Created Worlds

The World in the Eye of the Beholder

               The idea of how world shapes us as we shape the world is quite paradoxical. Who we are, our collective knowledge, comes from how we were raised in the world we lived in. It's natural for someone to develop and grow upon the world they lived in- to create their own. We live in a world that wishes to succeed in more efficient and effective ways than it's predecessor. We are raised with the hopes from our parents to live a better way of life than they did. Any healthy mind would aspire to the same simple dream to improve their life from where they started. What steps we take, and how these steps are taken ultimately will develop a new world of thinking and ethics. The world in which we live in is forever evolving in concepts, theories, ideas, laws/government, status quo, and ethics.

               Our Code of Ethics is the driving factor for all the changes made in the present world. Experience with the present ways of life drives improvement in what has or can make us feel weak. Ever evolving ethics are result of previous experiences society has had. It's very similar to the concept of destiny. What happened in the past determines what will happen in the present, and the present actions will determine the future. The only way to understand what will happen in the future is to completely under our past. -- Something that I strive to do, as of current, impossible.

               This impossible goal of mine gets me stuck in a trance. I find myself thinking thoroughly about strictly the past or the future. As for the past, I think about my past experiences, and the past of those who directly affect me. I do this in order to understand the future and find the most probable outcome of situations I face, or am going to be facing. When I think about the future I think far and deep into it. I plan the actions I have to take now to reach a certain end goal. Unfortunately, this leads me to anxiety attacks at times. It happens when I escalate too far into the future, and fear undesired results, or when I think of a pending future situation and think too far into the past convincing myself I am doomed for the upcoming situation.
               There is very little "middle-grounded" thinking, or in other words, thinking about just the present. It's ok to consider the past, to understand how to act upon the present world and get the desired future result. This is how your world will be observed- by the basis of your mentality. The outlook you have, and the present actions you take. I need to understand failure is ok; there will be other choices to be made when faced with a failure. Optimistic and present moment thinking is what will make up how you see the world. The world we live in is both created and influencing to and by us. Each owns reality is up to one's own mentality and perspective; it is in the eye of the beholder.

    

                          According to the rule of thirds our eyes should be drawn to Mr. Keyes. He displays a casual face and the director gives no other visual hints that anything serious is going on.  It's good to take note there are several scenes were Neff lights a match for Keyes' cigar. Neff is also always taller than Keyes when he lights the match, giving Neff the power of the situation. The match is also "normal" or calm, it isn't blazing bright as we compare it to our next picture.

                 
                           Here as well, according to my poorly drawn rule of thirds do we now see Keyes lighting the match for Mr. Neff. Both characters take the same placement as they did in the previous image, but Keyes now stands over Neff. This displays that the tables have turned, Mr. Neff is no longer in power of the situation he started because Keyes is above Neff. The match is also very bright--it seems to be lighting up Neff's face and the detail of the sweat and strain show on his face. The cigarette is limp, dangling from his mouth as he sits in this slumped position clearly being inferior to Keyes. This image is also darker than the first, indicating that the dirty truth of Neff's actions are out.

               The subject, Chief John Anderton, in this image is seen in an "untamed," painful change. Lead by the cross section in the rule of thirds, our eyes are drawn to his left eye. We also get to focus on his mouth, giving a facial expression that can lead us to assume he is in pain. Over on his right side sits another spider, this gives the viewer the idea that the government, Precrime, is constantly around, and has a lot of power to seek out people. While John is in the foreground the other spider stands above him, looking down to him and scanning into his eye. This gives us the impression that the government has the power in this situation, he is surrounded and "dominated" by these spiders.
            The lighting int his scene comes from the top of the room. The spiders shine in the light, the metal glowing gives off the idea that these spiders are "professional" and "official." However, the light doesn't hit Chief Anderton the same way as it does on the spiders. The lower half of John's face is covered by the shadows caused by the spider. This spider stands above John and takes the light away from his face. The director does this to show the power these spiders have. The only things lit on John's face are his eyes and teeth. Since his teeth and ghastly eyes are the only thing shown on him this gives the viewers the idea of his "mutations" from a respectable chief to an outlaw. There is nothing lit up on John in any way that shows he is "ok" or neutral, anything lit on him is a sign of agony and pain.
           This shot is a close up. We can tell this by noticing how only John's face is shown in the image. This shot really captures the reaction on John's face. This is important because if this were to be a long shot, we might be able to still see his body tense up as his eye is scanning, but we wouldn't catch his facial details. From this close shot he looks as if he is fighting to keep his eye open as the light from the scanner pierces into his eye. It's important for the viewer to see these details because it builds a more developed form of sympathy and scare for John, where as the viewer typically feels safer, and feels less emotion being "further" from the dramatic situations. Instead the director really wanted the viewers to have this frightening scene put up in their face to build these emotions.
          The bandage around John's eyes develop the sense of him having an operation done. The background although, isn't what we normally expect to see when someone has these types of bandages on. We would expect to see John in a hospital or at a Doctors office. Instead, we see his hair wet, slicked back with his face expressing agony. This brings us back the the first scene where John is buying a drug off the streets called clarity, this was the first time we saw John in his "unprofessional" state. After that, we only have been seeing him as the professional man, and Chief of Precrime. Now that we see him again, we draw the conclusions that he is doing something "bad" again because the only other time we've seen him outside of being a Chief was at a drug deal. These bandages are just like the drug dealer's glasses, they both associate with law breaking, and they both have their eyes removed.