First Main Analysis - Jane Eyre

Official Trailer
Jane Eyre is about a young girl who had a bleak and loveless childhood. She leaves to become a governess at Thornfield hall and begins to fall in love with the master of the house who has a terrible secret.

This film is in a romantic-drama and therefore follows typical codes and conventions. Steve Neale says that 'genres are instances of repetition and difference' meaning that genre's of film are only defined by the repetitive conventions used by film-producers and the differences between them. The conventions typically used in a romantic-drama include things like:

• Narrative where there's a typical Boy meets Girl but there's some form of trouble
• Theme's of love
• Romantic points usually containing relaxing ambient non-diegetic music
• High key lighting when things are good, and low key lighting when things go bad. The girl has typical brighter colours then the boy and a massive use of close proximity between the 2 main characters with lots of 2 shots.

The target audience for this film, according to IMDB, is the female population. This can be simply explained by the name of the movie 'Jane Eyre' because this is the name of the main character that is female. A heroine is more likely to attract a female audience then a hero.





The trailer starts off with a non-diegetic thumping sound to grab the audiences attention, because even though this is a horror movie stereotype, it shows a breaking of stereotypes and the beginning of the trailer is meant to be shocking as it shows flashes of the young Jane Eyre experiencing a terrible childhood. While there is narrative over the top which consists of a conversation between what seems to be Jane Eyre and a father figure, there is a fading edit between 2 main scenes - a wide shot/establishing shot of a graveyard/castle, a young version of Jane Eyre running through a darkened hallway. This darkened hallway implies that she is scared and worried about what is going to happen to her. The clothes she is wearing in this scene, however shows the time period of the Victorian era. The narrative then becomes diegetic because Jane is having a conversation between another man talking about hell. She is seen to be in a house that has been critically designed to look like its in the Victorian era E.g. guilded furnature and fireplace. Up until this point, the pace of the trailer is quite fast reflecting the amount of panic and stress that Jane has. The male then says "would you like to fall into this pit and burn forever", which at this point Jane looks to her left towards the fireplace and the camera goes to a point of view shot. The fireplace then blows out some dark smoke which may shock the audience as it comes out of nowhere. It then has a mid shot of Jane banging and screaming against the wall, but we haveno reason why. Focusing on the target audience, this is meant to cause sympathy/empathy for the viewer and these motions are known to be stereotypically related to women.
The next few shots consist of Jane being of a large proximity to the other actors and have alot of low key lighting showing signs of lonliness and despair.
To show a transition of time and feeling, they use a jump cut to Jane waling through the rain while wearing raincoat to protect herself. This is a mid-shot, so even though it may not show her emotion fully, it shows the struggle of her being trying to get through the weather.
The next few scenes are either inside the manor house that Jane is living in or the surrounding area as this is the main part of the story and timeline. The use of candlelights implies this because, this was the type of light source used in this time period. During the night scenes, there is a lot of low key lighting to show not only nightfall but the fear/stress thats related to the actor on screen. The main part of miss-en-scene they use to show the time period are props, costume and location. The Manor house itself contains gilded furniture and candlelights. The costumes used are of a victorian age.
The master of Thornfield house, is constantly shown to have a low key lighting to reflect his apparent dark secret. Also the camera tends to close-up on his face to show off his emotions which tend to be plain.
To show the audience that this film is of a Drama/Romantic genre, once the trailer gets to about half way it begins to contain 2 shots of Jane and the master of the house either being close together in proximity or at a distance from each other to reflect their relationship at the time. Also there seems a bit of mystery in the story and this is reflected by the use of editing whereby the use of flashes between important moments and a thumping sound implies the beating of a heart, and this repetition begins to speed up eventually coming to a close where it shows the credits, date of release and the name of the film.


Poster (23rd Sept)

There is a use of blending in this picture to show off both of the main characters but also to reflect the feelings between them. Jane may be the dominant but inside of her dress is an edited version of Edward that has been blended in with a blue filter. The actual image of Jane standing in her dress is a mid-long shot. Her dress is the colors white and blue symbolizing purity, kindness, calm and serenity which reflects the character of Jane Eyre. The contrast between the dirty grey background and the actual image of her, gives Jane a ghostly figure which also reflects her personality or being a shadow of her former self. This ghostly feeling is also shown through the use of lighting as its mainly focused on her face. The reason behind blending Edward into the dress is to represent control over her, and this image of him is a close-up. It is a very simple picture but has a lot of meaning behind it.
The title of the film is in a white colour reflecting Jane’s personality. Even though the text itself is very simplistic, it is of a sans serif style. The title “Jane Eyre” can also imply the target audience because it’s a heroine that the story focuses on. The name of the actors and other information such as directors and the studios are in black.
The composition of the poster itself implies that Jane is wondering about something and it seems to be a Jane vs. Edward situation as they are both facing different directions.