Second Main Analysis - Amelie

Film Trailer (30th Sept)

Amelie is a film about a girl who has had a supressed childhood because of her father and because of this, barely comes into contact with other people thus creating her own fantasy world. At an older age she moves to Paris and in her apartment she finds a box which belonged to the previous owners. She returns the box and vows to devote her life to the people around her.
This film is a cross between fantasy, romance and comedy and it follows certain codes and conventions which can include the following

• Use of magic
• Having natural/supernatural phenomena as a theme for the plot
• Make-believe creatures or exotic fantasy words
• 'Dream-like' trailers that don't seem to give away the plot
• Some form of animation
• As a fantasy, it is generally related to Sci-fi therefore the director makes sure the audience know whats going on otherwise it becomes a horror.

"Although it is common to classify fantasy texts by themes and motifs or by the extent to which story-worlds and events deviate from realistic representations, Tzvetan Todorov concentrates on the response generated by the "fantastic" events in the story. "http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Criticism-Ideology/Fantasy-Films-THEORY-AND-IDEOLOGY.html
This basically means that the genre of fantasy is mainly defined by the theme's behind it which are shown on screen as realistic representations. So in this film, the fantasy comes from Amelie's emotions being turned into short animations or even the fact that she has created her own miniature world in her head.

Using IMDb as a secondary resource, you can see that the target audience seems to be women, which can be explained simply by the actual name of the movie as its a french girl. However, it is still a very highly rated film and one of the best fantasy films according to this website.

Sound

Throughout the entire film trailer there is a narrative being told, and non-diegetic ambient music over the top which sounds like a childrens lullaby however once the trailer turns to the adult version of Amelie, the sound becomes more stereotypically french. When she finds the mysterious box a sudden loud noise is made which indicates that her whole world is about to be shaken, also everytime there is a passage of time, change in situation or place, there is the same loud noice to indicate it. In the cafe when she "melts" to water, the sound of water splashing is diegetic even though the feeling and sound happens in her own fantasy. The ambient music ties in with the speed of the film trailer because its slow at the beginning and begins to speed up, indicating her worry and the flurry of things she has to handle.

Lighting

In the first few seconds of the trailer the lighting is consistently changing because it is embodying the characters personality so that when it finally comes to Amelie working in the cafe it uses high key/natural lighting as she is shown to be very happy and positive person.
Most of the trailer seems to be in natural lighting because a lot of story is outside.

Editing
The obvious use of editing in this movie, are the corrections used such as a sepia tone to correct the "whiteness" and a softening edit to make the characters look more animated creating a more "perfected image". During Amelie's little dream sequences they use a black and white tone to help the audience tell the difference. The trailer itself starts off slow paced while depicting the main characters from the rest which builds up in speed through the trailer as Amelie's life becomes more complicated. To influence the fantasy genre, during Amelie's "fantasies", they use a lot of editing/animation to show off how she's feeling. For example, when Amelie is in the cafe and she begins to blush, she turns to water. Besides the use of many jump cuts to show a passage of time, there are flashes of lighting when thoughts of great realisation occur and 2-3 of the clips express this also through a sped up version. The pace of the trailer slows down right at the end to imply the ending of the film as the pig turns off the light.

Camerawork
The main type of shot used in this trailer are close-ups as the characters have a load of expressions on their faces, however at the beginning of the trailer where there are many characters being shown, once it gets to the point of Amelie, the camera starts off at a mid shot and zooms into her face because she is the main character.

This is a close-up of the mysterious box that Amelie finds and this is done because this box is the whole reason as to why she goes on her journey to discover what it is and why it exists.

There is a point of view shot where luggage seems to fly past Amelie and this fast paced motion would seem to confuse the audience.

 This image is a 3-shot, of the male character and extra and Amelie. In this short scene there is a point where there is an over the shoulder shot where you see the male character look over his shoulder to see what Amelie is doing. Afterwards there is a close-up of Amelies face beginning to blush, however she turns to water and the camera pans downwards as it watchs her melt away.

 This is one of the most important shots in the entire film trailer as this is also the promotional still that is used for the films advertisements. This is probably because it is a close-up of the main character and it implies her cheekiness which looks a little animated.

This is a combination of 2 still images. There is a matched cut used to relate the dream reality of Amelie's self to the ripped up drawing on the table that is being reconstructed by what seems to be Amelie's lover.

Mise-en-scene
To tell the audience that Amelie works in a cafe they focus on the costume, setting and props. Amelie is dressed up in a waitresses outfit in the french cafe which has been styled up to look like one. You can tell its a cafe because of the way the tables and chairs are set. Also the lights used in this cafe are typical of being an old fashioned cafe. The character of Amelie also seems to be of the working class as her clothes are neither fancy or tatty. In her dream state, she creates a heroine who is based on the character Zorro and has the exact same clothes as what the audience would expect Zorro to have.

Film Magazine Cover

EMPIRE is a british film magazine that is published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. It is the biggest selling film magazine in Britain. This specific cover is a special one that was designed through a voting poll that was produced by EMPIRE which consisted of 10,000 readers, 150 of hollywood's finest and 50 key film critics and the same layout has been used for the cover for all of the 500 films that were chosen. Amelie came in 196th place.
The most important part of this film cover is the dominant image. It is a promotional still that has been used throughout the advertisement process of this film. It is a close-up image of Amelie that looks animated because of the use of softening as an editing technique, it helps the audience tell that it is a fantasy genre. The spoon used in the image reflects her job of working in a cafe.
Textually, it is a lot hevaier on the left hand side, giving room for the image of Amelie. The masthead, EMPIRE, is in bold, bright red letters which not only makes it stand out but red is known to be the main advertisement colour as its the colour to make consumers actually want to buy things. The style of the font is sans serif, and while doing some research into the actual name of the font on the EMPIRE forums, its stated that "its Relay with a twist". The language used is very direct and looks informal because the magazine cover itself can be seen as an advertisement but its very friendly the way its written. Amelie also has a tagline which is the bottom right corner of the magazine "It''s better to help people then garden gnomes" that is in white which gives a sense of innocence.
There is a barcode in the bottom right corner which is a typical convention of a magazine cover.

Poster

Amelie is a french film based in Paris. Amelie's face in this poster looks almost like the promotional still used in most of the trailers and advertisements. In this poster she is wearing a red/orange jacket which does look a bit like her work clothes however, it doesn't give her any social class because it doesn't look too fancy or dirty therefore making her somewhat relatable to the target audience.
There seems to have been a lot of editing on Amelie herself as her hair is ridiculously black, and against her pale skin creates a contrast thats on both ends of the scale.
The greenish, starry background can relate to her fantasies (and the fantasy genre) as star's are known to be related to dreams and the colour green is known to represent life and nature.
The name of the movie looks arty and is of a serif style thus creating a joyous/happy feeling because the text itself looks happy, which can also be reflected the colour yellow.