Film Viewing Practice Essay "Agent Carter"

 Thomas Grace

Rebecca Meloy

AICE Media Studies

11/15/21

Film Viewing Practice Essay “Agent Carter”

Film has many purposes one of which being to provoke emotion or meaning through strings of various aspects of film. Aspects such as sound, editing, mise en scene, and camera shots or angles. Without those aspects being expressed in specific manners they are nothing more than just a jumble of facets in film. Within the first five minutes of Agent Carter (Marvel One Shots) we see various examples of the aspects of film using editing, sound, mise en scene, and camera shots and angles to induce meaning.

To begin, the camera shots, angles, movements, and composition used in the film are one of the most obvious points of constructing meaning. Within the first thirty seconds we see camera shots already being used to show value. Steve Roger is seen putting a picture of Peggy Carter on his speedometer. After putting the picture there we see it pan back to Steve’s face as he is staring at the picture before his seemingly last moments with the living. We also get to see Peggy Carter’s face, she is staring off past the camera as she is just listening to him over a radio. The camera slowly zooms into her face as it looks like she is about to cry, showing us the raw emotion that Steve would not even know as Peggy is concealing it. Another important camera shot in the one shot is around the 3:05 timestamp. When Peggy’s boss starts his question with “The boys and I were headed out for a drink you wanna…”, the camera pans out to all the other men standing around the boss implying that he was going to ask if she wanted to come with them. He instead asks her to polish up her reports as the camera cuts back to her disappointed and slightly angry face.

Furthermore, another aspect of film used to evoke meaning in the one shot is sound. Whether it be the abundance or lack of sound, it is all used for a certain reason. In the first few seconds of the short film, we hear nonsynchronous sounds of Peggy talking to Steve over the radio. We know its a radio simply from audio effects alone, allowing us to know that Steve and Peggy aren’t in the same room without the need for camera shots establishing where Peggy is. Another good example of the use of sound is at the 4:23 timestamp. Agent Carter gets into a fight with two men outside of a building. Whenever the camera is from the perspective of the man inside the building all the sounds of them fighting are muted and we just hear what’s going on inside the building.

Another aspect of film being used in the short film is mise en scene. Mise en scene is essentially anything in the scene that is not any of the other aspects of film. Things such as props, actors, costumes, the lighting, setting, etc. The props in the film set the scene of it not taking place in the present day. We see old machines like typewriters and war maps hanging on the wall. We can also see the costumes the actors are wearing are old fashioned as well. This helps emphasize how we aren’t in the current time, and things are much different, even just in the things they see and do day-to-day.

The final aspect used in the one shot is editing. There isn’t a whole lot of editing in the one shot. At the beginning of the film we see the film fade to black after the resolution of Peggy hearing Steve crash. This shows us that what happens next isn’t connected to the prologue we just saw. There is also text on the screen saying “One Year Later” as it fades from black. As for visual effects, we see the CGI of Steve Roger’s ship flying and crashing around, building the plot as it would be a bit hard to tell what he is doing without seeing it.

The one shot Agent Carter uses editing, sound, camera features, and mise en scene to construct meaning. Without it being constructed in ways that had meaning it would be little more than just strung together shots and other aspects. It would make no sense.