Film Making Conventions and Cultural Codes (American Psycho)

I chose a scene from American Psycho, from the middle of the film. The genre of the film is drama/crime.

Film making conventions:

• ECUs of each business card, and when each character takes out their business card - shows the importance of the cards to the businessmen.
• As the scene goes on, the framing on Patrick Bateman gets tighter and tighter - making the scene more tense as we read the anger and jealousy in his facial expressions.
• Voice over of Patrick's inner thoughts - although he is not outwardly expressing his jealousy we see into his mind like none of the other characters get to.
• Sound of the clicking when the other businessmen open their business card holders is enhanced and isolated - get the sense of building tension - as Patrick focuses more and more on the business cards, he gets increasingly jealous.
• Other characters are shot with MCUs or CUs, but only ECUs on Patrick and the business card, so we focus more on Patrick and his emotional response to the cards.

Cultural codes:

• A room of very well dressed businessmen - all very rich and highly thought of in the business world.
• Comparing their business cards - competitive nature of their work place - Patrick becomes furious when he learns that they all consider Paul Allen's business card to be better than his, but a large percentage of the audience would not understand his jealousy, which makes Patrick's reactions and emotions even stranger to us.
• Their clothing and the room that they are in have fairly muted colours - nothing too bright - shows the seriousness of their environment