Echo Analysis

-

Echo by Lewis Arnold


Narrative


  • Character study
  • Cyclical, never ending
  • Plot derives from revealing mystery behind main character
  • Not Todorov structured
  • Emotionally charged rather than plot

Genre


  • Personal interest/true story
  • Could be real
  • Character focussed
  • Morally grey main character

Representation


  • Urban
  • Lower/Middle class
  • Dysfunctional family
  • Central character young white woman
  • Mental illnesses
    • Reaction to grief, trauma
    • Depression or PTSD?
  • London
    • people helpful, try to assist girl, no criminals
    • positive representation of location

Audience


  • Audience's view on woman played with throughout the film
  • Always positioned with her, but view on her morality and support of her actions changes
  • Initially sympathetic, then disgusted with scam, then grey with reveal of dad having actually died
  • Film doesn't give strong preferred reading, up to audience to decide

Micro Elements


  • Desaturated colours
  • Not a lot of music
  • long shot of woman shows facial expression changing, creates confusion over truth
  • lowkey lighting
  • use of cigarette and bars of garden thing, associated with film noir, and morally grey protagonists
  • silence used to represent introspection
  • asynchronous sound
  • jump cutting to create sense of time moving, woman does same thing over and over again
  • use of acting to display inner thoughts, not voice over
  • lots of mirror and windows
    • often used to connote idea of identity, or deception
    • distance from mc

What I Liked

I liked the construction of the complex character, one who the audience doesn't fully understand but in a way that is compelling, not frustrating. The use of jump cuts to create the sense of repetition was also good.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Film Ideas

-
Some More Ideas The ghost of a murdered girl comes back to the past to a loner boy to ask for help saving her life.  Two inquisitive girls go to investigate the rumour of a dead body in the woods.  A teenage Cassandra foretells a terrible event, which her sole believer has to try and stop.  A murderer has to try and deal with the fallout after one of their victims is found alive. (Twist maybe, not realising mc is the murderer until the end).  Teen girl fights back against school’s implementation of a nationwide rule that all women can only speak up to 100 words a day. (Inspired by “Vox”). 
Read more

Final Draft of Screenplay

-
Written in Freescreenwriting.com INT. CLASSROOM - DAY A pen scrawls on paper. We move up to a girl (CASSIE). She is small and mousy, not seeming to fill the space she exists in. She sits pulled into herself, arm cramped into her side as she writes. She pauses, and looks out to the side, caught by something unseen. From her perspective, a shadow slips out through the window of the door. Looking through the window, she gets up, moves towards the door. Steps into an empty corridor and looks around. There's nothing, not even a sound. Pulling out a notebook, she scribbles something down. She reenters the classroom, a quick apology. We stay in the corridor, empty and quiet. INT. KITCHEN - DAY Cassie pulls out a huge chest, covered with dust. A thick padlock weighs it down. She places a key into the lock, and is about to turn it, when she pauses. On the wall, a photograph of her, SALLY (17) and a third girl, TALIA (17). They look happy, the dictionary definition of close...
Read more