Initial idea and research

Following brainstorming we have decided to make a film which we would classify as a supernatural thriller which would follow a man who has came into ownership of a mysterious briefcase and his desperate attempt to flee the mysterious assassin who is trying to catch him.

For this film our main inspiration would be No country for old men and due to the similar premises we have decided to analyse some scenes from the film in order to help us write a high quality script.

The scene which i have chosen to analyse in order to help understand the crime genre is from the coen brothers' No country for old men in which Woody Harrelson's character Wells is killed by Anton Javier Bardem's character.

This scene begins with a low angled shot focusing on Woody Harrelson’s character Wells, this increases the tension of the scene as we can see Javier Bardem’s character Anton chugure slowly approaching in the background. The scene then transitions to both men sitting facing each other  within a hotel room.The seen makes use of sound very effectively as the lack of musical score makes the scene more visceral and further adds to the tension. The diegetic ringing of the telephone along with minimal dialogue also adds to the tension of the scene. the miss en scene of this scene is also pivotal as throughout Javier Bardem’s character is made  to appear taller and more powerful, this is also conveyed through the slightly higher angled shots in which he features signifying that he is in control of the situation. 

Lighting also plays a large part within this scene as Anton is placed within darkness whilst Wells is constantly illuminated and whilst this does not signify good vs evil it does however signify the conflict between the characters and through making Wells illuminated it makes him stand in contrast to Anton this further adds to the tension of the scene. through ending the scene with an over the shoulder shot of Wells being killed and never actually seeing his dead body a sense of realism and brutality was conveyed as all gravitas was taken from his death making it appear more sudden and impactful. Overall this scene helped me to understand how tension can be created in a very dialogue driven scene.