The Black Hole Analysis - (Ella)

The Black Hole

Media Language – write an in depth textual analysis of how the 4 technical codes (Sound, Mise en Scene, Camera and Editing) communicate meaning.

The short film begins with a circle-shaped transition featuring the title 'The Black Hole’. The background reveals to the audience that the location is set inside of a typical everyday office building. There is diegetic sound of beeping noises and printing sounds suggests machinery such as printer and copiers. The camera begins tracking sideways towards a male office worker, his blank, dull facial expression lacks enthusiasm. He then loudly sighs emphasising to the audience that he has possibly had a long hard day at work, or is extremely bored at this moment in time. He also seems to be completely alone. The audience can now be assured that the diegetic beeping sounds were in fact, as suspected, a photocopier as the camera shows a big close-up of the character pressing a green button on the device as the noise repeats. The pace of this short film, so far, is slow exaggerating the male characters mood of boredom.

The character appears to become angry as he continually presses the green button and again the audience is shown a close-up of his hand doing this. He then becomes more and more frustrated and proceeds to kick the photocopier. Then the printer stops and prints a single page. We see a close-up of the piece of A3 paper with a large black circle printed onto it. 

We see a close up of the character looking puzzlingly at the page and then proceeding to check the inside lid of the photocopier to see if there were any objects obstructing his photocopying process. There was nothing unusual about the content of the the photocopier, however, when the character places a small plastic cup on top of the piece of paper it appears to fall into the black hole. This creates an enigma for the audience. We then see the mood of the film change, it goes from the dull office atmosphere to the character being mesmerised by what he is seeing. It is apparent from his use of facial expressions and body language that he cannot believe his eyes and is evidently curious. The only sound we hear at this point is a quiet non-diegetic tone coming from the black hole itself and the continued ambient noise created by the office environment.

We see a close up of him placing his hand in the black hole and taking it back out. His facial expression is bewildered and astonished as he holds up the paper placing his had through it with it disappearing into the hole. Realising that he can place his hand through the hole sparks his interest to explore the hole more and we see a close up of him looking over at something. We follow the character slightly forwards tracking as he walks towards the vending machine. He places the paper onto it to retrieve a chocolate bar which he has not paid for. This results in his imagination running wild as to the endless possibilities this piece of paper could hold.

We see the character walking away from the vending machine chewing on the chocolate bar happily. The camera then begins to slowly zoom in on a door labelled 'Keep Out' suggesting that there is something valuable behind the door. The characters gaze becomes fixed upon the door and we see a much more menacing facial expression. He then uses 'The Black Hole' to open the door revealing a large safe in the middle of the room. The room is more darkly lit emphasising how the character has become more dark and sinister in what hes doing. We see him rush towards the safe and using the black hole begins to steal money from it. We see the character pull large amounts of notes bundled from the safe. It begins slow with him looking around and taking just one bundle and his ecstatic reaction, the pace then quickens and he begins to frantically grab more and more money. Finally, in trying to reach the last of the money, he crawls completely into the safe. The black hole then falls from the safe door, trapping the man inside. This could communicate the audience the meaning of the entire piece, representing how greed and power can consume someone. It ends with the sound of the trapped character knocking on the safe door combined with the non diegetic sound of the electronic dark black hole noise. As we cut further and further away from extreme close up of the tape sticking the black hole to the isolated safe in the room. Emphasising the isolation of the man as the space conveys no one is around and he has been isolated/trapped by his greed.