(video: http://teenfilmteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/storylines-and-plot.html)
What is a binary opposition?
In terms of media, binary opposition is a contrast or an opposite between characters.
What are typical binary oppositions?
- Sister vs Brother.
- Parents vs Children.
- Popularity vs Outsider.
- Girls vs Boys.
- Good Kid vs Bad Kid.
- Young vs Older.
There are many more but these are some popular ones.
What did we do?
Kris, Tarun and I watched a brief clip from 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off.'
Whilst watching it, we took note on the different binary oppositions, the setting, the themes, the editing, camera and sound.
The clip showed the opening of the film. We chose 3 main binary oppositions that were evident in the clip.
- Parents vs Children.
- Brothers vs Sisters.
- Good Kid vs Bad kid.
The oppositions.
Brothers vs Sisters.
The camera work was mostly eye level for these two characters, however when faced with gaining the attention from their parents Ferris gained more camera time because he was the center of attention. Also, the camera did a close up on the sister when she entered Ferris' room to emphasize her body language which highlighted her relationship with Ferris. A lot of match cuts were made which enabled the audience to see the many facial expressions and movements made to show the interaction and tension between the two characters.
Parents vs Children.
Low angle shots were used when showing the parents looking down on Ferris to cradle him and high angle shots were used to show the attention Ferris was pining for giving him this 'puppy dog eyes' look. Ferris continuously mimicked the voice of his mother to appear cute, this allowed him to look as if he needed the affection from his parents in order to get what he wanted. (A day of school.) The relationship between parents and children in this movie highlight that of most. Children tend to try and manipulate their parents protection of them into getting off school and parents never want to believe that their children would be so malicious and vindictive to do such a thing.
Low angle shots were used when showing the parents looking down on Ferris to cradle him and high angle shots were used to show the attention Ferris was pining for giving him this 'puppy dog eyes' look. Ferris continuously mimicked the voice of his mother to appear cute, this allowed him to look as if he needed the affection from his parents in order to get what he wanted. (A day of school.) The relationship between parents and children in this movie highlight that of most. Children tend to try and manipulate their parents protection of them into getting off school and parents never want to believe that their children would be so malicious and vindictive to do such a thing.
Good Kid vs Bad Kid.
The good kid bad kid relationship is purely bad on how much influence does the bad kid put on the other and does the good kid fall to peer pressure. It most cases yes, they do. However, only in our clip we see it takes a lot more persuading to get them to crumble. This is mostly highlighted through mise en scene. Ferris' relax's in the garden with a drink and some sandals whilst his friend is tucked up in bed genuinely trying to recover. This highlights how one character doesn't want to be bad and really wants to get better, and the other wants to go out and 'live a little.'
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