Columbiana Group Task 

The piece of the clip of Columbiana we chose to analyse starts with a close up on the electricity room door which straight away indicates something significant is going to happen within this room. All of the shots in the electricity room are very short which emphasises the quick pace she is working at in order to complete her plan without getting caught by the guard/police officer.

The plastic cup that she filled with water becomes an essential part of her plan from the moment she steps into the electricity room, the close up on the cup as she places it into the control cupboard builds on the significance of it, because water and electricity is known not to have a good outcome when in contact with each other. Then a close up is used when she balances the spoon that will catch the water that falls from the hole in the cup that she bit in, the water spills out onto the spoon which then causes the spoon to wobble due to the added weight which becomes too much for it to stay stable while being balanced in the electricity cupboard, which then results in the spoon falling and spilling the water onto the electric controls causing it to cut out.


The break in the electricity controls stops the fan in the ventilation system which was her end goal in this scheme as she can now sneak through the fan into the air vents allowing her to crawl through to where she needs to be; parallel editing is used at this point to show an officer in the security room with all he CCTV and her in the electricity room at the same time, this adds to the suspense of knowing if she'll make through the fan before the officer sorts it back out, the cuts between her and the officer become quicker allowing the audience to feel the time she has to make it through without getting caught by the fan.

Throughout there is low key lighting as it is set in a prison so the lighting contributes to the dark edgy feel of the prison that is just an innate feeling to all of those in the audience; the lighting gives the idea that her scheme is not one to help or will benefit anyone and only has a negative consequence as low key lighting is dark and shadow-like this scheme will only bring a dark ending.