How does the use of mise-en-scene and editing to create suspense in the getaway sequence from Drive?

In this sequence from ‘Drive’, the driver is driving away from a bank heist and is trying to get away from the police without getting caught by the police, and successfully gets the money to the destination. He has two other people in the back that robbed the bank and he is the driver that has to drive them to safety. In the end the driver successfully drives them all to safety and he gets his share money in the end.

At the beginning of the sequence, there is a key mise en scene to tell a good description of what the character is going to be the driver (which is also the main character’s name isn’t mentioned throughout the film and is just called the driver) sitting waiting for the other two characters, he sees a shadow in the car side mirror but he doesn't react to it that much and just looks over his shoulder to see who it is. This shows that even though they are robbing a bank, he is still very calm and is very care free, but could also make the audience feel suspense as well, because they will want to know who this object is, and they only got a shadow in the reflection. This section of the scene has a lot of key conventions of noir films, because it is set in a dark area of the city, it is also uses low-key lighting as well to show it is going to be a dark, this is similar to ‘Batman Begins’, the main character lives in a very corrupt city/area and is always hard boiled and doesn’t like to get into anyone’s business, keeping himself quiet .This also shows that he has committed this a lot of other times and is used to it now. But this scene creates suspense, when he is driving down the road, the camera points at him turning round the corner of the road. Also its easy to commit crimes if it looks like he has done it before and doesn’t quite care he is committing a crime, showing that the area is very corrupt, a convention used in a lot of noir films today. This creates suspense, because only the character knows what is round that corner and the audience will have to wait for the camera to turn around and wait to show what it is. When the driver starts to drive because the other two characters that just robbed the building are in the car now, they start to drive slowly behind a police car. Even though they are trying to get away from the police, he decides to drive right behind the police without getting caught as well. This shows that he is very careful and knows what he is doing, and knows what the best way of escaping is, it also shows that he is a good driver to be able to know when the right time to sneak behind the police car and when to leave without looking too suspicious. This raises suspense and tension, because the audience wants the driver to escape without getting caught, but he is very close to the police and can easily get caught, so the audience don't know when the police might turn around and arrest the driver and the other two characters in the back seat. When they are on the bridge they are driving normally like all the other cars that would have normal citizens in, but there is a helicopter with a spotlight trying to find the criminals. It is shining its light at a lot of different cars but then finally stops it on their car, the driver then starts to drive a lot quicker now because the police might think it is them who stole the money. This shows that police have found them and under pressure, the driver still can drive very well and tries his hardest to try and escape from the helicopter without getting caught, and eventually is able to escape it. This also shows that he is a skilled driver and has been doing this a while because even though there was a helicopter right above him, he still managed to escape from the helicopter. This also create suspense with the audience because they don't know if he will escape now, a helicopter is a lot harder to escape than a police car and he might get caught now. Also when the driver was waiting at the road because there was a red light, there was a police car just opposite him, and they could hear on his radio that the police car was talking about them and could be a suspect. After this was mentioned both vehicles were still waiting for the light to go green. The traffic light was a key use of mise en scene because it shows that even though both the Driver and the police officer had a lot of power, the traffic light had the most power and kept them both waiting until it was green. This will cause suspense for the audience, because they will want to see what the characters will do, getting excited and can’t wait until the traffic light turns green. They are located in the night of a big city in America. They seem to be in a very rough area of the city and a place where there are a lot of crimes committed in and low-key lighting. This is a typical convention of noir films, set in dark cities with a lot of low-key lighting making it look mysterious. This could make the audience feel tensed up and will suspect something bad to happen to them because they are in a rough area, waiting for action and what will happen to the characters in the car.

