Case Study 3: Bus 44

Case Study 3: Bus 44

Title: Bus 44

Director: Dayyan Eng

Release Date: 2001

Genre: Drama

Target audience: 

This film is targeted towards a more older audience (starting from young adults - older people / 15+) as it shows us the darker side to to human behaviour.

--> The film features scenes involving violence, robbery and rape.

Number of characters:

We see 4 main characters in the film, but we do also see many other actors who play the police, and passengers on the bus. The 4 main actors are...

- The bus Driver

- A young man / passenger

- Robber (1)

- Robber (2)

Narrative Structure: Linear

Synopsis:

Bus 44 follows the story of a female bus driver and her passengers who encounter two robbers on their bus journey.  

The film starts off with a shot showing a young man who happens to be stuck on a highway, and luckily enough, he sees a bus come by. After he had got on the bus, they continued their journey. However, along the way, they encounter  two robbers who decide to not only rob the valuables of every person on the bus, but also rape the female bus driver in the fields by the highway. At this point every, passenger on the bus was pressed up against the window contemplating over whether or not to go and help her. In the end, the only passenger who had the courage to go and help her was the young man she had let on the bus earlier. Once, he got to where she was, he was unable to save her and got injured in the process. Later, after the two robbers had gone, the bus driver and the young man who tried to help her headed back to the bus. However, once they had got there, the bus driver immediately told the young man to get off. We then see a close up of the young man's face as he asks why he wasn't allowed back on when he was the only person to help her. But he receives no reply and the bus driver drives off into the distance. Later on, after the young man had managed to hitch I ride to the nearest town and on the way, he sees policemen surrounding an area where a car accident had happened. He soon finds out that everyone on the bus, including the bus driver was dead and come to a realisation that it was the bus he had just been kicked off that crashed. The film then ends with a close up of the young mans face as the smiles.

Camera Techniques: 

Examples: 

Example 1: Extreme-long shot / establishing shot

This shot was used to set the scene and show where majority of the short film takes place.

Example 2: Long/Wide shot of young man and bus.

The use of a long shot allowed us to see the young man's entire body, meaning we can see his clothing and body language. Through this we are able to tell (through his body language) that he is very desperate in this situation.

Example 3: Mid shot of passengers as they look through the bus windows.

This shot was used as it allowed us to see the actions and body language of the passengers on the bus.

This was done to emphasise how cold hearted these passengers are as they are just sitting back and watching as the bus driver gets raped.

Example 4: XCU of car accessory

This shot was used as the prop shown in the shot is significant to the scene and the film itself. It plays a big part in the film and as shown in the following screenshot where we see a wide shot of a police man holding up the accessory as evidence from the car crash that had happened later on.

Editing:

The film starts off showing a young man on the side of a highway, but cutaways were used to change the focus of the scene and switch between shots of an incoming bus and the young man. As well as that, cuts were also used to switch between scenes. Generally throughout the film, the cutting rate was quite slow. However, it changes and speeds up towards the end when see the police acting very urgently at a car crash site.

Sound: 

This film's sound mostly consists of diegetic sound in the form of dialogue. This was done to help the audience have more of an understanding of the storyline and what was going on in each scene. However towards the end we do hear some non-diegetic sound. As we were introduced to the police later on in the film, we hear fast paced music playing in the background. This was done to add to the mood and emphasise how urgent the situation was for the policemen. 

Mise-en-scene:

Lighting:

The lighting in the film was good and was generally quite bright. It was very consistent and there wasn't a scene that looked out of place.

Location:

The film was shot in Hong Kong and the main location were..

- The inside of a bus

- A highway

- A field

Costume and Props:

During the film we see that 2 of the main characters, the bus driver and the young man are wearing every day clothes. However, the two robbers that they had encountered were wearing suits and carrying knives. This shows us that they have more power over the other characters as they are carrying weapons. Also, the fact that they are carrying weapons tells us that they are represented as criminals.

What I liked about the film/What ideas would I take into consideration when creating my own short film?

- I liked how camera techniques were used to clarify what was going on and emphasise certain representations of characters in the film. I plan on doing the same by using techniques such as Close Ups as my main short film idea is a Thriller, and it also heavily relies on clarifying the emotion of characters in order to set the mood.