Micro & Macro

Analysis
Drama Film: Attack The Block

Camera

First shot shows shooting stars going across the night

sky.
The camera pans down onto London skyline showing
fireworks happening in the distance and a Tube
station.
Pans down onto a wide shot to establish the location.
Tracking shot and match cuts used to follow a woman
as she walks home from the tube station.
High Shot (almost birds eye view) used to show the
woman crossing a road. Probably to make her look
vulnerable.
Over the shoulder shots used when gang member is
robbing the woman and when hes stealing from the
car.
Close-ups used when the alien is attacking him.
Ends with a long shot of the gang that pans upwards
to the night sky and zooms in to show several
shooting stars in the sky.

Visual effects and computer generated images (CGI)

used to show the shooting stars in the sky and the
fireworks across the skyline of London.
Match cuts used when following characters and when
there are altercations between characters.
Quick jump cuts are also used when the gang member
is attacked by the alien.

Micro
Analysis

Mise-En-Scene

Editing

Main location being Night-time in the streets of South

London.
Various settings include: Oval tube station, an alley
way, Minor inside roads.
Main lighting seems to be made to look like artificial
light coming from street lights (giving an orange look).
Background fireworks across the London skyline and
winter coats & hats worn by the featured characters
suggest it could be 5th November (Guy Fawkes Night).
The gang members are wearing tracksuit bottoms,
hoodies and scarves/balaclavas across their faces.
Props include things like bicycles, a knife, mobile
phone, a woman's purse and a wedding ring.

Sound

Theres sort of a mysterious and suspended music

piece playing in the background throughout the first
part of the sequence.
Music starts to speed up and pick up pace as the
action in the story starts to become more tense
(woman getting robbed, asteroid hitting the car and
alien attacking).
Throughout you can hear diegetic sounds of fireworks
exploding and children playing in the background.

Key Plot Ideas

Introduced

Order of the Storyline

I think that the main idea about the story that is trying to
be introduced is that these gang youths believe that
theyre the most dominant people in the area of the
council estate that they live on.
I believe that this are is what theyre referring to as in the
sequence as The Block which comes from the block of
council flats that they live in.
However, the sequence ends by showing the audience
multiple shooting stars, which are probably carrying more
aliens, heading towards Earth.
This is probably supposed to tell us that this gang of
youths will probably be in more situations with more aliens
in the future.

1. Were shown a shooting star/asteroid in the night sky

over London.
2. Audience follows a woman walking home from a tube
station whos finishing a phone conversation with her
mother.
3. Crosses paths with a gang of youths with bicycles.
4. The gang force her to hand over her phone, purse and
wedding ring.
5. An asteroid hits a nearby car.
6. One of the youths tries to steal from the car and gets
attacked by some sort of animal/alien.
7. Alien runs away after the youth stabs it and the whole
gang chases the alien.
8. The gang scare the alien with fireworks and kill it.
9. Its revealed that there are more asteroids, presumably
with more aliens, heading to Earth.

Macro
Analysis

Characters

The audience is firstly introduced to the woman who

eventually gets robbed.
The second main characters to be introduced is the
gang. Mainly one gang member robs the woman and
attempts to steal from the car but more of them are
present throughout the sequence.
Were also introduce to an alien or animal that has
presumably landed on Earth from an asteroid and
attacks the gang youth who tries stealing from the car
that the asteroid landed in.

Social Groups
Introduced
Typical London Commuters:
People who are travelling to and from work in London.
Using there phone.
Try and avoid confrontations with other.
Wary around teenagers who may look like they can
cause trouble.
London Youths:
Negatively and stereotypically represented.
Shown to be wearing tracksuits and hoodies.
Threatening people with knives (knife crime).
Mugging/robbing people at night time.

Title Conventions
The few titles that appear in the title
sequence for Attack The Block are simple
types of titles.
They use titles on a blank black screen for
three of the titles. They feature centred
text with a simple, bold & sans serif font
with a white and orange colour scheme.
However, the main film title is the only title
that appears stylized over a moving
image.
The main title saying Attack The Block
expands over the moving CGI of the other
asteroids heading towards earth.
The titles appear in the order as presented
on the right. From top to bottom, where
top was the first and bottom was the last.