This is a clip of the movie Back to the Future part 1, where the main character Marty McFly, has to get back to the future by harnessing the thunderbolt to his car. The theme of this scene is that no matter how much you plan for things, you must expect the unexpected. Doc, the supporting character, is hooking a line up to the clock tower to harness to the car. Doc has this brilliant plan that he has all worked out. But then the tree branch falls and rips out the chord, which sub-textually causes the audience to fear for him. After he fixes it and Marty is sent into the future he finds out that the future is now different.
They use of line throughout this clip is pretty predominate. They use lines such as the chord running from the clock tower to the power line. Also when the car goes into the future it leaves two lines of fire. This helps the audience recognize that he actually went into the future.
They used very basic shapes throughout the scene. The clock on the tower is a circle and they show it for quite some time. They shape of the car is a triangle to make it feel like it’s a faster more sleek car.
The clip doesn’t seem to show much space. The scene is in a downtown area, which only shows a tower, few buildings and a road. When Marty gets into the future, he runs his car into a movie theater, which helps show the lack of space in the scene. Which both the future and the past area of the town have full affinity of each other. They look the same and have the same buildings.
The rhythm of the scene is a gradual build up to the end. Once the car is going, Doc is having trouble getting the chord to plug in. The branch falls causing it to completely come undone. This starts to really build up the suspense. He then resolves it by sliding down to fix the chord. This is a good example of a steady rhythm showing tension and release.
These are scenes from the animation, The Brave Little Toaster. In the waterfall scene, they use a monochromatic color scheme for the background, by using light blue to darker blue hues. This gives the scene an ominous dangerous feel. The junkyard scene uses a split-analogous scheme, with the green, yellow and orange. This makes the scene feel more aesthetically pleasing. The characters in the waterfall are bright colors brought into a monochromatic scene, making them stand out. The characters visible in the junkyard scene contribute to the split-analogous scheme helping them fit into the scene.
The brightness of the waterfall scene is contrasting the darkness. The waterfall’s foam is bright to contrast the mountains. The junkyard scenes background is bright to contrast the cars, sky and ground. The junkyard scene is much brighter in comparison to the waterfall scene.
The saturation of the junkyard scene is very high in places and dull in others. The cars are lower saturation, where the characters are higher saturation. The colors appear very vibrant. The saturation of the waterfall scene is duller in some places. Both scenes use about the same amount of saturation respectively.
In the waterfall scene, none of the characters are casting shadows. This contrasts with the junkyard scene because the magnet is casting a big shadow on the ground. There is affinity between both scenes with the background objects casting shadows. This gives the scene more depth and brings the scene together.
Both scenes share the same symbolism of light. The highlights, like the waterfall foam and the background of the junkyard, give the scene a more dramatic contrast against the low lights. This symbolizes the better part of the scenes, like the good characters versus the bad characters. The lower lighting, like the mountains and the cars, symbolize the danger in both scenes.
The mood in the waterfall scene is a fearing nervous feeling. They achieve this with the differing brightness. The mood of the junkyard is also a nervous and fearful mood. They achieve this by the colors of the background and the brightness. This gives the audience a feeling of mystery through the brightness.
In the intro of this scene, the Car is backing out of the driveway and into the street towards the camera. At this point, they effectively use the 180-degree rule because the camera dollies alongside the 180-degree line of the subject. As the scene continues, it jumps to the front of the car, breaking the 180-degree rule. They can effectively break this rule because they cut away to only the inside of the car. The 180-degree rule is not broken throughout the rest of the scene because the camera stays stationary, while the car flies towards the camera.
The use of the rule of thirds is present in the opening part of the scene. The car, starting out, is directly in the intersection of the rule of third lines. Then the car moves to the center of the screen, which is breaking the rule of thirds. The scene then jumps to the characters inside the car. The driver and the other main character are both in the intersecting lines of the rule of thirds. This is a perfect use of the rule, make the characters feel like they are in the right place, aesthetically speaking. It then goes back to the car being in the middle of the screen.
