The Butterfly Effect Analysis

The Butterfly Effect

In this essay I will be analysing how the film The Butterfly Effect shows camera angles, sound, editing and mise en scene. When watching the first five minutes of the film, there is a lot going on and it really get the audience engaged because there is quite a lot of information that the audience want to find out just within the first scene. The first scene is where a man locks himself in a room, and it seems to be like the building is in a police station of some sort. He then starts to write a letter which reads “If anyone finds this, then I guess my plan didn’t work and I’m already dead.. But if I can just go back to the beginning of all of this, I still may be able to save her …”.

These are the first words we hear and it gets the audience engaged because we want to find out why he is there, and what the situation is. The camera angle that is used within this shot is a close up, I think this is used to create tension and to get the audience more involved in what the situation may be. The whole purpose for a close up shot is to see the characters reaction to situations and to get the audience engaged. We also see panning shots from where the character walks into the room, they may use this because they want the audience to feel the characters emotions and his journey around this room.

The sounds that are being used are non-diegetic, which means that only the audience can hear the sounds being played and the music may go with the images being shown. But when the police start knocking on the door this is known as diegetic because the characters in the film can hear the noise. I think that they use non-diegetic sounds because the director wants to get the audience engaged by how the atmosphere of the music that you can hear. So, the music is really tense and you get the feeling and the illusion that the atmosphere is really tense and something bad could happen, because of what we can hear. The use of contrapuntal sounds is to contrast the images shown on screen. They may use this so they can get the audience more engaged and to wonder why they are using cold music to show images of happiness.

There isn’t many editing effects that was in the first five minutes of the opening scenes, but it showes the title which was edited which had a butterfly fluttering its wings. Then once the butterfly fade out, a picture appears which looks to be a skull, this may be big significance because it may symbolise an item later on in the story.

Once it gets past the opening titles, the camera then jumps to a scene with a little town and people riding their bikes down the road in which the town looks like a nice place to live. But there is contrapuntal sound because we see happy images of sunshine which can connote happy feelings but the music seems to be quite sad and seems as if the sounds of the music shouldn’t go with the images. We also then see other images that can be related to happiness e.g. schools and the sun shining.  The audience may seem to wonder why is the atmosphere so cold and why is there music being played that may not relate to the images shown.

Editing is to assemble different scenes and to make it suitable for the audience, this film shows good editing. This is because they have a grown man to start off with in the first scene and then it jumps to fifteen years earlier to a little boy. This may be significant to the audience because the film started with an end and then it goes into the life of the boy and how he ends up here in the first opening scene. This is engaging for the audience because they want to find out what is going to happen to this boy and what situation he may find himself in later in life.

During the opening scenes we see a man writing a letter, this may connote that the latter is going to be sent to someone and doesn’t have much meaning. But this may connote a strong meaning because he is writing a letter to someone, so this can have great significant through out the film because the opening scene is fifteen years after the rest of the film. The connotation is really significant because this letter is symbolising the boys life and why he is ended up there, to write this letter.

Just by watching the first five minutes of the film I was really engaged because I wanted to find out why the protagonist is writing a letter and why this may be significant to the little boy. I wanted to keep watching because it had all the elements that make a good film, and to keep the audience engaged.