Practice Extract Essay

In the extract of the television show 24 the director is trying to convey a feeling of suspense within the viewer. The director is also trying to convey a crime thriller genre for the television show. The director wants to create the feelings of suspense for the crime that was committed inside the audience.

            In the first scene it opens to a woman sitting in an interrogation room chair waiting to be questioned. The setting of the interrogation room leaves viewers wondering why she is there and what she did. Not only does it leave readers wondering what she did, but it also leaves readers wondering what she is about to be questioned on and what is about to happen during the interrogation. This feeling of suspense is exactly what the author wants the viewers to feel. The crime aspect of the extract is also presented in the interrogation room. The eye-line match when the officer first walks in the room is another way the author conveys his message of suspense to the viewers. The officer looks at the camera and then the scene shows the camera after he looks at it. This conveys the author’s message of suspense by leaving viewers guessing who is watching the camera and why he looked at the camera. The suspense is in wondering whether he is going to disable the camera or is he going to try to help the prisoner escape somehow without the camera seeing it happen. These questions leave the audience on edge to see what is going to happen next. The score played throughout this scene intensifies the suspenseful feeling the audience has. It makes the extract seem more suspenseful by the music going lower and slower making it seem like something is about to happen. It symbolizes that something interesting in the extract is about to happen and it makes the viewer’s suspenseful feeling soar.

            The next scene is signaled with a shot/reverse shot of the scene moving from the interrogation room, to the officers watching the interrogation, and then back to the interrogation room. This shot shows suspense by the officer’s watching the interrogation faces. Their faces show that they are waiting on something to happen in the interrogation. These expressions incite a rise in suspense in the extract because it makes readers think about what they are waiting on and when is it going to happen. The close up of the officer after yelling at the prisoner shows his emotion of anger and frustration is at an all time high. This raises suspense because it makes the officer seem desperate, causing his next move to be unpredictable. This forces the audience to wonder what he is going to do to get the information that he needs and when will he do it, causing suspense to raise tremendously.

            The next scene is also signaled with a shot/reverse shot of the scene moving from the interrogation room, to the officers, watching the interrogation, and then back to the interrogation room. The dialogue between the officer and the prisoner is heated at this point in the extract making the suspense level rise on what is going to happen next between them. The prisoner begins to speak and tease the officer as he backs up into his chair. While the prisoner is still speaking the officer sits quietly staring at the prisoner. This leaves the audience suspenseful as to what is about to happen in the scene. The audience is suspenseful because they do not know what is about to happen between the two and how severe it is going to be. The score of this scene is another tool used to enhance the suspense in the extract. The music starts to grow louder and louder signaling something is about to happen. This also makes the suspense that the audience is feeling grow larger as well.

            The next scene is started with an action match of the officer tackling the prisoner and choking her. The dialogue of the officer also combines with the choking, asking the prisoner questions. The audience is in suspense to see if the prisoner is going to answer the questions or not. The split screen of the officer choking the prisoner and the other officers running to the interrogation room arises suspense. It does this by having the audience on edge to see if the prisoner is going to answer the questions before the other officers reach them and what is going to happen when the other officers do reach them. These different techniques used in the scene by the director rises the suspense level of the extract, therefore causing the suspense level in the audience to rise as well.

            The director’s theme of the extract is to portray the feeling of suspense from the extract to the audience. This causes for the use of different editing techniques and different camera angles, camera movements, sound, and mis-en-scene in order to convey it. These tools are used in every scene of the extract in order to create the feeling of suspense in the audience, maintain the suspense, and rise the suspense with every moment of the extract.