within the Lost clip which represent Jack as a heroic character; also using the representation through Camera Angles, Sound and Mise-En-Scene.

During the first scene in the bamboo forest Jack instantly wakes up and stands up, he hen checks his injuries but ignores them as he can hear the diogetic sounds of people screaming. Jack is also shown as disorientated as he acts more dramatic and quickly flashes through camera shots and angles. At this moment there is also a quiet non-diogetic tune of music in the background, this was building tension of the scene as it made the audience feel something big was going to happen. After hearing the diogetic sounds Jack urges himself to run/jog to his maximum speed towards the loudness of the shouting and screaming. Jack making his way through the forest towards the screaming is filmed using a tracking shot, this represents the heroism as it shows is urging to be rushing to the crash and investigating what was happening. The pace of the running and camera track shows that Jack is urgent to get to the crash scene and highlights some leadership as he is interested to locate the crash. The camera shows his wounds and what he looks like using a close up and gradually zooming out. The Mise-en-scene of this part of the clip represents a very lonely, lost feeling as it is very dark, you can only see bamboo and there’s nothing else in the scene. During this scene Jack also reveals a small liquid bottle out of his pocket this creates a suspicious question about him because we, the audience aren’t yet sure what it is and why Jack is in possession of it.

The first scene which outlines Jack as heroic is when he shouts to the other members of the plane crash, demanding they support him helping somebody from under some rubble. This represents heroism as he has power over other people to help him and they do as he says, it also is shown as he is the one who commits himself to help this injured person and make commandments to get this succeeded. A close up shot of Jack shouting shows a sign of control during the situation. The mid-shot allow the audience to see the location of the plane crash and how much damage has been done such as fire, smoke and broken parts of the plane. This outlines what disaster has occurred in the clip. The location is shown as an exotic holiday island but as the mid shot shows it allows us to notice the island is quite deserted. Jack is also shown as heroic as he is represented as always being alert; we see this as the volume of his commandments lower and the volume of diogetic sounds; screaming and shouting rises. Jacks shown this way as he is in a wide angle which allows the audience to see a women in pain and he notices this then tells the other members helping him with the man under rubble what to do, showing control and power, then makes his way to this which is his second heroic scene.

The second scene which outlines Jacks heroic character is when he dashes from supporting the man under rubble to the next scene where Jack is helping a woman who is pregnant; this automatically represents Jack as heroic as he is yet again helping someone. His heroic act includes him taking control of this situation by commanding a new character to stay with her; he tells him what he needs to do then carry on his heroic role looking for other things he can do to help. During this scene there is a mid shot used, this allows the whole location to be fitted into the picture and lets us, the audience see Jack supporting the new character which is the pregnant women. The camera angle also allows Jack to be seen doing his heroic act of holding her making sure she is ok. The sounds in this scene include diogetic noises only of the screaming and shouting still and the noises of fire and breaking of the plane in the background, these sounds allow the scene to feel more realistic and more like its actually all happening at the same time. When Jack speaks to the other new character who he commands to take care of the pregnant lady we have an over shoulder camera shot, this allows the audience to see the situation from jacks point of view and give us a feeling that we are part of the scene.

The third scene which outlines Jacks heroic character is when he notices a women laying, un-breathing but a young life guard attempting to give her CPR. This shot is an act of heroism as he is multiple caring, he has been supporting a pregnant lady but during this taken notice of another casualty and to help. In this scene Jack stops the life guard from giving the women CPR wrong and takes up the responsibility to give her it. But during this he supports the life guard by teaching him quickly how CPR is meant to be carried out. From the first meeting of the life guard we get an impression he isn’t the cleverest but Jack understands this and keeps him maintained by sending the life guard to do an important role of finding a pen to support Jack in the CPR. Jack shows power, dominance and heroism during this scene as he again takes control of the problem, organises the other character and gives him a role and then finally saves the women’s life using CPR. Many camera shots were used in this scene; the first shot was the over shoulder shot which allowed us, the audience to see Jack talking to the life guard but also seeing what the life guard looks like. A close up angle was used when Jack was participating in CPR; this allowed us to see the importance of doing this and how he was doing it. To start the scene a mid shot was used to outline where Jack had gone to and what he was dealing with. The life guard is dressed in a casual dress code; jeans and a navy shirt (undone buttons with white t-shirt underneath). This dress code would have been placed on this character to represent he didn’t have such a high role as he isn’t dressed smartly like Jacks character.

A conclusion to this representation of Jack would be to say he was a caring person as he is looking after all these people, with an autocratic mind as he takes up responsibly upon himself then makes personal decisions to delegate to other people. The director uses all of these scenes to make us, the audience feel this way towards Jack and like him as a first impression. 

Why did Dredd fail at the box office Essay.

Essay - Why did Dredd fail at the box office? 

The film Dredd was released in 2012; then film was a viewing rating of 18, meaning only 18 years+ could go and visit the film in cinema. The rating score that Dredd received was 7/10 from IMDb and on the Rotten Tomatoes website it received a 6.5/10 score rating. The original budget that the producers received before production was $35,000,000, but it has ended up as a huge failure, only receiving $13,401,683 gross profit back. This outlines that the low budget film was never a success and in this essay I will proceed to argue why Dredd was a failure and use evidence and a comparison to another comic book character set film such as The Avengers.

In pre-production the budget was $35million making this film a low budget movie, the Dredd movie was expected to make its money back easily as any film hopes and expects, but compared to The Film Avengers which has been a very successful comic book character set film the budget has been very low due to The Avengers having a very high budget of $220million. This will have had a huge impact on many different techniques they used to produce the film, stars included, director, producer(s) and the source of material.