They effectively use the 30 percent rule. In the beginning of the scene the car starts further away, which is about 30 percent smaller than it is when it comes up to the camera. Then towards the ending the car flies away, making it look 30 percent smaller, then coming back to the camera.
The director effectively broke the 180-degree rule by cutting to a new view of the car and characters. This is successful so that it doesn’t cause a Jump cut. The director used the other two rules, rule of thirds and the 30-degree rule, very well. This brings the scene together and gives the scene an aesthetic aspect, making it enjoyable to watch.
Groove
The Rhythm is Grungy with a bit of funk to it.
Listening Phase 2
Instrumentation
The main instruments driving the song is the drums and vocals.
Structure/Organization
The song is formed by a Intro, Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus and then Outro. This is the typical song layout for many songs.
Emotional Architecture
In the beginning the song starts out pretty powerful with the drums and guitar. When the verse comes in, the song gets dreary because the vocals are quite and the guitar completely stops. The chorus builds back up the powerful and energized feeling with more yelling in the vocals and the guitar comes back in. This repeats then the outro comes which is the same feeling as the chorus.
Listening Phase 3
Balance -Height
The song stays pretty low to medium frequency throughout the song.
-Width
It stays consistent with being mono speaker, in which the sounds do not differ throughout both speakers.
-Depth
There are 4 total instruments, ranging from guitar, bass, drums and vocals. They all stay consistently loud in reference of each other.
Four Year Strong-In Bloom Listening Framework Listening Phase 1
Tempo
Fast
Source
The rhythm is driven by the drums.
Groove
The rhythm is mainly punk-like and grungy.
Listening Phase 2
Instrumentation
The main instruments driving the song is the vocals and drums.
Structure/Organization
The song is formed by a Intro, Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus and then Outro, just like the original.
Emotional Architecture
The song stays pretty consistent wit the emotions. It mainly drives a high energized fast emotion throughout the whole song.
Listening Phase 3
Balance
-Height
The song stays pretty high frequency throughout the song.
-Width
It pans the two different singer's voices through opposite speakers.
-Depth
There are 6 total instruments, ranging from two guitars, bass, drums and two different vocals. They all stay consistently loud in reference of each other.
Both of these songs show talent and understanding of music. The original by Nirvana is a slower, more emotional contrasting song. The cover by Four Year Strong is more energized and faster, making the sounds differ greatly.
The pitch of the vocals greatly changes throughout the whole song in the original. The cover performed by Four Year Strong has a consistent pitch between all instruments. The instrumentation of the songs are pretty much the same except for the fact that Four Year Strong brought in their harmonizing dual vocals.
The melody stays the same with both songs, the only difference being Four Year Strong’s version is faster. The melody is formed from the guitar mixed with the vocals, creating a catchy melody when combined.
Nirvana’s approach was a grungy darker feeling. This is why Cobain had a monotone vocal during the verse and the bass and drum duet during the verse. Four Year Strong brought their own twist to the song by adding their iconic Pop-punk aspect. Making the song fast and upbeat.
Four Year Strong brought their touch to this cover in a few different ways. There are two different singers, making the different parts contrast greatly. They have two guitarists, which gave them the ability to be more complex through guitars. The ability to add complexity helps with making this cover their own.
I like Four Year Strong’s version better. It brings upbeat harmonizing vocals to what we thought was a grungier darker song. Unlike Nirvana’s original, Four Year Strong decided to make this song a more pop feel, making it a generally enjoyable song. Nirvana is a three-piece band, which limited them from making this song’s depth greater. Four Year Strong has two guitarists, who are both singers, along with a drummer, bass player and a synth player. This gives them the freedom to increase the depth, making the song one of a kind. Although both songs are very good versions, many will argue that the original is much better. But I believe that Four Year Strong’s is much better version because they utilized depth and panning of vocals.
