SSC Film Studies

Boogie Nights. 

The first Medium close up of the car shows the main three characters, and straight away we can see that two of the characters are clean shaven and are sitting quite normally and look slightly uncomfortable, whereas the other character has a huge moustache and is sitting with his arm out the window and looks awfully relaxed for the situation they are about to find themselves in, which immediately indicates that he is different from the other two main characters. Every sound that we hear is exactly the same as other sounds, which creates an uneasy and uncomfortable atmosphere. The car they pulled up in is a bright car, which shows that they are vibrant and colourful people, However the dark shadow and red lighting on the door gives the impression of danger and fear within this house they are about to enter. The close up shot of the door closing, signals that they are trapped almost inside a prison, so that if anything does go wrong, they are literally trapped with no way to escape. As we see the people inside the house they all have moustaches, which could put Todd with them because of the look they both have.

The atmosphere inside the house is even more edgy because of the complete contrasts of sound with the fire crackers which sound like gunshots, to the soft notes of the piano, this makes makes the main characters uncomfortable, and the camera positions us with them, so we get the sense of edginess and nervy, almost like the characters are treading on egg shells, because one wrong move, could make the situation a hell of a lot worse. There is no non-diegetic sounds everything we hear is happening, so there is a lot to take in for the characters especially the two new comers to this situation.