The low budget defiantly had an impact on the stars that were featured in the movie, in this film the main characters are played by members who aren’t in massive parts in previous films such as: Karl Urban who has also been featured in the films; Star Trek: Into Darkness, The Bourne Supremacy. Olivia Thirlby who has also been featured in the filmsJuno, No Strings Attached and The Darkest Hour. Final cast member Lena Headleywho has also been featured in the films 300, The Purge and The Game of Thrones. When we compare these members to The Avengers it really shows a different standard of acting and recognizable actors to fans because this movie featured the actors: Robert Downey Jr; who plays the character Iron Man, Chris Evens; who plays the character Captain America. Chris Hemsworth is also featured in the movie; he plays the character Thor, Jeremy Renner; who plays the character Hawkeye and finally the actor Samuel L. Jackson; who plays the character Nick Fury. Robert Downey Jr. was paid a large amount of $50million to be featured in the film The Avengers and the actors Hemsworth, Evans, Renner and Ruffalo were paid a smaller amount of     $2-3million with bonuses and then the actors Jackson and Johansson who earned double the above actors; receiving $4-6million. This equals in a maximum of $74million from the movies pre-production budget just on the above the above characters but they still had others to pay. Comparing this to the characters in Dredd; it is a massive difference due to the producing of the film Dredd being less than the amount they paid one actor for being part of the movie The Avengers. This helps represent it was going to be a slight struggle for Dredd to earn its money back because the main characters were nowhere near close in comparison of fame such as Robert Downey Jr. is always a main character in all of his appearances such as the Iron Man Trilogy or Sherlock Holmes and Karl Urban who has never appeared as a main character before in major films such as he was around third most important character in the film’s Star Trek and Bourne Supremacy.

The director of the film also had a huge impact on the failure of the film. The film director of Dredd was Pete Travis; Travis has also directed the films: Vantage Point, Omagh and Endgame. These films are also low budget films that haven’t ever been known for huge success. But on the other hand Joss Whedon the director of The Avengers has been hugely successful as he directed one of the most known PG films made since 1995 which was Toy Story. This could outline that Travis will have had an impact on the failure of the film due to the less experience in producing hugely successful films. This may then relate back to the budget, due to the non-experience in successful films he may have been a cheap director to pick unlike Whedon which The Avengers producers would have had to pay a larger amount to direct for them.

The production companies that had part of production were DNA Films and another IM Global. DNA Films has never produced a massive film that has gone on to be worldwide known, but the other films they have produced have been: 28 Days Later, Never Let Me Go and many others. IM Global has also never produced a massive film that has gone on to be worldwide known, but the other films they have produced have been: Insidious, Blood and many others. These two companies have always made extreme-low budget films, between $1million to $15million movies. This may have had an effect on the failure due to the production companies not balancing out a $30million+ film before. The Avengers was produced by the companies Marvel Studios and Paramount Pictures that have produced massive successful films such as: Iron Man trilogy, X-Men, The Incredible Hulk, Star Trek Into Darkness, and possibly big successful opportunity film Transformers: Age of Extinction. The producers will have had one of the biggest impacts as seen from this list of films from The Avengers Producers because their films are films that have had big success and are well known, but Dredd are small budget producers that aren’t well known. This impact would have mostly occurred from not being recognized for decent films which would have put the possible customers off watching it.

The source of material cannot have been much of an impact on Dredds failure as a film. This is because the original Judge Dredd Comics have been released since 1977 and have been successful and always made great sales. Also there was a new edition released that came out in 2012 giving a brief of the 2012 Dredd film which was to come. The original comic book is where the idea/material of the film came from, but it was changed and extras were added such as the slo-mo drug.

During the production of Dredd they filmed using a RED X Camera because the filmmakers wanted Dredd to have a realistic, visceral look and drew inspiration from crime and gangster films. The RED X Camera could have affected the unsuccessful result because the viewers may have found it hard to keep their eyes focused s the camera got close ups at certain angles and switched between clips.

The producers also featured all their Dredd screenings in 3D and named it a 3D film only. This defiantly would have affected the success because not all customers and viewers will have wanted to watch it in 3D because of it hurting the eyes or causing headaches, due to this Dredd will have loss many potential, losing them reputation as not being a multi viewable film and losing them money as customers weren’t paying to watch it.

The production of Dredd was taken place in South Africa, this again relates back to the pre-production budget because the production taking place in South Africa produces a much cheaper option than filming somewhere else such as the UK or US. This suggests that the quality of filming and set in the film could have been a higher standard if more money was put into where the film was action shot. This would have led to better quality film which may have had a huge impact on the DVD sales and word of mouth that followed about the film. The Avengers was filmed in many more likely to be expensive locations such as: Los Angeles, USA & Wright – Patterson Air Force Base, Fairborn, Ohio, USA. These locations were both featured in the movie and filming it in the real locations brought a more realistic feeling to the film which would have had a higher interest to the customers of the film.

The post production included the Distribution of Dredd was Entertainment Film Distributors who have also distributed the films Saw ll and Wedding crashers. The other Distributor of Dredd was Lions Gate Entertainment who have also distributed the films The Expendables 1 + 2 and Keith Lemon: The Film. This would have had an impact on how unsuccessful the film was because Lions Gate and Entertainment Films hadn’t distributed the most famous film but on the other hand The Avengers had one of the biggest distributors in the market; Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures who have also distributed the films: Toy Story 3, Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy and Iron Man 3. This will have made The Avengers more successful because they are experienced at distributing large, common, well known movies. One main category that affected Dredd during the distribution was the amount of screens it was released in. The problem was the film wasn’t released in enough cinemas/theatres so this reduced the opportunities for people to see this film on the big screens which in the future would reduce their profits or any earnings.