Two Cars One Night

Two Cars One Night

Within this section, I will be looking at a question and giving an answer on how the short film 'Two Cars One Night' does this.

Textual Analysis

(Denotation)

In what ways has this film been constructed to have an impact on the audience?

In the opening sequence of the short film ‘Two Cars, One Night’ we are greeted with a short animation of the company who funded it. This is followed by an eerie sound with a dark background, this denotation allows us to arrive at a conclusion it is filmed in either a dark place or at night time.
The opening sequence of the film is a shot of the dark clouds in the sky, however, it has been time lapsed; this is to show the passage of time. Through the use of creative transition, the shot of the sky undergoes a dissolve, fade in tilt shot to the view of the car. The next time lapsed shot to emerge used non-diegetic sound to connotate lightning and to create a feel as though they are in the wild where there is no sense of time. This is followed by people and cars continuously moving around them as their car stays stationary in the car park.
The tracking shot from right to left shows the other car pulling into the car parking space. This shows that this car is important and this is followed and emphasised by a still shot; this visually pleases the audience. We are viewing this tracking shot as an objective shot; this gives the viewer a privileged or perspective.
A shot reverse shot is then used to show the boys interest in what the girl in the other car is doing. This then changed our view point to subjective rather than objective; this involves us within the narrative. The director then used a sound bridge to take the viewers attention away from the shot transition which is called ‘Hollywood style invisible editing’
As the girl is looking at the boy, the depth of field is used to portray the rule of thirds \ ninths as well as an over the shoulder shot is used to show the characters interest in one another. This film used the ‘typical’ convention of cold boy meets sweet girl and is mean to her only to eventually develop feelings for her, the conventional rom-com.
The sound and picture edit combined gives a great effect to the audience.