Mise-En-Scene

Cold Case is an American police procedural television series which ran on CBS from September 28, 2003 to May 2, 2010. The series revolved around a fictionalized Philadelphia Police Department division that specializes in investigating cold cases.

This particular episode features many different stereotypes of teens and representations of age.

The beginning of the clip is set in a school, showing some teenage girls smoking in the bathroom. The camera cuts to a corridor where a stereotypical ‘Goth’ teenager is looking in his locker the lighting in the corridor is very dark and shadowy, reflecting the mood of the character and his personality.

Editing

The First section of the clip uses very slow paced editing as it is more laid back and relaxed as there has not been much drama yet, therefore the editing is just clean, simple fades and cuts, with some camera effects. When the flashback finishes the scene changes to the office, the shots quicken as it shows the different people in the room. As the title sequence for the programme commences; the pace of editing speeds up because they want to create tension for the rest of the episode and to keep the audience’s attention on the story. The quick swipe fades in between each clips adds to the speed and fluidity of the sequence.

Sound

At the beginning of a clip, a punk rock song plays in the background as the camera follows students and teachers through the school. The song playing represents a teenager’s lifestyle. That being care free reckless person.

As the teachers and students interact with one another the music drops down, the music’s volume increases to its original setting after the teachers say the word ‘detention’. This signifies the word detention as a frequently used word heard by teenagers everywhere. As the clip cuts to outside of the school, the time speeds up and fast forwards to night time. As this occurs, the punk rock song fades out and slightly quieter dramatic ambient music enters. This creates an atmosphere and creates tension. This signifies that something significant is about to happen or is happening right now. This suggests that the audience needs to pay attention as this will be referred to later on.

Later on in the clip when they are in the police station, as they piece together a part of the crime, some slightly more casual music begins; this signifies that they have found something of interest and it is significant to the plot.  

Camera

In Cold Case lots of pans are used to display to the audience what is happening all around the scene.

There is also a surveillance camera shot used, which creates the feeling as if we are spying on them, and with them not knowing we’re there, display how they would’ve acted if we weren’t there. There’s a close up on the boys, displaying the emotions on his face, and overall showing us through his facial expressions how he feels about the situation and how he shouldn’t have been given a detention for something he wasn’t going to do (commit suicide). This represents teenagers as emotional wrecks and is ungrateful for the gift of life that they have, as well as being ungrateful for a variety of other things. In addition it projects that their lifestyle and the way they want to live is wrong, and for taking an interest in certain things, must give them certain aspects (idolising Kurt Cobain must mean you want to kill yourself).

The low angle shot when he walks into detention emphasises his superiority to you, as you have to look up to him. This shows that maybe we shouldn’t have such a bad opinion of people just by the look of them and maybe realise they have certain skills that make them much more useful than ourselves.

There are lots of focus pull shots, where it starts as a blur and focus’ into the shot. This could represent that the truth may be blurred and we don’t know what actually happened but soon we will. There is also a dip to white at the beginning, representing innocence and angel-like connotations.

There is a shot underneath a stairway where you can see the peoples legs as they walk down them. This creates a feeling of mysteriousness as you do not see their face, creating the question; who is this person? What are they doing? Why are they doing it? Why are they going? Etc.