Elizabeth Analysis

Elizabeth – Analysis of Scene

The scene opens in a room with Elizabeth getting her haircut. The room seems fairly low-key throughout the opening. This is to create quite a depressing atmosphere to the fact that Elizabeth is throwing her free life away to become the Queen. The room has a blue colour palette for a wash out look, which is a sign of gloominess for the audience to feel sympathy towards Elizabeth’s character, also blue is a rather cold colour. This contrasts with her flashbacks of her life before she is about to turn into the Queen. The flashbacks use golden tones, which is a gold colour palette to bring warmth to the scene as she shows the audience her nostalgia. Also gold is a symbol of rich and expense to show her royalty. There is a two-shot during the flashback of Elizabeth with her lover; this is to show the audience her close relationship with him. In the beginning of the scene her face is awfully pale with red lipstick to stand out. Her facial expressions throughout having her hair cut off look quite vulnerable and upset. The girl cutting her hair seems emotional and frightened. There are many close-ups of facial expressions and the scissors cutting her hair. Their faces look tearful. Elizabeth’s posture when she is sitting on the chair (having her hair cut) looks quite strong and dominant but at the same time weak towards the scissors. The scissors represent her personality being thrown away easily; also her new hair cut is short to create equality with men, which gives the impression of strength.

The second part of the scene is Elizabeth about to become the Queen. The first camera shot of this section of the scene is a long/wide shot showing the courtroom, and Elizabeth’s dominance over the people bowing to her. As she walks into the courtroom there is very well high key lighting on the stage where Elizabeth stands. This is to crop out Elizabeth’s dark silhouette to the lower class people in the room. The light is to directly shine on Elizabeth so that she stands out, and so that the light gives her a guide down the pathway to the Throne. Elizabeth stands well postured on the stairs to show her costume and her powerful body language which is a long shot. Her costume she wears is to tell the audience what period of time this film is based on. Also the pale face, lipstick and dress was fashionable in Victorian times and by the Queen wearing this costumes makes her an icon to other women in England. The white dress symbolizes purity and innocence. Walking down the pathway is like walking down the aisle when getting married, and wearing a white dress is like Elizabeth is getting married to England (which she does say). This throne area is showing her importance to England. As she walks down the stairs towards the throne everybody looks quite anxious and frail against Elizabeth. There is a high angle from Elizabeth’s point of view on her ex-lover looking up at her, this is to show his weakness towards the Queen and that there will not be any future for Elizabeth and him.

The main shot is a close up shot at the end (when Elizabeth is sitting placed on the throne). This is to show her pale faced make-up and her facial expressions. Once again she is looking quite tearful but very powerful towards the audience but looks very serious about the control of her new job. The close up image looks like a portrait of the Queen. It is a bright image and there isn’t any colour scheme, just a plain brightness. The atmosphere seems intense and silenced, like the people in the court room are wondering what the Queen will do now. Also gets the audience a little confused to what happens to England next.      

Analysis Of Skins

Skins analysis      

The characters in the image one from 'Skins' are all teenagers. There is a girl in the centre which seems to be the main point of the image. Mainly because of the lighting. The light is shining through the window pane gleaming on the girls face and torso. This attracts the attention of the audience to this character. We notice that her facial expression looks very upset, as her make-up is wearing off and her mascara is running down her face. Also her hair is in a messy style which makes her look as if she’s quite unhygienic. She is wearing only her underwear to show a promiscuous side to her. Everyone in the room is half naked, which brings out a lot of flesh colour. It seems like a party had taken place the day before and now everyone seems to be hung-over and ill. The image is set in a bedroom, which looks like an adult’s bedroom (maybe the parents). The wallpaper is all ripped off and ragged which gives the impression of a dirty atmosphere in the house. There is a lamp in the background shinning on a young boys face. He seems to be the only character in the image that seems conscious about his body. He is lying under the covers to wrap him up, and also wears a hat inside. This gives the feeling that he is uncomfortable around these other teenagers and is intimidated by them.

In image two there is only one character. He is completely pale white which helps his hair and eyes stand out, which are black/brown. The character looks quite suicidal; he is laying in a bath drowning himself in the water staring at the camera with a direct mode of address looking fairly unhealthy. The image is in low key lighting, with a washed out green effect throughout. The walls are dark and torn apart. Showing a scruffy, unhygienic side to himself. There are hardly any props in the room (soap, toothbrush etc.) which makes the character seem quite low class (poor) and represented quite ordinary.

The teenagers are represented as quite naive and vulnerable to each other. They seem to be quite promiscuous. It isn’t a realistic portrayal as not all teenagers are the same as the characters in the image. Most teenagers are similar to the young boy in image one next to the lampshade. As most teenagers are intimidated by celebrities which make them feel insecure about themselves. This image can be believable as some teenagers are very naive, which build them up a sexual representation. All teenagers have parties that destroy their house (image 1), and some teenagers even think about committing suicide (image 2), so the images could be plausible. I consider these two images to be a negative presentation of teenagers. They are being looked at as loose humans, that have insanitary houses. The different responses that the audience might make of these representations of teenagers could be, that they could be scared of teenagers, and that they seem very gullible and immature. Which isn’t true, as some teenagers are quite mature. Some teenagers could find these images quite offensive (also some parents may find it unpleasant). This is because of the way that the teenagers are being represented, not in a nice way.