Scene Analysis

The scene I'll be analyzing is a scene from "Blue is the Warmest Color," a French indie film on Netflix.

This film is about a girl a girl, Adèle, in her teen years finding out that she is not into boys. The scene I am analyzing is the scene where she first realizes that she prefers girls to boys. Prior to this scene, she went on a date with a boy that all her friends were encouraging her to get with. Due to the peer pressure from her friends, she had sex with this boy but it was obvious she didn't enjoy it. Although the boy was extremely nice and was into her, she ended up breaking things off with him for reasons she couldn't yet understand.

In the scene that I am analyzing, she is sitting on the stairs near her school with one of her friends. The camera mostly stays in a medium shot, two shots, or over the shoulder as the two characters talk to each other. They are both smoking a cigarette (a very french thing to do, despite being so young). Another girl walks down the stairs past them and the camera stays focused on the other girl while Adèle's friend comments on her butt saying that it's nice. There's a medium/close shot on Adèle as she looks shocked to hear a girl speak openly about another girl. You can tell that Adèle is not used to hearing this but she also appreciates the openness of her friend. Her friend continues to talk about girls and also comments that Adèle is one of the prettiest girls in their grade. With another close up on Adèle, you can see her blushing slightly as she humbly denies being one of the better looking girls. Her friend continues to haggle her, saying that she is. The friend then leans in for a kiss. The camera is tight on them as they kiss. Although there are people in the distance, the tightness of the camera makes it seem like they are alone and it is understood that Adèle's first kiss with a girl went unknown by anyone else. However, as the camera pulls off them, it goes into a medium shot for Adèle's friend. The distance of the camera on her implies that the kiss meant nothing to her, she was distant from it. However, when the camera goes to Adèle, it's a close up, implying that she identified with the kiss and it meant a lot more to her than her friend. Adèle has just come to the realization that she may be a lesbian.

Though after this scene, Adèle does not end up with that friend and things get pretty awkward between them, it sets off the rest of the film of her being shunned by her other friends, her meeting a girl who is a lesbian as well, and them falling in love with each other. It's a great film and I'd suggest it to anyone who's willing to watch.

Final Video: Do You Want to Play a Game?

Do You Want To Play A Game? from Christina McEachern on Vimeo.

Sound Project

Neighborhood Sounds

Walking around my neighborhood in Laurelton, Queens, the sound is a hybrid of an urban area and a rural area. Three blocks west, I can hear the sounds of the main street, Merrick Boulevard. The sounds of cars rumbling past on the gravel, and a child screaming for her mother. On my block though, it is completely silent, save for a couple of leaves rolling around in the autumn wind. Once in a while, a car will drive by the street, most likely heading for the highway that is about a quarter mile east of my housE. This is a neighborhood where people mostly travel from rather than where people travel to. In the direction of the highway, I hear the long Island Railroad arriving to take the passengers into the city where they will go to work or to school. The train has a very distinct sound that is like no other, a constant chugga-chugga-chugga. A minute or two of relative silence and the occasional car pass by. Overheard, I hear a huge sound that I am so used to, I barely notice on a regular basis. But since my ears are so sensitive to sound right now, the sound of the airplane flying overhead is nearly deafening. I live very near the JFK airport so the planes fly very low over my house. It almost looks as if it is going to land right in front of me. I am so used to the sound though that when the 15+ planes fly over my house daily, I automatically raise up the volume on my TV or talk louder to my sister without even realizing that it is due to the planes overhead. These are the sounds of my neighborhood.

Define A Space

Define a Space Final from Christna Letang on Vimeo.

Artist's Statement

As an artist in our generation, I believe that it is important to try to fight ignorance as much as possible. One of the best platforms to do so these days is through media. I myself happen to learn best through visual images and I hope to be able to create art that is not only entertaining but is also informative and life changing.

As intrigued as I am when watching documentaries, I sometimes feel that the information does not always stick. I am more likely able to cite a quote from Titanic than I am to recite information from a documentary about the tragic incident. Therefore, when creating a film, I hope to take real life scenarios and present day issues and put them into scene. I believe that sometimes films can stir up a kind of compassion in us that an informative documentary may not be able to.

Some of the issues that I am most passionate about as a person are racism and women's equality. Though on the surface it may seem that we have solved both of these problems over the past hundred years, I, as a black woman, feel differently. One of my greatest inspirations in life is my mother who came to America from a small country named Haiti. She came here not speaking a lick of English but took it upon herself to go to school, take ESL classes and learn the language. She would go to college, go to work and at night take her English classes and still find time to come home and help me and my sisters with our homework. She went on to get a master’s degree and start her career. I feel that in television and film, we need more examples of people like my mother to not just tell, but show people what they can achieve.