As well as using different pieces of mise en scene which gave me an idea of what the rest of the film is going to be about, there was also a lot of editing in this sequence as well, this is because they wanted to use this to their benefit. Because it is a car chase, it is already exciting for the audience, so because they keep changing it to different angles, it gets the audience even more excited and enjoy the sequence even more. because it keeps switching, the audience expect something different every time, but most of the time it is the same and the audience get tensed up waiting for something different building up the suspense. Also they used cuts to the other characters, which had just robbed the bank, to show their faces and their emotions at that moment in the sequence. The audience might feel that they want to know what they are looking at to make the characters feel like that, and this might cause suspense within the audience. Near the beginning of the scene, it cuts to the front of the car perspective, showing what it looks like for the front of the car. The film did this to try and get the audience tensed because they know something might happen now, because it cut to that particular angle and it also shows how well the driver is at driving and calm even though he is being chased by the police at that moment. This is another convention of noir films because it shows that the driver is very calm all the way through it and doesn’t care, like most main characters in noir films. When the driver is driving at the normal speed over the bridge, and the police helicopter spots him, the camera cuts to him at a mid-shot of his waits upwards. This was done to try and show what his reaction to it and how quickly he will take action, driving a lot quicker now and showing that he is an expert at driving. This is done in a lot of action films today and is one of their main conventions. For example, in the expendables there is a lot of action, gun fire and fighting. But normally if one of the characters are going to shoot their weapon, the camera switches to them just before to show their reaction and expression to show the audience what they are doing. This will make the audience feel tension as they know that he is going to do something exciting and the audience will want to see how he will take action. Also, every now and again, they had diegetic sound of the radio to get louder, and then quieter. This might because they want to try and have the audience to listen to the more important bits of information on the radio. It was a baseball game, and the driver was using it to know when the game is over, so they can successfully get away without being caught. This could get the audience tense because of the radio, because they might be wondering throughout the whole scene, why is that radio important? I also wondered why it was important as well and understood until the scene was finished, trying to make us solve it before it happened and only telling us at the end.

Two Scene Film Analysis of ‘The Shining’

Scene 1- Storage room, talking to Delbert Grady

At the beginning of this scene, Jack is sleeping on some bags. These bags are labelled as Holly, holly is prickly leaves that are normally used around Christmas and are very uncomfortable to sit let alone sleep on. But Jack seemed to have slept on it well considering it took him a while to get up to the door, this shows that he didn’t have anything else more comfortable to sleep on because of the fact that he was locked in the food storage locker. But I could also mean that he wanted to look like he felt more pain, because if Wendy was to come back with a doctor then he could look more like the victim than her, this shows that he is thinking more about his strategies and wants to be the better person out of them. Plus instead of having the logo of the holly as green, the director decided to have it red, which doesn’t make much sense since holly leaves are green. This shows that something dangerous could be happening soon, then straight after there is a knock on the door.

When Jack is talking to Delbert Grady, there are a couple of boxes with hidden messages on the side. One of the boxes say Golden Rey, this is important in this scene because there is only two times jack talks to Delbert in the film, first time was the bathroom of the Golden room and now the second time is the food storage with boxes saying Golden Rey surrounding him. Gold is normally used to show how valuable something is, maybe talking to Delbert could be almost precious to him and something that could be keeping him alive from and not vulnerable to his wife. He is also teaching Jack how to “properly” look after his family and these lessons might be valuable to Jack. There also another box next to Golden Rey saying peach slices and pimiento pieces. The story of the caretaker before Jack apparently chopped up his wife and daughters bodies into pieces and these boxes could be predicting the future. Or these boxes could be trying to warn the audience that it has already happened since he is talking to Delbert Grady who was the man who was supposed to do it. Plus they are both written in red which is the colour of blood which is the same as flesh and the blood of the human body what is visible if they were to be sliced into pieces. This is another great use of Mise-En-Scene.

The lighting in this scene was very light compared to most scenes in the movie and showed the whole room quite clearly, there wasn't any use of low-key lighting and used only high-key lighting throughout the scene. The reason they might have used high-key lighting in this horror film was because they wanted to show the audience the whole room and show hidden messages in that specific room. Or try and tell the audience that it isn't a scary scene and shouldn't shock you too much and try and calm down the audience before they get them all tensed up again.

