Textual analysis: Student film ‘Quantum’

STUDENT FILM ANALYSIS – ‘Quantum’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7LLT3mqFTs)

The opening shot is of a boy walking which leads into a tracking shot. This introduces the narrative enigma of where is the boy going which grips the viewer as they want to find out. The tracking shot works well as it frames the boy so that he is constantly in the middle of the shot – this makes the viewer concentrate on the boy and indicates to them that he will be the main character and centre of the action. The camera work in the opening is quite poor at times. They used many hand held shots which if done properly would have looked really good as it would have made the viewer feel the panic that the boy is going through. But in this film it was too shaky and made the film look too amateur. At about 40 seconds into the film, the camera man fiddled with the focus and accidently pulls it away from the boy. Again this mistake made the film look very unprofessional.

One of the most noticeable features of this film is that it lacks sound. The only sound is the voiceover. Although this allows you to feel the emotion of the boy by the tone of his voice, some non-diegetic music would have added another dimension to the film that allowed the viewer to connect with the character more as it will have emphasised the boy’s feelings. Also because there was no music, the film lacked pace. A meteor crashing into Earth should be quite exciting, but the long dragging silence meant there was not any pace and made the film quite boring.

There was quite an impressive piece of editing near the start where they had used CGI to make it look like there was actually a meteor about to hit Earth. This introduced another narrative enigma to the viewers about where has the meteor come from and is it going to be dangerous? The way the film was edited between shots made the film look very amateur. They used effects that made it look like it had been edited on PowerPoint. Also they should have used jump cuts to increase the pace to make it more exciting and grip the viewer but instead each shot dragged on meaning it became boring to watch. There was another piece of impressive editing where again they used CGI to make the boy look like he was walking through walls. This makes the viewer believe the boy actually has super powers and also adds another narrative enigma – what will the boy do with his new powers?

The mise en scene could have been better. There was a lack of props which makes the film seem less realistic when watching. Also when the boy ran over to the meteor all that had crashed was a small rock which was a bit of an anti climax. Also the boy looked exactly the same before and after he got the powers from picking up the rock – they could have used make up to show a slight difference as this would emphasise something strange has happened. It would also add a narrative enigma - what has happened to the boy? Then this would lead on nicely to where he accidentally fell through the wall revealing to the viewer that touching the rock gave the boy super powers.