As my first extract I have chosen to analyse the first eleven minutes of Donnie Darko. The film itself is a dark thriller movie that seems quite confusing at first glance.
At the start of the movie, the title is written in a fancy script, but with no colours or movements, just a plain white font with the background as a freeze from the previous scene of the movie. There is a gleam of light and the scene then fades to a bright white screen, then to the next. It has quite a sudden start as after the credits, it fades straight into an establishing shot to set the scene of where it takes place, showing a body on the road. This extract is set half inside a house, and half outside a house in America. Later in the extract, more writing comes up on the screen in the same font, white writing on a black screen, saying a date. It is simple, yet sudden as you do not know what the date means as it just seems to be a random date.
The camera work in the extract includes at least two establishing shots, one of the house during the second scene and one right at the beginning showing the boy lying on the ground so you can get the gist of what each of the places looks like, so you can later relate back to the picture you have of where it is set to gather more information. There is a tracking shot at the beginning following Donnie home on his bicycle, and also another tracking shot of him walking into his house, so you can follow the action and see almost from his point of view. Whilst the family are sitting around the table there are a lot of cuts between shots of each family member, which are medium shots from the chest upwards. When Donnie’s mother is talking to his father later in the extract, she is shown with a high angle shot, showing that she is the one talking and she is the one with the power over the conversation. There is also a close up of Donnie’s face in the mirror which then turns to a close up of his pills when he opens the cabinet, which disputes the point that his sister made at the dinner table of him not taking the pills. There are a lot of plain cuts to other scenes, which makes the scene seem more intense. At midnight, the clock chimes and the camera slowly zooms to an extreme close up of the clock face. There is also a high angle shot of Donnie when he is walking outside, following the strange voice. Right at the end of the extract, a strange rabbit appears, and the shot of Donnie slowly fades into the rabbit and then back to Donnie again, which is strangely eerie.
The film opens with the sounds of heavy thundering, then slow piano music is added in, it creates suspense with the fact it is an establishing shot and that the music is so slow. The music slowly fades and gets quieter as Donnie nears the house. Whilst at the dinner table there are no sounds, no music or noise, other than the family speaking amongst themselves. Later in the extract a strange eerie voice suddenly starts talking almost as a voice over, then you realize that Donnie can actually hear the voice and it is talking to him saying things such as “Wake Up” and “I’ve been watching you” which are strange things to hear a voice saying. The clock suddenly chimes at midnight, which creates suspense as midnight is generally the most eerie time in thriller and horror movies; it is generally when the main action takes place. The extract then ended with interference on a television, which instantly made me want to watch more of the movie.
The lighting in the extract does not vary much, as it is either extremely dark and eerie, or it is light in the middle of the daytime. Most of the main action in the extract takes place in the dark as it seems to be the most eerie time as you cannot see all of what is going on so your mind wanders to what it may be. It is mainly set at night in dimly lit rooms, where people are most vulnerable as at least one of their senses is lowered. There is also a flash of light after the title comes up, which then fades into the next scene.
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