Eagle Eye

Eagle Eye was directed by D.J Caruso and written by Dan McDermott. Its release date in the UK was the 17^th October 2008. Its genre is crime thriller. Jerry who was played by Shia LaBeouf and Rachel who was played by Michelle Monagham are two strangers thrown together by a mysterious phone call from a woman they have never met. Threatening their lives and family, she pushes Jerry and Rachel into a series of increasingly dangerous situations, using the technology of everyday life to track and control their every move, this illustrates and emphasises the film’s genre.

Throughout the first six minutes, the drama increases, a certain strong type of action based music is played to create this dramatic effect and to make the viewers anxious. When the president orders the commander to shoot, the commander orders to shoot and watches it through a type of powerful CCTV, there is then a great extremely fast zoom into the shooting of the victims that goes with the flow of the bullet, then it zooms out and the credits appear. This had a very great effect as it increased the tension through speeding up the action. The film then continues and the main character Jerry is introduced.

A great part of the movie in which there is a sudden immense change in the tone of the film, is just before the first 30 minutes of the film runs, when Jerry is ordered to run and escape from the interrogation room. This interested our group as we would like to create a moment in our own production where the action becomes sudden. In Eagle Eye whilst the room shakes just before Jerry escapes, the camera shakes to add to this effect, we liked this particular effect as it adhered to the genre. We also like the font of the credits as they relate to the thriller and would like to use something similar for our own production.

There was a lot of Mise-en-Scene used in the opening scene of 'Eagle Eye'. I believe that the mobile phone is the most powerful prop in this film. The reason for this would be that it is the only link between Jerry in the real world and the automated voice that controls his ongoing life. This was shown really effectively as he enters his apartment that is bombarded with weapons, fake ID's, passports and so on. He then receives the call and is told what to do and when to do it but never why; which leaves the viewer anticipating every step he takes as the plot reaches an astonishing climax.

Throughout the film one thing you will realize is that whenever something dramatic is about to occur the lighting will always be artificial or fairly dark. For example, when the crane is about to destroy half of a building, when Jerry discovers the illegal merchandise in his house and even when he is ordered to jump out of the building looking at a 50 foot drop.

I think that the use of editing was absolutely amazing. It was unbelievably dramatic with high pace action and thrills. The cuts were used at the perfect times and done so swiftly to match the action that it was if it was all one shot.

The sound used in the film was very dramatic and used very precisely. There was a lot of non-diagetic sound; for instance when the crane is about to make contact with the building the build up in music is nerve wracking, but there was also diagetic sound; so when the crane struck, it made a lot of noise.

The primary target audience would be people aged 12-32. Due to its high paced car chases, action scenes and cranes in motion. It would have a secondary target audience for anyone who enjoys watching action based thrillers that keep you on the edge of your seat.