My scene is from the French film, ‘Amelie’ (2001).

So to explain the scene, the protagonist Amelie is on a high from having done something good for another human. She comes across another person she can help and pounces on the oppurtunity.

The first shot has the camera circling Amelie showing the world around her. This symbolises how she is taking in her surroundings as she reflects on her selfless acts and how that has made her feel. The production design is very French, as she is in France. The next two shots clarify that the old man is blind and in need of assistance. The zoom in on Amelie’s facial expressions shows her desire to help him. In the next shot she comes up from behind him and shows him across the street. The next few shots are very fast, showing the fast paced life of the cultural streets of France. Many close ups are used, going between showing Amelie and the man and between the fast camera movements showing the streets. The final shot goes for about 15 seconds and shows her leaving the man at the train station, who has been left in awe after his interaction with Amelie. An unexpected kind stranger giving him more than he could have asked for on an unexpected day in an unexpected moment. The JIB shot is executed beautifully and shows the world of pedestrians continuing around the old man after Amelie has left him.

Through sound, we can hear and almost feel the senses that Amelie is highlighting for the blind man. She exclaims about the smell of foods and actions of citizens around her to help the man be apart of a world he cannot witness. The sound of the accordion fits perfectly into the French setting, and the sounds of people calling out food prices form their stores in the native tongue. It is quite a beautiful scene in doing this. This script is well written and the atmosphere sounds are well used to portray the world around them she speaks of.

The use of colour grading is absolutely outstanding in this film and is a large part of the reason I chose this film.

If I were to ever make a feature film, I would wish to use the techniques of this film. The colour are all warm tones, with a heavy focus on reds and greens.

If you pay attention, you’ll notice that every single shot in the film has a hint of red in it: whether it be a single item or several, a bright red or a maroon red. Its always there, standing out in some shots more than others.

The use of green in, again, almost every shot, is to compliment the red, as red and green are opposites on the colour wheel, as yellow is opposite to purple and orange is to blue.

The time and detail that goes into the colour grading drips into production deign, as it would have been heavily noted by the production designer which items to have red and which to have green.

In instances like these, production design really made the film what it is and I’ll stand by my bold opinion that this film would not have won it’s many awards if it did not incorporate this use of production design and colour grading.