The camera never decided to go in front of jack but always stayed to its back and side when he was awake. This might be because the camera is afraid that it might upset Jack and it doesn't want to do that because Jack is a bit insane and could kill easily without really thinking. The only time it is in front of him is when he is sleeping, where is vulnerable and can’t hurt anyone so it is safe, but when he is awake, the camera doesn't want to get in his way because it isn't as safe.

Scene 2- Come play with us scene, two twins and Danny

In this scene, there are two twin girls standing at Danny saying “come play with us”. As Danny goes round the corner, there is d loud clash sound when he stops and sees the two girls. This makes the audience shocked and they know that these two girls are not friendly and will cause something bad in the film or make the audience shocked/scared. The sound was used to either bring up the tension or to warn the audience about the two girls or something that might happen in the future. This is also used when the camera gets closer to the girls and starts switching to them after being murdered by an axe, this is used to try and scare the audience more than warn them because they use the music at that right point, to use all that tension that has been built up and use a little shock to scare them. After the girls have disappear, so does the loud music, until he start talking to Tony then there is a quiet noise building up tension as if something is going to happen round the corner.

The lighting in this scene is at the minute high-key lighting, but in some parts of the corridor is a bit darker than other parts. For example there are two lights hanging from the ceiling, between them both is the darkest, and between them there is a sign saying exit. The reason why they might have used this was to show that the exit is getting further and further away and there isn’t any point going after it because it is lost in the darkness. But also on the other side of the exit is an alarm, this is also in the darkest patch. This could also mean that if he was in trouble there is no point in causing an alarm because he won’t be able to get to it and no one will then find him, the alarm is also lost in the dark. The exit was used to try and show Danny how to get out and he might have a chance of escaping, but it was written in red so it could also be a trick and lead Danny to his death as well, or there might be danger up ahead if he tries to escape.

The camera using a lot of different techniques in this scene, at the beginning the camera using a tracking shot from far away on Danny go around the corner on his tricycle. This shows that we don’t know as much as Danny when he goes round the corner first, but most of the time we know much more than the audience and their surroundings. This gives us more of a shock because the tension has built up a lot more, we have seen Danny stop but we don’t know why he has stopped, but we will find out when the camera catches up with and goes round the corner as well. It also uses a close up on Danny’s face showing how frightened he is when he sees the girls’ bodies on the floor, this shows his emotion and is almost reflected onto us because some people might feel the same way as well. They also use a mid-shot on the twins to show the girls in more detail and what they are like as well. But before they get closer to the girls, instead of just actually getting closer, they use jump edits to get closer to them until they are close enough. They used this to make the audience jump and scared thinking there might be a jump scare in a minute about to shock them.

'Haywire' Group Analysis

The sequence starts with an eye-line match, showing both the characters perspectives when they look at one another. There's no speech, just glances at on another; it could be implied that the two characters have had a dispute of some kind, we experience a little tension within the car. The shot is taken at eye level as though its through the car windows, thus the shot is slightly blurry, and the lighting is low key; this could be symbolic of the distance between the two characters, their relationship is blurry, not entirely in focus and the lack of distinguishable facial features due to the low key lighting reveals how the mood of the situation may be quite dark. This sequence makes me feel sympathetic to the two characters, I'm left guessing what could have happened and how the relationship could have became distant, as a result the mood of the whole situation is dark and a little daunting, if the characters feel distant, I start to feel distant.

Transitioning to the next shot, we are shown a pieces of a broken mirror, laying on the floor. This could imply how the characters we saw in the previous shot are themselves broken. The broken mirror is the main focus of the shot, in the background there is a body being dragged but it and its surroundings are blurry, the effect this has is that its establishing conflict, such as the dead body in the background shows a physical conflict, and the broken mirror revealing metaphorically the mental conflict. This makes me feel more sympathetic towards the characters, its almost as if the characters cannot see it themselves, instead we see it through their actions and surroundings; in turn this makes the characters more relatable, we all have our own conflicts.

