Film Analysis: Now You See Me

     Now You See Me is a film about magicians and has an action based genre. The opening scene consists of each of the different magicians performing a tick in front of an audience, either a large one or a small one.  

     The first magic trick involves a close up shot of a man surrounded by a crowd in a city at night. The man is holding a deck of cards, about to perform a magic trick. The close up is to distract your attention from the magic trick so you don't figure out how it works.

     You can tell straight away that the film is set in various big cities as the city names come up in captions at the beginning of the film and you also see shots of each of the cities that the trick takes place. Some of the establishing shots show smaller places such as a boat or a cafe and less of the city as a whole which shows that the characters are just normal people in normal places.

     The beginning of the movie is set in both dark and light places, rather than just sticking to one kind of place/lighting to show how different all of the characters lives are to give a bit of background knowledge to the audience. There are a lot of long and mid shots as these show more of the scene at once and so is helpful for setting the initial scene for the audience. These kinds of shots also help the audience to get to know the characters as not only are they seeing the character but they're also seeing how the character acts amongst other people and so what kind of a person they are.

     It usually flows quite smoothly from one shot to the next to avoid it being jumpy, making it smoother which helps with the whole theme of magic and illusion as if the audience is always focussed on the same part of the screen, they are less likely to notice the slight of hand magic tricks or the give away to the illusion, making the audience feel as though they are really there.

     The films set in very realistic as it is meant to be set in real cities rather than a fantasy place, and so real cities are shot to show this. The lighting is also very natural; harsh where it needs to be but softer and more natural in other places to show the variation of real natural light.

     The narrative of the story is mostly various magicians doing their magic tricks, usually including dialogue between the magician and the person or people they are performing the trick on. This kind of style makes the viewer feel like a spectator and like they are watching the man or woman perform the magic trick on someone.
   
A very naturalistic approach is taken with acting to add to the idea that it is in a real life setting and ugh many of the characters have bike and outgoing personalities, they are acted in a relatable and human way rather than it being too over the top and comedic.

The sound uses in mostly diegetic, such the frequent dialogue between the magician and the person they are performing the tricks on as well as noises such as the flipping of cards or background noises from boats and passers-by. Despite this, there is often also non-diegetic background music used to add tension and dramatic build up to the reveal of the magicians trick to make the audience become as excited as the actors as they wait in anticipation to see what the magic trick is going to be.