The knights tale, a film released in 2001 by the Sony production company Columbia. Colombia is a well-known production company who have made films like the “men in black” and “spider man” franchises. The fact that is it’s a big production company with a lot of money suggests that this film is going to be big budget with impressive sets and realistic action scenes. The film had an estimated budget of $41,000,000 which shows that peoples assumptions were correct. The plot of the film is loosely inspired by a mix match of “The Canterbury Tales" and the story of Ulrich von Lichtenstein, ultimately it is the story of William a young squire who over comes the odds and becomes a knight, not forgetting winning the fair maidens hart.
The slow motion camera shot of the two knights jousting, allows the viewer to become engaged In the scene e.g. stop whatever they were doing in the cinema/ livening room and take interest in the scene waiting for the action of the wood splintering. The reason this was not put at the very start of the film could be because this first bit of text is not vital to the film it is the text after the action scene that Is of real importance to the film and explains the circumstances of where we meet some of the key characters
The first line in the film is introducing the viewer with the immediate problem “he has to be at the lists in two minutes” this gives the audience something to think about and with give them questions like “ how will they get him there”, “where is there” and “ what If they can’t”. The scene also introduces us to two of the key characters in the film although at this stage the viewer does not know for certain who the main character is you can take a good guess at him not being the plump balling man and more likely the scruffy blonde one on the other side of him.
Accompanied by the diegetic sound of fly’s buzzing the news of the knights death is announced to the scruffy blonde and a fiery redheaded man in a humorous way “ the spirit is gone but his stench remains” this tells the audience that his death will not be mourned and he wasn’t a very nice man, this is also backed up by the fact that the firefly redhead starts to beat the dead night in an effort to wake him up but is it no good. The death of the knight and the hungry squires now presents the audience with a different question, what are they going to do now when they are so close to an easy win? Break the rules or give up? When the scruffy blonde lies about him being on his way sets the ball rolling for the film.
The setting of the first scene is important as it helps to show how desperate they are, with their knight smelling and in a ditch. By having the first scene in a field it will create a bigger contrast between the beginning and the ending, making the fact that he becomes a knight even more of a feet as he started off in a filed.
The clothes of the characters also do the same thing and thought the film the clothes increase in standard as he wins more.The language in the film is also modern allowing the viewer not to be put off by going to watch a film with old language they would not understand, it also adds to the humour of the film as the viewer can feel that something is not adding up and our modern English is out of place in this old setting.
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