I won't tell you how it ends, because if you haven't seen it, that would ruin it. I highly recommend watching this film, it is just fabulous.
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| A quote by the director of The Avengers, Joss Whedon |
Nearly every film written and produced in this day and age use the Single Camera Technique. I wrote a quick blog on this which is available to read here: http://strictlysavage.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/the-basics-of-single-camera-technique.html. Using the single camera technique, it allows the film to be edited in the most creative way. The flow of the production is much more lenient if this technique is used as it allows the edit to move with the audience. There are many scenes within the film The Avengers but I finally found a clip that I thought would be good to critique.
The following clip shows a calmed-yet-heated discussion between two characters; Loki (the villain) and Tony Stark, who is Iron Man (the hero.) These two have some of the biggest personalities within the film. With Loki's determination to make the world his kingdom, he continues to portray his craved power in front of Tony. Tony Stark has always been known as the 'funny' Avenger. His one-liners and outstanding wittiness keep the audience entertained during what should be the serious and scary moments. Personally, Iron Man is one of my favourite characters because of this. This clip is filmed at Stark Tower, which is the home of Tony Stark. The camera flips from Loki to Tony, and back again. The conversation endures a clear rivalry and you could cut the atmosphere with a knife. Throughout the clip, it is clear that Tony is trying to keep his cool, as his visible calm persona almost tricks Loki in to thinking he can turn Tony into one of his minions. Tony is a very clever man, so he mentally and physically prepares himself for Loki's scheming plan.
Tony Stark and Loki share wits
Throughout this scene, we see around 19 different camera shots and each and every one of them bring something to the scene. Tony is mainly stood behind his bar, stereo-typically to make him seem vulnerable, and he appears to be using it as a barrier from Loki. The colour palette of this film is quite dark. All different shades of blue, brown, grey and black are the majority of colours we tend to see. This ties in with the genre of the film, action and sci-fi, as these colours identify different themes, such as; death, space, earth, sky, explosions.
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| All 19 shots of the scene: Tony Stark & Loki - Headcount |
There are a few shots I really like and I think it's because they portray Tony as the more dominant character of the scene.
I particularly like shot 6 as this is where we first see Tony's wittiness towards Loki. We establish quite early on in the scene what the theme is - Loki wants to turn Tony in to one of his minions. The mid-shot of Tony (6) shows him smiling, which is where we really see him showing his true feelings towards Loki. Shot 5 is where Loki says ''I've met them [the Avengers]'' and this is the lead up to shot 6, in which Tony laughs because he's slightly stating the obvious. Shot 9 is quite a hard one to explain if you've never seen any of the Iron Man's, but I'll give it a go. Tony Stark is one of the world's most famous mechanics and he creates machinery like no-one else could possibly do. His wrist straps are a magnet source for his whole Iron Man suit, and when he gives the signal, the suit will come flying through everything in its path and attach itself to Tony, making him indestructible. Just after this scene, Loki throws Tony out of the window and Tony is fast falling to the ground, in which he uses his wrist straps to save him. (Unfortunately, I cannot find a clip).
Skipping to shot 17 now, and this is very powering. The angle of the camera shows Tony to be abnormally large compared to where the camera is situated - which is below him. This makes his appearance look very dominating and frightening. He is purposely made to look big, to make his suggested personality and role be a hero. This shot corresponds with the shot before it, which is shot 16. We see the camera looking over Tony's shoulder towards Loki, and again, this makes Tony look dominating. In this shot, Loki looks very small. This coincides with most of the film and gives the audience an indirect way of showing how dominating Tony is compared to Loki.
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| Body language of the promotion posters comparison (see paragraph below) |
Corresponding to the scene I have reviewed, I decided to look at the promotion material used for the whole film. Researching in to character backgrounds and personalities, the teaser posters matched up very well to the information I found.
Iron Man/Tony Stark, (up to The Avengers), has always been a successful business man and hero. He has made his way through a number of life's difficulties, including the passing of his father and a lot of stick from the press for his achievements. In the first Iron Man, a bloke stole his idea of 'Iron Man' and created a bigger version, in-which, of course, there was a battle of the two 'Iron Men!' which Tony still came out on top, and killed off the copy. In hindsight, Tony Stark has, and probably always will, win.
Loki, on the other-hand, has never been successful. His brother, Thor, and him live in another world, known as Asgard. The first Thor movie displayed Thor replacing his father as King and Loki losing out. When Thor visited Earth, Loki tried to kill Thor in order for himself to become King, and he failed. Thor returned to Asgard after the battle which resulted in Loki disappearing, leaving Thor and his family and kingdom into thinking he was dead. Although throughout The Avengers, Loki seems to win all of the tasks he does, the audience know in the back of their minds that he will never win the battle, and he will never be King of the Earth... Or will he? Well you'll just have to watch the film to find out!
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| The Avengers Black Widow, Captain America, Hawk Eye, Hulk, Iron Man & Thor |
To end this post, I'll leave you with this. In all of the promotional pictures for the 6 Avengers, Iron Man is the only character looking at the camera. Does this mean anything? Yes. (Now I actually have to tell you what happens at the end of the film, for this to make sense. Damn.)
The Avengers - Finale
Iron Man is the real reason that the world was saved. He flew a nuke into the other world, through the Earth's opening, so it exploded, killing the source of the alien-like creatures, ordering them to just completely drop on Earth. There's tension as the audience have no idea if he's going to survive, as Black Widow has turned off the Tesseract, meaning the wormhole will close any second. There's questions flying through audience's heads... ''Will he make it through in time?'' and ''Will he survive?''. With his eye contact in the poster, it corresponds with the film ending, showing that in hindsight, even though the other Avengers have their own special part in saving the world, he is the main hero!
Cheerio. :o)
- Olivia. Stark.
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