Sherlock Holmes

Titles



In Sherlock Holmes' opening scene, there is no real title. The most likely reason they wouldn't have a proper movie title is that they want to get straight into the movie. All the titles are left until the end of the movie. The ending titles help to carry on the theme throughout the movie of olden times as the movie is set in the early 20th century. The end credits and titles are written on sheets of old looking scrolls of paper, with clips of the movie pausing and turning into hand drawn pictures of the people in the exact pose they are doing in the shot. The colour of these drawings quickly sink into the photo before the credits pause at the picture and text. The text is written in ink and is in posh, well presented joint up writing, to give a sense of the type of people in the movie (most of them being middle class English). All of this can be seen in the video above.


Music


The first thing I noticed about the music in Sherlock Holmes is how much repetition is used. This repetition it effectively used to show Sherlock's obsessions with solving every mystery and getting everything perfect. The same repetitive music that is used in the first scene, is used again during the end credits (it can be heard in the video for titles). Much of the music throughout is very similar to this music, with deep sounds and high piercing repetitive violins. Most of the music throughout is on stringed instruments, sometimes with an old sounding according. This music throughout adds dramatic effect. The music in the movie is more less all non diegetic sound. In one scene of the movie, during a street fight, Irish traditional music plays in the background. This music is used in this scene because of the association with the Irish and street fighting, mostly gypsy fighting. A lot of times throughout the movie, to show Sherlock's unnatural powers, all background sound and music is taken out so we can just hear his thoughts, as shown again in the fighting clip.

Shot Types

Because of the type of olden style movie it is, the shot types sometimes aren't as creative as some modern movies. This is to create the effect of the early 20th century time is it set. A lot of slow motion shots are used to great effect to show Sherlock's genius of powers to be able to accurately predict exactly how things will turn out, for example in the video for music. Depth of field shots are also used to great effect many times in the film, showing people talking in the background, and in the foreground how a person's facial expression change for example (at the start of the clip above). Another example is at 0.31 for the video for music. Like most movies, there are a lot of over the shoulder shots used during dialogue when two people are face to face, for example, 0.36 in the video above. Two shots are also used during dialogue to show that a private conversation is going on, such as at at the start of the video for mise en scene.

Mise en Scene

 The mise en scene in this movie is often very dark. Like other movies set in olden times, there is never any other sources of light, except sunlight and candlelight, so the scene of London in Sherlock Holmes is always very dark and drab looking. The costumes are all suited to the time of the early 20th century, as we can see by what the people are wearing in the video for shot types, escepically from the hat the woman is wearing at 0.15 for the video for music also. In the video above, it is very easy to notice there is no man made lighting, and it just looks like a typical grey day in London. The fight scene used for music is also not something that we would ever see in the modern days, and this gives us a sense of the time period.


Does this movie follow the codes and conventions?

I think to an extent this movie follows codes and conventions. For action/adventure, we have a lot of action and a lot of adventure throughout the movie. However, for example, it is the only movie in the genre I have analysed that is set in times that are not the modern day. He is not an actual superhero, like a few of other movies I have analysed, but he is a brilliantly smart man, who can near enough use his genius to see into the future.

Target Audience

The target audience for this movie would be an audience of older teenagers to adults. Sherlock Holmes is a well known fictional character which in itself would be able to attract an older audience. The movie is at times quite brutal, for example in the fight scenes like the one I have posted for music, where Sherlock fractures the man's jaw and cracks his ribs. There is also quite a degree of complexity in the movie, which would attract more of an older audience.

Social Groups
It is hard to link social groups being represented and related to in this movie as it is set in the early 19th century, but it could be argued it represents remarkably smart people. The movie could possibly represent how secretive middle/upper class people can be.