Representation Essay: 'Bourne Identity'

The short Extract from the bourne identity film contains many media techniques, including Camera (Shots, angles, movement, and composition), Editing, Sound, and Mise-en-scene.

In this short film, we have a lot of iconography shown from the Mise-en-scene in this extract, a major symbol of this iconography is the effect of the colors red and blue. In this Movie, the colors red and blue add great meaning to the film. Red symbolizes Jason Bourne's new identity' linking to the fact that Jason does not know anything about himself. Whereas Blue symbolizes his past, that of which he has no idea about. 

The Mise-en-scene shows us this through various ways, for example, Jason Bourne's jacket (red) that he wears as he gets off the boat and walks onto the land; The blue-hue of the area of which he has set foot on links to the fact that he has been there before in his 'past' life; These are only a couple of the examples shown throughout the extract. 

One key example shown from this short extract is the shot of Jason Bourne looking back to the street; the street is lit with a blue hue that fades to black, with Jason's footprints in the snow as he has walked away and is now looking back, almost as if he is looking back at his past, indicated through the blue hue. 

This is a significant shot as it shows us how clueless Jason is and how much of his past he doesn't know, him looking back trying to figure out his 'past' and who he is now, linking to the color of the jacket by which he is still wearing while looking back.

His Footprints symbolize 'journey,' showing that he has gone through a journey in his past life. The winter snow symbolizes 'death,' linking to the fact that he had died but was brought back to life, healed. Then comes the blue lighting, which symbolizes his 'past life.' 

Another Good example is the effect of the mirror reflection in the train scene adds suspense as he is looking at himself in the reflection almost as if he is trying to see his past in his reflection, the red seats of the train linking to the fact that he is going through a new journey in life, linking to how he is trying to figure out his past as well as trying to find his future. 

The sound also helps create a sense of suspense throughout the film. At the beginning of the extract, there is a sort of Metronome tapping beat, almost keeping to the beat of the scene. Adding to the suspense shown in this scene. There is also diegetic sound of what is going on around Jason as he is 'exploring' through this land. The diegetic sound consists of, Cars, bikes and train sounds. There is also a 'distant' sound of a lady speaking into the speaker. 

The use of sound adds to the suspense, and the diegetic sound of his surrounding is almost drowned out by the Non-diegetic sound of the Metronome beat. This sort of Metronome beat also almost sounds like a beat of a heartbeat, Jason's Heartbeat. The background music that of a violin, adding suspense as the beat is at a fast pace. The language of the place that he is in is foreign, showing us as an audience that Jason is not from that place. 

This also means that Jason is foreign to that place, linking to the fact that figuratively speaking, his brain space in this moment is almost 'foreign' to his past, in that he doesn't know anything about his past life, just like how physically in that moment he is sort of foreign to the language of that place, but then over time as he slowly finds out what he is capable of he realizes that he knows how to speak the language, which shows us that even though he may feel foreign to the area, he actually knows more than he thinks. 

Linking to how he does not know about his past life. 

The Camera gives us a wide shot of the scenery for the first shot. This is the establishing shot, establishing the scene for us as an audience, so we see that Jason is entering a new area. It then changes from this wide establishing shot to a wide shot of Jason walking off the boat and onto the land; the camera then zooms into Jason as he carries on walking into the city. 

The camera then goes from a front shot of Jason facing this new scene to a backshot of Jason walking away from the camera. It then switches to a drone shot of the training moving into a tunnel. Moving from the drone shot, it then moves to a close-up of Jason sitting in the train, looking at his reflection. The camera here is hand-held and shakey as it moves toward Jason's face. 

It then changes to a back shot of Jason looking down towards the little gadget taken out from the back of his neck. Switching to a mid-shot of Jason walking along the train station.  

After this scene, it moves to the important scene of Jason looking back into the alleyway. This shot is a mid-shot taken at first at a low-angle, but then the camera moves up and stops when the camera gets a view of his body from the head down, still at a mid-shot view.

The camera then shifts to a shot where the camera is following the footsteps of the guards as they walk towards Jason sleeping on the outdoor chairs; it is a low mid-shot view of just the lower part of the men's body, keeping this low, to keep Jason's whole body in view.

It then changes to an over-shoulder shot, as the camera is over the shoulder of one of the soldier's looking down on Jason as he is abruptly awoken by the two men. 

In this scene, the two men speak in the native language, which is foreign to Jason. Still, as they keep questioning him and antagonizing him, he realizes he can understand them and so responds in his native language, English. 

When they continuously keep going on at him, he then responds in their native language, which catches him by surprise. He is then forcefully told to stand up. In this moment, everything is at a slow, normal pace.

But then, when they go to touch him, he reacts immediately. Defending himself, he beats the two men. This scene changes from being a slowish/normal pace to a fast pace, flowing with the way he fights. There is also a beat that also flows with the way he fights.

Then for the last part of the extract, there is a hand-held shakey 'chase' scene as the camera follows Jason as he runs far from the fight scene. As he runs away, he takes off the 'Red' jacket so that he isn't noticed, if seen elsewhere. 

Lastly, the Editing shown in this extract. At the beginning of the scene, the editor has subtly created a change in scenes that is so small that even I barely noticed. As Jason walks towards the town centre, some people walk past the camera, and as they walk past the camera, when they have gone past, the scene changes and Jason is no longer seen walking towards the town centre. There is a lot of fast transitions in the editing, as they change from scene to scene. 

Overall this short extract contains a lot of different aspects of media.