Now You See Me
Now you see me is about
four magicians who are summoned together by some unknown figure. A year later
they are the Four Henchmen, big time stage illusionists. In their first show
they supposedly rob a bank setting the police and FBI on them. It is a thriller
but also a drama. I think that it is aimed at adults and teenagers because some
of the content of the film is quite complicated. The director could then go
into more detail without having to explain too much for younger viewers.
The
movie is a drama and a thriller. The opening sequence to the movie introduces
each of the main characters, and their specialized magic trick. Each of the
characters is shown doing their trick to groups of people and all succeeding. J
Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenburg) manages to have previously guessed a random
persons choice of card and proves this when the chosen card comes up on a
building. The narrative of the opening sequence is mainly to introduce the
characters and what each of their tricks is.
The opening sequence captures the
audience’s interest by keeping the opening short and fast moving. This pulls in
the audience and makes them want to see more because they are only briefly
shown each character and what they do. What also pulls the viewer in is the music
that is constantly in the background. It matches what is going on in the shot
and evokes feelings in the viewer to match what is going on.
The
camera in the opening sequence is constantly moving from close ups to long
shots. The speed and angles of these changes varies according to what is going
on in the scene and the mood. If there is a tense part in the opening then the
camera moved more quickly then when the atmosphere was calmer. Angles of the
shots in the opening sequence were very important as, as well as the speed of
the shots, the angles also created moods in the audience. For example when
Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson) is reading someone’s “mind”, to find out
what they are thinking, the camera moves to close ups of the mans expressions
to show his give away that McKinney uses to read his mind. This was used to not
only show the audience how he can read the persons mind, but also builds
tension as the mans secret is about to be given away. This shows the camera angles and speed of the transitions to creates the correct atmosphere in the scenes.
Not only is the camera work
important in this scene but also the editing. As the characters are performing
magic tricks it is important to make it seem as easy and fast flowing as
possible so the audience doesn’t doubt the tricks being done. An example of
this editing is shown when Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) is able to take someone’s
watch while a random stranger reveals his “trick”. The editing here shows short
cuts of Jack placing his hand on the person to stop him from ruining the trick while he undoes the watch and takes it.
The editing here is cleaver because without the guy or the viewers knowing
someone just got robed quite obviously because subtly the audience is shown how
it is done. It is only when the guy notices that his watch is gone that the
audience does as well.
After the opening sequence I think that the viewer would
want to know why there was a person watching each of the magicians. And why
these magicians were specifically chosen to show to the viewer. So without
giving away too much of the story the opening to this movie has shown just
enough about each character to keep the audience interested, but not enough to
give too much away.
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