Film: Amy (Kapadia, 2015) Sequence: opening sequence
| Cinematography: – Archive footage- establishes digital technology – grainy and low quality, a personal documentary. – Whip pan camera showing the camera person, informal – Close-ups making the relationship with Amy intimate – Zoom crash – unprofessional camera man – Focus automatically used – digital technology debate, everyone can use a digital camera | |
| Mise en scene: – Amy remains in north London from the start to later on – Unprofessional camera men, zooming, handheld camera, close-ups – Starts to wear more makeup, becoming Amy Winehouse and also becoming more insecure – First person we see is friend Juliet, showing that Amy wasn’t always the star and had all the attention, and that she valued her friends – Lens flare indication of star persona- paparazzi foreshadowing | Performance: – Amy singing candidly, as a Jazz singer like a performance to the camera. Not a natural reflection of her but of her as a performer. – National youth jazz orchestra – showing a conventional Amy Winehouse – ‘what year is it’ ‘lunchtime’ capturing her personality – On stage self-conscious – the way she looks away and around on stage, not confident with eye contact, touches her nose – foreshadowing drug taking later on -Humorous nature |
| Editing: – Titles on top of the footage to establish time and place – Zoom on still images gives it movement – Style of title ‘AMY’ 1960s style when jazz was very popular – See the title form and being created, and then slowly deteriorates foreshadowing – Slow motion to capture everything D | Sound: -Jazz Piano keys at the beginning – establishes music genre building towards the opening shot Amy voiceover from an interview – Songs that influenced her Disconnected use of footage and audio |
Film: Amy (Kapadia, 2015) Sequence: blake and rehab
| Cinematography: – camera lingers on her body, what the media wanted people to notice and see. Sexualising her – spied on by paparazzi, not home footage or archive footage, but strangers spying on them. An extension of viewers, their job is for audiences. The lone voyeur – long takes and still images forces us to look at her and frames us as the judgemental viewer, as everyone was at the time – helicopter shot showing footage of rehab | |
| Mise en scene: – overwhelming lights like an attack from camera paparazzi | Performance: – Comparison to blake and amy in their childhood traumas |
| Editing: – establishing titles of places and dates – friend talking to the manager about Amy’s safety and cuts to the manager shifting responsibility to her family/Mitch | Sound: – voicover, blake talks about how he cut at a young age similar to Amys trauma – lyrics link to what is happening on screen ____________________________________ |
END SEQUENCE 1 (Serbia concert)
Cinematography
Sound
- the piano keys from the beginning playing at the end,
| Cinematography: – shots from the concert that reflect how people thought it was the end, she gave up caring – establishing helicopter shot, gives us sense of scale of the crowd and also distances us from Amy as opposed to previously when shots would be closeup – footage from people in the crowd – handheld, non professional, chaotic and seeing from different perspectives. makes the crowds complicit in contributing to Amys downfall – helicopter and plane shot and the drone shot of her home and then the concert, shows how she got taken away against her will | |
| Mise en scene: – says where the concert happens, ‘fortress’ negative connotations – surrounded by houses and people, feeling trapped – grainy footage style from audiences position, gives us sense of reality and enforces the documentary genre – red light colours- warning/danger, demonic element; foreshadowing what happens to her – subtitles from the crowd purposely kept in – telling her to sing and dehumanising her – (digital technology debate) camera phones being used to tell a story, people have got technology so everything is instantaneous. new iphones just coming out. digital technology impacted Amy | Performance: – disorientation – goes towards the band to get help and clearly not wanting to perform – sits down on stage, body is tired, taking a stand against her management, refusal to do what she is told. exploiting her for money still pushing her into it. – acting like she doesnt care about anything – body language on stage, confident and doesnt care when getting booed at, opposite to in opening sequences when she was nervous and very insecure. |
| Editing: – slow motion shows Amy’s discomfort, her slowing down her career and also her body slowing down – photo editing – blurred image ‘she didnt want to do it’ Kim Longinotto female subject socio political and cultural contexts – may be interested in social issue of drinking, exploitation of Amy the victimization of a female | Sound: – plane noise shows she is going abroad, then fades into the crowds at her concer (disorientating for Amy) – booing and shouting at her – ‘it felt like the end’ – non diegetic paparazzi sounds, she is always being watched and no privacy – ‘she just wasn’t singing’ – ‘if she doesn’t sing i want my money back’- makes the crowd also bad as she is not stable to perform. care more about money just like Mitch. – ‘she totally blew it’ tv footage MichaeL Moore tv footage reflection – to show elements of other peoples opinions and the negative light that the media shows) |
ENDING SEQUENCE – Funeral
| Cinematography: – professional footage of the Jazz singer – paparazzi footage of her body and of the funeral. personal moments made public. lack of respect for her friends and family – camera used in an intrusive manner. we are aligned with the press. – distant at funeral , – desaturated footage, more grey, connotates sadness and isolation, lack of positive emotion – long shot of people crying, lingers on the main people in Amy’s life. – jumps to removed footage, to closeups of Amy | |
| Mise en scene: – ‘she was sleeping’ innocence, peaceful – picture of her as a child with her friends- shows her innocence – ‘4:05pm’ specific death time, wants audience to remember where they were when she died – uses last pictures of Amy that were taken before she died when speaking to Jules about talking tomorrow, foreshadowing | Performance: – see the innocence of Amy, no makeup, sleeping, intimate but not exploitive. see her smiling. – shows raw, pure footage of her, happy and shows her as the person she was before she went downhill to show who people contributed to her death. |
| Editing: – showing video of her and it pauses at the end to capture the moment – cross fades – amy fading away and showing the distance – fades a young pic of her and friends into an older one – showing how they grew up | Sound: – excited about the wedding ready to get back to normality, cares more about the personal things rather than career. died day before wedding, irony, one day away from normality – traditional phone sound effect rather than mobile, suggesting she wanted to go back to old days when she wasn’t famous – ‘my Amy’ she is going back to being normal, duplicates Amy as if there are multiple versions of her – emotive language contrasts the film in terms of early moments in the film- ‘lucky to be a musician’ now ‘wish i could walk down that street again with no hassle’ change of perception of fame – piano keys the same as at the beginning of the documentary. shows this film has been leading up to this point; the end – sad music to provoke emotion rather than voiceovers – ‘Valerie’ most famous song not played until the end |
Digital debate – digital technology has a negative effect on Amy, see her happiness and healthiness before she was controlled by the media at the end, blaming it for her downfall.
The way technology has an effect on perception, in the 60s celebrities wouldnt have been crowded, she wanted to be a chill jazz singer and ended up not even being able to walk down the street
Identity being taken away from Amy (a fan dressed like her), negative or positive, impact on her fans and the public visually, could be negative if her drug taking had an influence on young people.
When you included footage of the funeral, was it anti-press?
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