Submarine

Directed by Richard Ayoade
Produced by Mary Burke, Mark Herbert and Andy Stebbing
Music by Andrew Hewitt and Alex Turner
Distributed by Optimum Releasing and The Weinstein Company


Submarine is a 2010 coming-of-age comedy-drama film adapted from the 2008 by Joe Dunthorne. It is produced by Warp Films Film4 Productions and UK Film Council

Titles

The tiles are in a clean modern font. The spacing between letters is irregular, words are disjointed and spaced apart as if incomplete, this is similar to the protagonist, who stands out as odd.

Sound

The first sound we here is the calls of sea gulls, this noise coincides with a seagull model suspended from the ceiling of Oliver's room. This sound establishes the setting as a costal area. In time with the establishing the soundtrack begins. This slow acoustic piece evokes a melancholy atmosphere.

Mise-en-scene and Cinematography 

Throughout the opening cold colours are used to provoke a melancholy, bitter tone. The film starts with a pan of the protagonists bedroom (Oliver Tate). Props suggest this character is creative, and an outsider; a skeleton, picture covered walls, a typewriter. 

The camera pans until the protagonist can be seen, a narrate then begins to speak over the film, which the audience can infer is Oliver's voice. We see Tate from a high angle shot showing the character is not powerful, and has a low status. 

Then the director decides to break a rule of film - the actor looks directly at the camera. In doing this the director comments on the character and the genre, the film is quirky, as is the character. 

An establishing shot sets the film in Wales, in this shot a picturesque long shot of a seaside village is shown in low light.  The village is secluded, surrounded by hills, this isolation mirrors the protagonists situation.