In the next shot, we saw the same body that was dragged trough the room, lay in a bath tub with the tap water running, the non-diegetic sound of the guitar cords and the diegetic sound of the water running create a strangely soothing, it seems calm and relaxed, which juxtaposes what the sequence shows entirely: there is a dead body yet I feel relaxed. This shot could show how the female character may also feel relaxed, she can certainly take a shower and do her makeup in a relaxed fashion, which leads me to believe that the killing was almost a relief, before we saw the conflicts both characters had with one another, now the conflicts have somewhat been resolved; the atmosphere is calm and collected, and we are at a peace of mind.

The next sequence shows a low angle tilt showing the character looking in a coat on the floor, to which she finds a mobile phone, transitioning to her POV: a close up of the phones screen as she rings the last number called on the phone. Parallel editing reveals the character on the receiving end of the phone call is sat at a dinner party in a high key lighted area, he then determines who the caller is and moves onto a low key lighted area. This as a result looks rather secretive, he leaves the table to go and speak to the caller in a dark area where he cannot be seen; this makes gives a rather sinister atmosphere and in turn I fell a little intimidated.

The receivers actions in the next shot to me suggests he knows the caller and is probably fully aware of the situation she is in. The conversation reveals that the female character and the male character were in a relationship, the receiver asks "is the divorce final" *pause* " where are you?", to me this looks as though the receiver has concluded that the female character has murdered her partner; to which the female hangs up the call, and for the first time we see the female panic. Again we are introduced to yet more conflict: now the receiver knows about the murder, naturally he is opposed to it making him a threat to the female character which in turn creates physical conflict; and in hanging up the call in what seems to be a panic to me could suggest that she for a brief second contemplated whether it was a right move of a bad one, thus creating  mental conflict.

Eye-line match is used as the female character leaves the building she is in to reveal an man across the street, we are unsure of the identity of the man, but its possible that even the character wonders the same. We can see the conflict of her guilty conscience as she follows the man down the street, she even tilts her hat slightly to hide her own identity from the man. Further down the street as she comes to traffic lights, she ignores the red light telling her to stop by crossing the street; this highlights the conflict that the character faces and could also forecast later happenings. If indeed she is suspicious to the man its possible the truth get revealed and she is taken to prison, in which case the red light indicates caution.

Short Sequence Analysis

The intention of my group was to make a short sequence of a film that is around a minute long, we did 9 shots for the sequence using lots of different angles. Our film is designed mainly to be a thriller with a slight sense of horror, we didn't want it to become a horror completely, because we didn't want it to become too different in for the audience with the clip we have done. I hope to make the audience feel tense while watching this and question what will happen next after the clip.


My target audience for the whole film is aged 15 and upwards but that clip has't got a lot of violence or anything else to make that bad so the clip would be rated at a PG. If we were to make the film more violent and rate it to an 18, then it will shorten our customers to watching the film because everyone under 18 will not be able to watch the film. The reason why we chose to do a 15 though was because it is a lot more flexible to actually have different ideas, if we had to do anything lower we are limited to doing less violent shots that would be too uncomfortable for a 12 year old. So with a 15 we can expand on that and show more violent shots to scare the audience and entertain them a lot more.


The aspects of the clip that are thriller, however we did not show anything in this shot that would show the themes of a thriller or violent movie. But we thought that this shot is building up the tension in the film thinking that other people won't know what will come next. This is key in thrillers and are needed because it is needed to engage the audience and sometimes shock them when we chose to shock them afterwards. We wanted this sequence to be unrevealing because we felt it will keep the audience guessing more and will definitely want to stay and see what will happen after the sequence. A lot of modern thrillers use today so we used this to help us do our sequence.