Monday 4 January 2016

Christmas 50 Texual analysis and representation

Discuss the ways in which the extract constructs the representation of ethnicity:

In this video clip, the characters are all shown to have different ethnicity's through how they are represented by their clothing, accents and how the camera captures their actions. In the first scene there is a crab movement to a close up of the white man wearing a suit. Many of the white people in this clip are wearing suits, this is to show that they are important. Also in this scene, the man in the suit is interrupted by two white police officers, there is a zoom movement towards them show they have authority. In the next scene in the lobby, immigration officers who are white walk in, as they do this there is a black man sitting on the chair reading a newspaper and the camera angles down on him to show how the officers would look at him. The camera then zooms to a close up of the white woman who is wearing white clothing, she is seen to have order of the other staff. As the immigration officer walks in, the camera tracks his fast movement towards the woman in white and then followed by an over the shoulder shot whilst he speaks to the woman in white as she is seen to be the one in charge. The woman in white then orders a black man in a suit to do something which he seemed to understand and then the camera tracks his fast movement. This black man then rushes to an Asian woman who is hid away in the back of the hotel. He tells her that immigration are here and the camera tracks her movement through the hotel as she tells the rest of the immigrants. When all of the immigrants are together, the Asian woman leads them to a room, a close up of her unlocking the door with the keys is shown because it is tense and she is doing this action quickly. The camera shoots them all going into the room through some bars, this is to show they are trapped. Whilst the immigrants are all in this room, close ups of all the characters faces are shot to show a worried expression on their faces. A woman in the room then collapses and the camera tracks her as she falls. One of the black immigrants is a doctor and he helps the woman, a close up of him putting jam in her mouth is shot, this is to show the audience what he is doing. One of the immigrants didn't make it into the room and is caught by the immigration officers, the camera zooms into a close up of the black mans face to show he is scared. Lastly, to show how ethnicity is represented through camera movements, angles and shots is a panning shot of the dining room from table to table to show each of the different ethnicity's and how they are all segregated on different tables.

Another way in which ethnicity is represented in this clip is through editing. At the beginning of the clip it is a fairly slow pace as it then builds up to a much fasted pace when the immigration officers arrive as the staff are worried. It cross cuts to a calm scene to a very chaotic scene as the immigrants are trying to hide. There is also crosscutting t the different people of different ethnicity to show the different variety of people. The clip also includes sounds throughout, at the beginning of the clip, the music is tense to show fear and that something is wrong. There is diegetic sound in the clip, dialogue is used and some of the dialogue spoken is in different languages to show the different ethnicity.  

As well as the other aspects included in the clip to represent ethnicity, the mise en scene is shown throughout. There are clear differences between the ethnicity's,  lot of this is shown through clothing. The white people are mainly wearing suits, the white women in one of the beginning scenes is wearing an all white suit as she is shown to be more important. The black people and foreign people are in cleaning work uniform as they have lower paying jobs than the white people. The Asian woman is in suit but is still lower than the white people as she works in a small cramped office at the back of the hotel where she can't be seen. She is also stereotyped as she is using  computer and Asian people are seen to be good at using technology. When all of the immigrants are in the small room together, there is a woman who collapses. However, luckily there is a doctor who is black who manages to treat her, he says to the Asian woman I wasn't always a cleaner" which suggests his other profession of being a doctor. At the end of the clip when one of the immigrants is taken away, the woman in the white suit reassures the guests and asks one of the waiters Gino to serve them drinks, his name suggests that he could be Italian. In the very last scene, all of the immigrants are shown eating their dinner, the different ethnicities are shown from the food they are eating and their actions for example there seems to be a Russian group of people as they are very loud and look like they are drinking vodka, this is often a stereotype of Russian people.

Overall, this clip highlights a lot of different groups of people and represents ethnicity through how it is filmed to the different characters.

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