Breaking bad opening analysis

HOW DO THE MICRO-ELEMENTS COMBINE TO CREATE MEANING IN THIS CLIP?

In this segment, we are first introduced to Walter White (portrayed by Bryan Cranston). The first scene is of him and his son arriving at school in a old pale puke green car which is visibly old, suggesting that Walter White’s financial status is not really in a good position right now. We can also see that his kid is disabled, showing that he is an unfortunate man in every aspect.

We then cut to a second scene where he is in a classroom ready to teach chemistry. We then see him start to teach chemistry, it is very clear from the get go that he is passionate about chemistry by way he is talking and acting. He then lights the bunsen burner. As he is talking we cut between a behind the back shot of Walter White and a medium shot where the camera if placed in the audience/students, this allows us to feel as if we were learning in the classroom with him making the aura of him teaching even more pronounced than before. This is a symbolism for his passion for chemistry: after it is lit, it is included in every shot afterwards. He was even able to make some of his students intrigued,  at this point Walter still had the power over the class. To elaborate on his power, the students were still focusing and paying attention. However, as soon as he addressed Chad, he lost all of his power as there was a disruption in the peace and quiet. In a way Chad accomplished a part of his goal, which was to disrupt the class as he dragged his chair across the floor causing a loud disturbing noise.

The most interesting symbolism in the last scene however isn’t the bunsen burner, but actually the contrast between himself and the chemistry props. Walter White is wearing a beige jumper which is symbolising of his dull and boring life, on the other hand, the chemistry, represented here by the spray bottles are colourful and vibrant. This emphasises his passion for chemistry, and how it is the colour, light in his life. It is the only thing he has in this dreaded life of his.

The next scene is at a car wash. This is very important because it confirms the point that Walter White is in a financial struggle since he is forced to work two jobs. He is then told by his boss that he has to go wash the cars because they are short handed. Walter tries to negotiate with his boss as he does not want to go out in public fearing that someone might see him like this. However his efforts were all for nothing, his boss still had power over him. This then leads into confronting Chad in the most embarrassing and humiliating way possible. Walter White was crouched down and washing the car tires when without him even in the shot, we can hear his voice, it was Chad and Walter was washing Chad’s car. Chad was literally and metaphorically looking down on White. You can see White’s facial expression change, his face losing all colour, but there was nothing he can do while being ridiculed by Chand and his girlfriend, he just has to accept it and keep it inside of him. This goes into another comparison, Walter’s car and Chad cars is extremely different. Walter’s car is old and a family car, the colour represents his dull life and so does Chad’s. He has an orange supercar, the orange represents his youth and his rebellious stage, it shows that he’s enjoying life unlike Walter. It also shows that Chad lives an over privileged life and is spoilt, he somehow has the money to buy a supercar even when he’s a high school student.

The last scene is of Walter White going home from the car wash. He is travelling home alone and his glove box was open. He then reaches overs to close it up. He pushed it in but it fell back down, he kept trying but to no avail. The editing during this ordeal was very choppy and quick to convey the desperation in Walter White. This whole thing once again symbolises the failings of his life and the nose dive situation his life is facing. Walter White is trying to keep it together and trying his damnedest to improve it but as shown by the glove box, he has no effect on it whatsoever. There is nothing he can do. This all shows that he has no power in life at all, he’s always being the one that is being controlled by other things even a glove box. This is with the exception with chemistry however, that is the only time where he has some kind of power.

Annabelle trailer remake evaluation

I had arrived late into the class and curriculum. This meant that i had to immediately put into action, which was quite jarring considering I had just arrived. No matter, I was put in a group that I was very comfortable with, Ohm, Nana and Eye were all great at what they do so I rest assured.

We got to filming the rest of the scenes instantly. I asked them various questions, too many questions, about what they are doing and planning to do. I then learned that we were doing a remake of the Annabelle trailer remake. The shot's they have filmed beforehand were great so we just focused on the scenes we haven't filmed yet. It turned out that there was no one in the role of the husband yet so I was offered to do it. It was a conversation scene between the MC and her husband so I wanted to create tension so I suggested putting the camera behind the one of the character whilst the other spoke. That was my first experience at acting in media studies and it may have been brief scene that I had to act in but I was happy with what I did.

I also suggested that we took some sound samples by using marker pens to create screeches on the whiteboard since I saw Nana do it and thought it would have been a good idea to just record it in case we needed it for further use during editing.

We consulted each other about the others scenes and went to different locations to film all of the scene. The next scene we had to recreate a scene which happened in the house so we had to somehow make it feel like we were in a house even though we were obviously in Rayleigh Center. Another thing we had to do was recreate a wooden door with a big gap, we had to get creative and use the sofas instead.

One of the scenes was of the main character running down the hall way, so we decided to go to the science block's female bathroom corridor as it has always been an eerie place. In that shot we were trying to instill the sense of fear and not being to run away from it. I suggested that we do a low angle shot on Eye's leg while she was running to put the audience right in the action.

I learned a lot from this experience, I wasn't able to do much but it made me realize just how fun Media Studies and filming was. I came in uninvited and was put into a great group, I was a little bit too excited and might have been rude and caused some trouble for them. However, I have now realized that filming is a collaboration and we should always listen to other people's opinion and that we should not push our ideas onto other people, only try to convince them. I look forward to doing more of these fun projects.