Research - 'The Prestige' - Jack

Mise En Scene:

• The shot of the magician hats is at a complete different location to where the rest of the scene is shot, is it exterior. It seems as if they're all lying in outside in a graveyard or forest of some sort. This could suggest used to suggest the amount of magicians have failed or died throughout their acts. It is also very dark, to start the movie of with a very tense, suspicious atmosphere. As there are so many hats, it will also create enigma codes such as "what are they doing here?", "Why are there so many?".

• The narrative "Are you watching closely?" is used to make the audience question 'what is going to happen?' and create enigma codes. They will therefore focus on every single detail of the scene to try and work out what will happen. 
• Low-key lighting throughout the whole sequence - giving the dark, mysterious feel throughout. 

Camera work:

•  Shallow dept of field - used to create focus on specific objects or person. E.g shallow depth of field on the man speaking - the audience will think: "is he going to be the main character?"

• Mainly all hand-held - create possible unawareness and disorientation for the spectator. Also the hand-held could represent a POV for the man telling the story, therefore the audience can see exactly what the man saw when this happened. 
• Close-up when magician is doing the magic trick - about to focus on his facial expressions, and showing his state. He looks confident in the trick and therefore the spectator expects nothing to go wrong, however something does - so it creates shock for the spectator.

Editing:

•  Cross cutting - establishing the relationship between the two scenes; as one action happens in the scene with the man and girl, it is representative to what happens in the other context, the magician show. For example, when the man makes the bird disappear this is when the magician disappears. This therefore lets the spectator establish a relationship between the two contexts.

Man disappearing

Cut to bird disappearing

• Fade out when shown the magician drowning in the tank - could be symbolic to his own state - suggesting that he has faded and there is no hope that he has survived. 

Sound:

• Dialogue is muted -  it is shown that the magician on stage is actually speaking however we can only see this through the movement of his mouth, no voice is heard. We can only hear dialogue at the end of the sequence when  the context is changed. This conveys that we're not seeing the first part as it is - this could be a possible flashback, story-telling or the man reflecting on what happened that night to recall specific details to the court case. The narrative over the top throughout emphasises the fact that is could be a possibly story-telling. 
• Slow, parallel soundtrack - could be conveying that we're not seeing it as it happens and it's a dreary sound of a flashback. 
• Build non-diagetic sound when man is trapped and drowning - the 'wavy' sound could be symbolic to the water he is trapped in. There is a sudden stop of the sound which could suggest that is that come to the climax and the man drowning has no hope. All of which will be building up tension for the spectator.