SPN Meta: 5.01 Visual Framing Meta
Separated from the 5.01 reaction post because that was long enough already.
Small bit of visual framing meta for a shot from 5.01
Here's the shot from the scene.
Dean: "We made a mess, we clean it up. That's it."
Whether Dean says 'you' or 'we' isn't clear on my audio, but Closed Captioning says 'we' so I'll go with that, (even though the CC seems to think Sam's name is Jason. :-P)
Now, looking at the right side of the frame:
We have a puppy-faced Sammy (Puppius Winchestericus Maximus) being talked to by Dean. There's eye contact, there's communication, and so forth. Sam is feeling very guilty, Dean is, on the surface, reassuring him in a pragmatic 'doesn't matter how we go into the situation, just focus on fixing the problem' way.
ETA2: OOO! I just noticed! See! Sam here is framed by the doorway.
Now, looking at the left side:
We have a reflected Sam that's a shade darker than actual Sam (the jacket is in shadow, but I think there's a slight tonal variation to the whole reflection, and after that slow de-saturation bit of nifty they pulled in the green room in 4.22 (scroll down 'til you see screencaps), a tonal shift is a tonal shift. Reflected Sam seems a little more greenish-yellow. Reflected Sam has his back to Dean, and Dean is not facing reflected Sam. No communication there. It's as though Sam is being stubborn and not listening to what Dean is saying, or Dean is not fully addressing Sam or being fully open with him, which on rewatch, we know he isn't.
There's also the way Dean is bracketed by the two Sams. He's stuck between his brother's guilt and his brother's bull-headedness. Or Sam is surrounding Dean, trying to deal with the root of the situation but Dean is not willing to discuss it and is isolated from Sam by a buffer of empty space, taking a pragmatic view of the situation that could be seen as dismissive.
Sam is not looking for his action to be hand-waved away with pragmatism, and Dean is not actually open to communicating with Sam at this point, and not really open to Sam at all.
ETA2: Reflected Sam here is framed by the mirror-frame (obviously). Both views of Sam are not only isolated from Dean by space, he's seperated into his own visual compartment by the frames of the door and the mirror. So not only is there isolation from Dean, there are visual walls between him and Dean. That's fantastic! Not for the boys, of course, but it's a fantastic shot composition.
ETA: Also - and this is really stretching - there's chiaroscuro. Sometimes when a film-maker wants to imply internal character conflict or something, they show a character half in light and half in darkness. That's almost the case here, except Sam's light half and dark half are seperated by Dean and I don't know about you, but I'm finding that to be a fascinating concept. It's not overt though, so it might be accidental, but I think it's interesting ponder-fodder.
I could be way off base there, but it's a very interesting shot and choice in the visual framing and seems to summarize the crux of the tension between Sam and Dean in this episode quite effectively.
Small bit of visual framing meta for a shot from 5.01
Here's the shot from the scene.
Dean: "We made a mess, we clean it up. That's it."
Whether Dean says 'you' or 'we' isn't clear on my audio, but Closed Captioning says 'we' so I'll go with that, (even though the CC seems to think Sam's name is Jason. :-P)
Now, looking at the right side of the frame:
We have a puppy-faced Sammy (Puppius Winchestericus Maximus) being talked to by Dean. There's eye contact, there's communication, and so forth. Sam is feeling very guilty, Dean is, on the surface, reassuring him in a pragmatic 'doesn't matter how we go into the situation, just focus on fixing the problem' way.
ETA2: OOO! I just noticed! See! Sam here is framed by the doorway.
Now, looking at the left side:
We have a reflected Sam that's a shade darker than actual Sam (the jacket is in shadow, but I think there's a slight tonal variation to the whole reflection, and after that slow de-saturation bit of nifty they pulled in the green room in 4.22 (scroll down 'til you see screencaps), a tonal shift is a tonal shift. Reflected Sam seems a little more greenish-yellow. Reflected Sam has his back to Dean, and Dean is not facing reflected Sam. No communication there. It's as though Sam is being stubborn and not listening to what Dean is saying, or Dean is not fully addressing Sam or being fully open with him, which on rewatch, we know he isn't.
There's also the way Dean is bracketed by the two Sams. He's stuck between his brother's guilt and his brother's bull-headedness. Or Sam is surrounding Dean, trying to deal with the root of the situation but Dean is not willing to discuss it and is isolated from Sam by a buffer of empty space, taking a pragmatic view of the situation that could be seen as dismissive.
Sam is not looking for his action to be hand-waved away with pragmatism, and Dean is not actually open to communicating with Sam at this point, and not really open to Sam at all.
ETA2: Reflected Sam here is framed by the mirror-frame (obviously). Both views of Sam are not only isolated from Dean by space, he's seperated into his own visual compartment by the frames of the door and the mirror. So not only is there isolation from Dean, there are visual walls between him and Dean. That's fantastic! Not for the boys, of course, but it's a fantastic shot composition.
ETA: Also - and this is really stretching - there's chiaroscuro. Sometimes when a film-maker wants to imply internal character conflict or something, they show a character half in light and half in darkness. That's almost the case here, except Sam's light half and dark half are seperated by Dean and I don't know about you, but I'm finding that to be a fascinating concept. It's not overt though, so it might be accidental, but I think it's interesting ponder-fodder.
I could be way off base there, but it's a very interesting shot and choice in the visual framing and seems to summarize the crux of the tension between Sam and Dean in this episode quite effectively.