Film Viewing Practice Essay

Agent Carter

Agent Carter, directed by Louis D'Esposito is a short film that correlates with the motion picture Captain America: The First Avenger. Viewers realize this when the cinematographer uses parallelism to show Captain America on a plane, trying to stop a nuclear bomb from going off, and Agent Carter at a military base trying to talk sense into Captain America. These scenes happened at the same time but in different locations. The acting style of the actress who plays Agent Carter is more of a non-method kind of acting, because the actress' personality is apart of her performance. The actress showcases her connection and relationship to Captain America through her expressions of sadness when he is about to die. Some symbolism in the short film is a photograph. Captain America has one of Agent Carter, and Agent Carter has one of Captain America, showing again their romantic relationship. Some shots that take place in the film include an establishing shot that shows outside of Brooklyn. They also later use a long shot to show Agent Carter walking towards the villains. This shows that she seems harmless to the villains, so they encounter her without any worry, but they end up being knocked out by a suitcase. The setting of the short film also gave viewers a sense of dread and mystery, due to the dark, low- key lighting, which contains several shadows. Other editing techniques that are used include simultaneity when Agent Carter is walking towards the villains. The perspectives switch between Agent Carter and the villains, creating suspense in that we don't know how the spy is going to avoid being caught, or is going to get through the guards. Some types of sound that is used in the short film is synchronous sounds when Agent Carter is beating up the guards, however this can be also seen as post-synchronization dubbing as the sounds are added after the shots are filmed. These sounds would also be diegetic because the characters supposedly can hear the sounds witting the film. Other shots include a pan shot when the shot of the last guard turns to Agent Carter with a gun, and a cutaway after Agent Carter receives the call about Zodiac. Most shots that are used are very basic such as the eye level shot, or the medium long shot, which shows the subject from the knees up. During the introduction there is a leitmotif, which is the Marvel Studios theme for all of their films. This theme appears whenever the logo appears, telling viewers what they are getting into. Some more Mise-en-scenes that are important to the plot are how the producers made up the costumes. While the costumes are simple, and are basically just suits, we also know that this takes place possibly sometime in the 1950s, and that these people are professionals. We can also assume this is sometime in the 1950s by the staging, and props, such as the old-fashioned cars. Overall, from the clip that is shown viewers are enthralled finally in a world of superheroes, where the main character is just like one of us.