Mirrormask

8 choices

1. The first scene of the movie is shot upside down. It starts off with an american shot of helena lying on her bed, where the camera is placed right above her face. This shot shows her feet up in the air, moving around as she's playing with them like they're puppets. We can also see her face smiling. This shot allows us to see both her facial and body expression, which all suggests that she is having fun and enjoying her own world. However we can also see that she's somehow lonely because she's playing with herself instead of playing with friends, which most people do.

2. The camera then zooms in (the camera height lowers), turning the scene into a medium shot, focusing more on her facial expressions. When she heard her mother calling her, her smile vanished immediately as she got up, leaving the camera frame (screen). This suggests a possible issue that exists between Helena and her mother.

3. The next shot is of Helena's mom. It is a wide shot with a van on the right and a huge circus tent on the left in the back. Helena's mom is knocking the van, which reveals to us that Helena is lying inside the van. She then sees Helena through the van's window and orders her to get dressed for the circus. This wide shot also shows us the setting of the scene, which is at night, right before a circus performance. 4. The shot then goes back inside the van above Helena, who is lying down again. She is now drawing and the shadow from the piece of paper paper is over her face, making her face dark, thus suggesting a downturn of mood and discontent towards her mother for sacrificing her life to fulfill her father's dream.

5. The next shot returns to the outside, where Helena's mother attempts to open the van door but discovers that it is locked. From the audience's view, we can only see lights beaming out of the window, we cannot see Helena at all. This is somehow a resemblance to Helena's mother's perspective, although she can see into the window and see what Helena's doing, she cannot reach her heart. Through this shot we can see feel Helena's mother is kept outside of Helena's world.

6. The two begin to argue, and the the camera gives a wide shot of helenas "room" (van) as she sits up and argues with her mother. The rectangular room suggests how she's trapped inside this box for her whole life and enhances how she wants a "real life". The room is colorful with lights, like a mini circus. Although the room looks like a fun room to have, all the features in this shot seems like factors that would only increase Helena's frustration and anger of being isolated from the "real" world that she wants to live in, since even her room is circus like.

7. As their argument escalates, the camera then moves. At the the left half of the screen is Helena's mother standing outside the van, and at the right half of the screen is Helena inside, reluctantly getting dressed. Although what stands between them is just a thin wall of the van, the actual barrier between the two is much more than that. Not only does this shot shows their difficult relationship, but it also symbolizes their separation later on.

8. The next shot is still the same as above, except that the camera zoomed into a close up of both of them. In the closeup, tears started flowing out of Helena's eyes as she argues, suggesting that she does not feel good about arguing too, and that she's not just simply trying to be rebellious because she is a teenager. However her mom doesn't know and cannot see that. She then just think that her daughter is acting selfish and childish. The thin wall in the middle blocks them from seeing the situation through each other's perspective, and how the other person feels. But as the audience, we can see both of their expressions and how they truly feel about the situation behind the arguments.