Muller, Mise en Scene, Super 8

In this scene of Super 8, the viewer begins to feel the conflict between the adult and child's world. Joe, Charles, Preston, Cary, and Alice are out filming a short film for a local film festival when they are reluctantly brought into a military secret, which they have caught on their camera. In this scene, Dr. Woodward is telling them not to speak of anything that they saw and threatens them by pointing a gun at them. The kids run scared back to the car and barely get away from the military force that is arriving on the scene. In the car ride back home, the kids are startled, scared, and realizing that there is a shoe other world that Dr. Woodward was living. They begin to wonder what it is that he knew. This is when the world of the children and the world of adults is merged in the film.

The dominant in this frame is the blurred gun. The viewers eye is drawn into the center of the frame to the blurred vision of the gun. The viewer is then drawn to the subsidiary contrasts of the children grouped in three on either side of the main focus of the gun. This scene eludes to the burred lines found in the adult world and that will be seen in the military world as the film unfolds. These world are usually not revealed to children but have been through the unfortunate circumstances the friends find themselves in.

This scene is a closed frame scene which keeps the characters confined to the frame with a dangerous object pointed in their direction. The object is being pointed at them from a well known teacher at their school which makes the mystery of this science fiction film even more interesting. Why is a school teacher involved derailing a military train? What is being keep from the civilian society? Why does Dr. Woodward swear the children to secrecy with the threatening gun? In the scene the blurred gun image plays a main part in the intrinsic interest of the frame.

The proxemics of the characters in this frame is the intimate. They are scared and grouped closely together but the group is separated by the image of the gun. The proxemics of the camera to the characters for the viewer is a medium shot range. The composition of the frame is interesting because it puts the viewer almost as the one pointing the gun at the characters. Putting the viewer in this position within the frame allows the viewer to become part of the troubling scene instead of an innocent bystander. It also allows the viewer to relate to the fear and concern of Dr. Woodward and also to relate to fear and confusion of the group of kids on the other side of the gun.

I believe that this is an important scene because it is the first major conflict that the viewer feels the looming conflict between the children, the military, and the adult worlds. This is where all the world's "collide" with the derailment of the train.