Film Viewing Practice Essay "Agent Carter"

At the beginning of the movie, the non-diegetic music playing as Steve says goodbye to Peggy indicated that a great accomplishment or sacrifice is about to be made. Before the real scene even plays however, we can hear her talking over the radio to Steve, which is a sound bridge used to connect the "Marvel" opening title to the first scene of the movie. Later on in the opening, as she rediscovers Steve's picture in her desk at work after dealing with a coworker, the same music is heard as she holds onto the picture and seems to reminisce about the time, thinking Steve was dead. This can be taken as an example of leitmotif, since that specific slow and dramatic string music seems to only appear when an interaction or connection is being made between Agent Carter and Captain America. The close up of Captain America (Steve) putting Peggy's picture in front of him as he is crashing establishes how close they were. Steve then begins flying the aircraft directly towards the water, and a head-on shot is used as the aircraft zooms directly passed the camera. After introducing the main character's backstory involving Steve, seen in Captain America's movie for all of the targeted audience who have been following along, the movie starts off with a high angle establishing shot of the city to give perspective. The establishing shot after the flashback has on it written that the events we are about to see happen "One Year Later." This is done to establish that the remainder of the movie will have taken place after the flashback that was given as context. This was done post production. A close up of the blaring alarms is then seen, after hearing the alarms in the establishing shot which is another sound bridge. Though the alarms were not blasting over the city, we heard the alarms in the establishing shot before we were cut to the real alarm going off in her new workplace. The shot of the alarms flashing while the sound is blaring is an example of synchronous sounds, since we are seeing the alarm flashing as we are also hearing it. This is also true, technically, for the scene where the aircraft comes head on at the camera, since we are seeing the aircraft zoom by as we are hearing what is most likely postsychronization dubbing done by editors after the shot was filmed. The shot zooms out from the alarms to show the bustling men in the office. The camera briefly cutting to Agent Carter's face after not hearing her name called for the assignment to show her disappointment is a cutaway shot. The lighting in the office is very low and almost drab, which can help show that the setting is clearly not a very happy or fun environment for the main character, who is overlooked by her colleagues. The blocking, or placement, of Agent Carter in the back of the gloomy office while the main boss is the main focus assigning the agents a new assignment may stand to show how far away she feels she is from that level of power or how neglected or isolated she feels from her boss. Later on in the film opening, the men of her workplace tell her they are going for a drink, and ask her to stay and finish their paperwork. As they walk out of the office in each other's company, we can only hear them conversate while we watch the main character's reaction, which is offscreen sound since we are hearing an action assumed to be happening in the same space, but not seen. The lighting also gets darker as they leave, since they flicked the light switch off on their way out. This decrease in lighting after the men leave makes the already drab workplace look even more gloomy and isolated from Agent Carter. Them turning the lights out on her and leaving her behind to get drinks can show the imbalance in her workplace, or that she feels in the dark and excluded from her coworkers and workplace. As she is heading out of the office, we see a brief shot of the boss's alert phone going off, before being cut back to Agent Carter and flashing red lights on her face. The flashing of the red lights and the alarm as she was heading out of the office are diegetic sound and most likely synchronous sound. The flashing lights on her face may symbolize that she is now in another emergency situation like she was in during the first opening scene, and another big decision in her career and life are about to be made.