Moon

1 (a).     Examine how one example of editing creates meaning in the film you have studied.

[10 marks]

(15 minutes)

In the opening of ‘Moon’ directed by Duncan Jones editing is used to set up the narrative and the ideologies of the film. The film opens with a montage sequence that is an infomercial for the people in the film. The infomercial is for Lunar Industries. During this montage sequence the audience is shown lots of archive footage of how the environment needs help, for example, there are long shots of factories causing pollution. Lunar Industries uses this infomercial to present themselves as environmentalists, they want and are helping the environment by using resources on the moon which the audience is shown with an animated sequence of space and the moon during the infomercial. They use contrasting mise en scene, one image is of people ignoring the problems the world is having on the beach while factories are behind them which sets up the binary opposition of humans and machine but they contrast this mise en scene with shots of things like greening deserts which aesthetically makes the audience feel happy especially after previous negative images to try and present themselves as a good company with good intentions. This initial representation of them as a company means the audience likes them as the film was made in 2009 and so environmental problems would have been very real in the audiences on lives and seeing their problems being fixed by Lunar Industries would probably make the audience like them.

However, the opening montage sequence isn’t all good, and by the end of it the audience would know that Lunar Industries cannot be trusted. Although their logo suggests reference to modernism, that there is a simple and logical answer to everything, because of the symbolism of using the moon and the block colours, this turns out to not be the case. Most audience members know that they are actually just replacing one finite resource with another, suggesting that Lunar Industries aren’t environmentalists at all. Plus, the next montage sequence is of adult male Sam who is running on a treadmill which is a metaphor for him not going anywhere, he is stuck with Lunar Industries. This has links to capitalism and how it doesn’t benefit everyone such as it’s workers, Sam is used as a labourer his entire life with the intention of being killed straight after and works in a dirty environment that contrasts to the pristine and white environment that we were originally shown. Meaning that a Marxist criticism of capitalism is probably being explored as Sam is suffering because of capitalism. Using a man as the labourer has links to the films representation of gender, the film mainly consists of men, the women are seen as prizes for Sam to return home to while Sam does all of the work.

1 (b). Examine how one example of mise en scene creates meaning in the film you have studied.

[10 marks]

(17 minutes)

In the opening sequence of Duncan Jones’ ‘Moon’ the opening sequence is the only saturated and colourful part of the film. The montage infomercial tries to present Lunar Industries in a good way, one way that the reality of Lunar Industries contrasts with its representation of itself in this sequence is the change of saturation and colour. Instead of being colourful which has the connotations of happiness the space station is desaturated and monochrome colours which aesthetically makes the reader feel sadder and also helps set up the narrative of Lunar Industries not being a morally correct company, especially since the space station itself is dirty, as well as Sam’s space suit. Sam, an adult male, has even written the four Apostles names on parts of the space equipment/stations. This shows the audience that Lunar Industries are not as good as they try and seem as they don’t give their workers very nice working conditions which has links to capitalism and how it doesn’t benefit everyone. It also shows the audience that Lunar Industries are untrustworthy, which helps set up the rest of the film where Lunar Industries is discovered to use and exploit clones.

Lunar Industries is also shown as corrupt during the animated sequence of the montage infomercial. The voice over makes it clear to the audience that the company can only help 70 percent of the world, they show this as West America on the globe as that’s the part of the world that is lit up. This starts the binary opposition of the West and the East and makes the company seem corrupt as they are only helping a specific area of the globe after showing lots of archive footage which suggested they would help a lot more people than West America, the mise en scene during the infomercial showed everything form people ignoring the problem at the beach to long shots of the factories causing the pollution to children sorting through rubbish. The audience may now feel that Lunar Industries isn’t going to help these children, meaning that the representation of age could be that Lunar Industries used children just to cause empathy and therefore be a liked company who is viewed to have good intentions despite not actually having them.