Practice Extract Essay

When viewing this Game of Thrones extract a certain theme comes to mind. With the intense meetings shown I feel the meaning behind this clip was that people come from many different backgrounds to find common ground and compromise on global issues. 

The first scene is when the visiting men are traveling on their boat into the city where the meeting is held. You are greeted with an aerial shot of a boat cutting through the water. This provides the viewer with an omniscient feeling that helps to provide the context of the visitors traveling a long way to this meeting. This can help to emphasize the importance of this discussion with having people travel from far away to talk in person. A score is also playing throughout the entire first scene. It is loud and helps to paint the picture of the setting that these travelers are sailing into. The first scene ends with a pan shot of computer-generated imagery (CGI)  of this fantasy setting as the boat goes between the legs of a large warrior statue. The CGI gives the viewer a sense of this new city and what type of people these travelers are going to be dealing with. The CGI gives the audience a perspective of a larger than life lushness of the city. This may provide context that these people have money when negotiating relations in the future meeting. 

The next scene is the physical meeting between the group of men. It begins with very dramatic lighting with a deep contrast between the bright natural light streaming into the dark corridor. This added drama and seriousness to the overall mood of the scene. It establishes a tone before the meeting even starts. Dialogue is used a lot throughout this scene to provide the context of the plot for the audience to consume while being faced with subliminal messages with other cinematographic effects and mise en scene. It is essentially the bulk of the scene that gives much information in regards to a theme of the extract. In addition, editors liked to use many edited transitions between people in the conversation with a shot-reverse-shot approach. This helps to give the viewer a better understanding of everyone in the meeting’s perspective as someone is talking. They then cut to another person’s reaction or wide shot of the full room to give more information towards a shifting mood within the room as they approach compromise within the discussion. Lastly, the actors cast were mostly all older men with European accents. This helps the audience to connect the character with a powerful diplomatic/regal figure in addition to their fine clothes from the costume designer. This can help to prove that this was a very important meeting where everyone “important” came to the meeting or sent their best men.

Overall, this extract used many techniques to illustrate the importance of this meeting these men had. Camera shots, editing, and thought-out mise en scene helped to convey the message of an important discussion leading to overall compromise.