Breaking bad Representation essay:

This scene from the US TV series "Breaking bad", begins with an establishing shot that pans from the left to the right of the screen panning across the shelves of paint and onto the main character. This gives us an idea of where the scene is set and that it is in a hardware store. We don't have an idea why he has this paint, but at this point, there is nothing too suspicious about what he is doing and why he would need the paint, but when you look at him you kind of get a feeling that he is in on some dodgy business.

As the scene carries on the man takes 2 cans of the paint and he starts to walk along the isles. As he continues to walk it shows a low angle shot down by his hands, showing the paint and tracking up towards his face, and as it tracks you can see that he has a wedding ring on his finger implying that he has a wife, or it is even possible that he is not married but is only wearing the ring for the simple fact to make himself fit in because he looks like he is not a very safe looking man, probably involved in some sketchy things and people. Even though most people probably have this preconceived idea that he is probably dangerous and into trouble, there is no actual evidence about him being sketchy besides his looks. We then see in the next part of the scene he is just walking normally until he notices the shopping cart full of items usually and most often used for illegal purposes. This next shot is a high angle extreme close up of his face, where we see his full face and the expression on it, suggesting that he knows what those are used for, it then shows an extreme close of the items in the shopping cart, which shows us that there are items like acetone and gasoline, which are often involved with very illegal activities. He then spots the young man who is putting everything in the trolley and he tells him some advice about the match strips to use and how he should "piece mail" everything because it draws less attention. At this point, we begin to realize that not only is this young man in serious illegal activities but so is this old man and this shows the old man probably has quite a bit of experience in these areas and has been doing it for a long time now. We also see a big contrast of age and experience as well. For instance, the older man knows a lot more and knows how to do it without getting caught, as well as looking tough but poised, whereas we realize that this kid has probably not got much experience and probably doesn't know what he is doing which we see later that he doesn't. This is also shown through the fact he is young and doesn't know what he is really doing, they have portrayed him as a flustered and pretty nervous guy who just kind of follows orders and works for someone else. Another thing we can take from this scene is that these guys are most likely from middle-class areas, this is made obvious by the fact they do not dress up all fancy but they dress normally, as well as there is not any security for people who steal which there would be security in a lower-class area. Another way you can tell these guys are from a middle-class area is that the younger guy looks as to be on drugs which would be less common in a higher economic area, we can tell this by the fact that his eyes are quite glazed over and he looks quite untidy and unkept giving it away and selling it even more. Another contrast in this TV series clip/scene is that you can hear upbeat music and announcements in the background, this contrasts the fact that the man has something off about him and he is quite dodgy, which contrasts between the good and the bad in a way. After the older man finishes talking, and the younger guy runs away almost in shock, and leaves all his stuff behind. This mixed with the fact he got the wrong matches indicates that he is not very good at what he does, and has not done it for long.

After the younger guy leaves, the older guy kind of looks around in almost a look of amazement about why that guy got so scared of what he had just said because he didn't say it scarily or make it seem like he is bad, all he did was give him some advice about the matches and not to buy everything from one store so that it doesn't attract so much attention. This also gives us the idea that this older more experienced man has done this a number of times and knows the best ways to get things, and the best products to use. As he starts to walk away he almost kind of snickers to himself, because he may find it funny and ironic that he is in this dodgy business, yet he is unable to take the pressure of talking to a more experienced person trying to give him advice.

As the scene goes on, the man goes to the counter so he can pay for the paint and it shows a close up of his face with the repetition of the beeping of the checkout scanner and you can see how he notices something outside but you can't tell what it is giving a sense of mystery, like"what is it?" and what is he looking at? as it switches shot, you can tell that they have focused on him slamming the paint on the table for a reason and that's to show that he is angry, but you can't tell what he is angry at because they have blurred out the background to keep that suspense, so you don't know what it is until you see it. You then see him walk behind the paints and out the door and this is when a more suspenseful and harder music kicks in as he walks out the door on the far right making it look like he is re-entering the shot and is walking towards something. He is doing it in a very staunch and angry looking way like he is about to confront someone. You then get a quick glimpse of 2 men talking and you see that one of them is the younger guy that you saw in the hardware store, signaling that these 2 guys talking behind the van are in with each other. It then cuts quickly back to a close up of the older man's face and you can tell he is angry and is going to go confront them. You now start to get the feeling that these guys are what he saw outside and got angry about. You then see him walk over to them and confront the guy, and the younger guy says "that's him, he's the one" this tells us that this guy could possibly be opposed to the other guy and that is why the younger guy possibly ran away so that he could tell his 'Boss' about the guy. We then see the bald guy walk up to the older guy and they steer at each other for a while almost having a standoff seeing who will back down first. This is when we see the older guy say "stay out of my territory", and he says this almost like he owns the area, this gives us an idea that these guys are possibly involved in gang activity and that this is the older guy's territory. We then see the bald guy start to back down and the younger guy rushes into the van, possibly implying that this older guy has quite a name and reputation of being quite hard and dangerous even though since there was 2 of them they could have possibly even taken him, but they may not have been sure and that might be why the other bald guy hesitated and ended up backing down just in case.