Synopsis of Save The Last Dance

Film Director: Thomas Carter

To give the audience more of a thrill and idea of the message that he is striving to fulfil; Thomas Carter creates a blend of superior, very clever techniques and effects, leading into this, the use of audio and visual techniques he uses are minutely, transcribed into bringing ultimate, unprecedented feelings and beliefs directly onto the audience. Carter does this because in many cases he wants the audience to be a part of the film and possibly to take a grasp of aspects which still are very much a part if the world today. I introduce to you Save The Last Dance.

[Visual]
A deep, profound almost a rusty blue visual targeting the audience suggesting a predominant, sadness with depression from the instant the movie starts. Contrary to this, introducing itself especially coincidental; a tarnished looking rail way line which implies of more sorrow, almost indicating of abandonment and loneliness. As the audience witness this, slowly but surely a light Sunday-morning blue train is observed. As the audience observe, the camera slowly zooms in toward one of the train carriages. Inside the carriage, the audience receives the same colours as before, duller, drowned tinted blue, connoting more sadness or depression upon the minds of the viewers. It’s almost as if the audience are subject to this sadness as they are being drawn in by the camera to this sad, lonely carriage where a young girl is quite lifeless in motion and matches the suggested colour perfectly. In addition to this the audience get a distinct idea of the girl.

She is alone in the carriage which immensely gives an impression of misery and abandonment, she isn’t wearing bright clothes which could suggest again that she is lonely and doesn’t want to be cheerful, maybe giving the audience another idea about what quite a young girl is doing alone on a train, maybe a tragedy of some sort which the girl is moving away from.
Building into this a woman, appearing very friendly and warm hearted - giving the audience a sensation of small happiness – sits down opposite the young girl, the audience get a open shot of both people almost bringing them together.

After this event, the audience get a new environment, with bright, powerful, orange and red colours suggesting ordinariness and a general loving atmosphere, as the same girl is in the picture again, a mid-shot this time with a woman who appears to be her mother, is placing a necklace on the young girl. This connotes a sharing, loving sequence but as this is seen, noticeably the woman doesn’t appear to be wearing a wedding ring which is what you would expect for a mother to be wearing. This indicates to the audience that something is not right, and there is an anomaly in the young girl’s situation.
The audience is now watching the young girl dancing, with a close up of her face.

The pace of the visual effects is getting faster as the audience experience many jump cuts from the girl dancing back to the carriage, creating an aura of anxiety and tension in the audience. Then it becomes visible of the young girls mother inside a vehicle during the jump cuts. As she swerves to avoid a lorry she crashes. Which is when a jump cut back to a close up of the young girls face is used, to maximise her memory on the audience. All of the jump cuts are used extremely well to create a moment of panic in the audiences mind as to what is going to happen as the scenes get shorter ad shorter.

Once her memory is over, the audience receive a mid shot of the young girl, as very dark colours come into play, which suggest of sadness, moving on into dark places, and general tough times which the audience could imagine from the memories they have just seen. As these progresses, the camera slowly zooms out of the carriage and reveals the train in the dark gradually moving into a busy looking city, with lots of buildings and civilization. This promotes to the audience of a possible new start for the young girl, and also the audience will want to see the girl be happy again.

[Audio]
From the beginning of the film appears the sound of a bell ringing, possibly to signify the beginning of an event. Almost immediately after the audience are hit with the sound of a train horn, indicating that a train is on its way making a journey. Leading from this sound, sad, soft piano music starts to play in a looped repetitive fashion suggesting of wheels turning on the train and to possibly give an indication toward the audience of the start of a journey. The music which is playing suggests a prominent sadness and loneliness; this is very effective as it’s quite possible that carter has used this music because it has been composed with only using very little notes, which would again promote loneliness and individualism onto the audience. As the scene moves forward the audience receive more train noises indicating that the train is very close indeed now, contrary to this there is a definite sound of a train over tracks, which could suggest that the plot is about to begin.

As the sad, solo, piano music fades away the audience begin to listen and interpret a conversation. This effect is used because using no music at all forces the audience to listen even more carefully as to what is being said emphasising the dialogue and creating a sense of discomfort in the audience. So the dialogue starts, the audience hear a woman with quite a deep, friendly voice converse “I love ballet”. Almost as soon as this speech has taken place, a quite upbeat music starts to play suggesting to the audience that something is going to happen. The woman continues to converse with “I never had the body for it”, which is indicating that the woman is social, and a nice person, yet there is no reply from the person she is talking to, connoting that’s something definitely isn’t right as any other person would have replied with at least something. The one sentence that the woman uses to gain a reply is “Do you dance” within which the girl replies “I used to” giving the audience a distinct inkling and advantage as to what this girl is obviously upset about.
With this speech complete, there is some conversation between a girl and her mother, but I very unique sentence her mother says is “you’re the best luck I’ll ever have” giving an idea to the audience that this is an only child, and more importantly that the father isn’t around.

Following from this the tempo of the music gradually gets quicker, to create some tension in the audience possibly because a bad thing is going to take place. A phone rings; voices are very rushed and muffled maybe to create a sense of busyness. As this takes place rather haunting music starts playing in the background signifying to the audience that there is definitely a bad omen amongst the situation. Now comes into play the sound of a train going over tracks very quickly, expressing to the audience of possible shrieks and cries out. The music is building up louder and louder, getting ready for something big to happen, screeching breaks grasp the audiences ear lobes. What follows? Silence, a few seconds later a single note instrument is playing to once again signify loneliness and sadness.