Tent CityBy Aldo Velasco

Textual Analysishttp://futurestates.tv/episodes/tent-city

SynopsisTent City is set in the near future during a time of economic collapse. Unemployment is in the double digits, and block after block of businesses and homes have been foreclosed and abandoned. Only the powerful few live in homes, while the rest must survive in the tent cities cropping up everywhere.

Matthew Ochoa, a renowned comic book artist in better times, has acquired a home at great personal cost: He has taken a job on a Resident Eviction Squad. Every day, he and his co-workers must forcibly evict unlucky homeowners who have fallen behind on their payments.

But things aren’t much better at home. His relationship with his wife Sandra has become tense. Matthew’s 11-year-old son Ivan is clearly furious at him, but refuses to explain why. Despite this, Matthew persuades Ivan to play their favorite game, Trapezoid. Using three random words as building blocks, Matthew and Ivan create a science fiction tale — a story-within-a-story — about a hapless corporate worker who learns to his horror that he is not a human being but is, in fact, a robot created to serve the company’s nefarious purposes.Tent City interweaves Matthew’s life at his job with the story-within-a-story of the corporate robot. Matthew’s workplace becomes increasingly untenable, and he finds himself identifying more and more with the character in his Trapezoid story. One day he must evict an elderly man who will clearly die alone in Tent City. Another day, he and his co-workers burst into a home only to find that its resident has committed suicide rather than face eviction.

One night, after finishing the next chapter in the story, Matthew learns from Ivan the real reason he has been upset. Ivan admits that he is ashamed of his father’s new job; that his own best friend at school was recently evicted, and Ivan has become a pariah at school due to his father’s profession. Deeply affected, Matthew must grapple with a painful choice: should he stay at his job and keep his family home, or quit the job and keep his family, even if it means living in Tent City?

Shots•Establishing shots are fast moving shots that seemed to have been taken from a moving car, probably the truck taking the team of evictors to evict people from a home. The shots are taken with a handheld camera to give the shots a shaky, realistic effect. The shots are of a neglected looking town, full of abandoned buildings, boarded up windows and debris. The lighting is light but the shots seem to have a beige tinted colour which helps to make the town seem dirty.

•When the main character is talking to a woman who he is evicting, there is a sequence of over the shoulder shots between the two characters as they have a tense conversation. These shots are edited to swap between the two characters very quickly to help build tension. Through out the tense moments in the production this tactic is used to build dramatic pressure.•There is a sequence when the main character is creating and telling a story in a style of a comic book to his son. During this, the shots are black and white to create a comic book feel. A lot of still shots are also used during this phase to again act like a comic book. I think this section works very well and helps to add another dimension.

Sound

NON DIAGETIC:

•During the establishing shots there is a very dramatic but quiet non diagetic sound with a slow but hard beat without a melody to help raise dramatic tension. •During the end credits there is a soft rock soundtrack with guitar sounds which helps to reflect on the good deed the main character has done.

DIAGETIC:•During the establishing shot you can hear the rumbling of the car.•As the main character does his first eviction there is emphasized sound of smashing televisions and stuff being thrown around. This helps to emphasise the power of the evicting team.

Mise en Scene•The shots of the city showing the run down streets, abandoned houses and business and wreckage help to create the sense of poverty, desertion and neglect, which I believe are the main themes of the film.

•The lighting is light but the shots seem to have a beige tint colour which helps to make the town seem dirty.

Audience•I think that the audience for the film was very broad due to it not appealing or being targeted at a specific group.

•However I think certain types of people would enjoy it more than others.

For instance I think the age group would be no younger than teenagers. Maybe woman would find the deeper message more appealing than me and like the fact that the man makes the kind decision in order to please his son. Men and especially fathers will be able to relate to the film, sacrificing what you have in order to make you son happy.

Representation

•Throughout the film there is a team of evictors who are portrayed as being evil, sending family to Tent Town. There are low angled shots looking up at the evictors to give them the sense of power, and emphasised non diagetic sound used to also create a sense of muscle.

•The dad is also seen as bad by his son when he fins out that he is sending families to Tent Town.

•However the dad then quits and is represented as heroic.