In the interesting film The Brass Teapot (2012), directed by Ramaa Mosley and story by Tim Macy. Mosley uses various camera work techniques, aural techniques and mise-en- scene to convey the message of the film, that ‘greed can bring out the worst in people’ and ‘it’s not worth it in the end’. This is clearly shown throughout the film through the characters. The genre of this film is comedy and drama, though it is mostly consisted of dark humour. This particular movie is unique because we, the audience realise how money can make a person so greedy and insane that they’re willing to commit murder for it.
The director’s intention is to show us, the audience how greed can gradually turn even the brightest and lightest of people into monsters and how human nature can be dark and drab when money is involved and we as humans need to make mistakes in order to learn from the experience. The effective camera work showed the audience the character’s expressions to comprehend how they are feeling. Ramaa Mosley has used various camera techniques such as close up, cut away, zoom and blurring. In the second initial scene of the film, introduces us, the audience to the teapot, Mosley uses close up to show us the mystical object thoroughly.
In the first establishing shot John is shown at his workplace where he looks normal and there is no damage physically shown on him whatsoever, whereas the third shot he is shown bashed up and in some angle unrecognizable. This is a consequence of the teapot and this tell us, the audience without any doubt that greed in human nature can be fatal, I think that John was only a pawn to this teapot like many others and the teapot was captivating all of John and Alice’s attention as well as using them cruelly. This lets the audience to come to a conclusion that the teapot is indeed a dangerous artefact that manipulated people with money.
Shot no. 1 started off as a normal person living a normal life which then shot no. 2 is Alice holding the mystical artefact that will change their lives permanently and lastly shot no. 3 in which it shows how a teapot interfered between a normal life and made it an extraordinary chaotic mess to which length that John was painfully injured. We learn a very valuable lesson from these 3 shots; ‘no pain no gain’ but towards in the end it was more of a ‘its not worth it’. The atmosphere of sound within the film such as soundtrack, sound fx’s and instruments is used to portray and convey feeling for the characters.
A critical scene that exemplifies the use of aural techniques is when Alice is shown walking slowly towards the teapot and picking up the teapot. Mosley uses anticipating music where the pitch and pace gets higher in every step Alice takes, this is layered with instruments such as flute, wind chime, and thunder tubes. Mosley wants the audience to understand that so called ‘teapot’ is magical in some way or has magical properties somehow but with the added sound of thunder tubes it indicates that the ‘teapot’ can be dangerous or could provoke danger.
The director purposefully gets the pace to quicken and pitch gets higher to really build up to the awaited moment of introducing the main artefact of the movie: the Teapot. The atmosphere of curiosity really sparks an eeriness in the audience as Alice shown afraid and curious because at that point even she doesn’t have a clue how powerful this ‘teapot’ really is. Some sound effects that can be heard and described are: door opening, which creaks letting the audience know it is old, another sound effect would be skin contact with the metal of the teapot.
This scene teaches us to be curious but to be caution at the same time. In the film ‘The Brass Teapot’ there is a particular scene where mise-en-scene is used very accurately. When shown this scene we are able to make assumptions that the character has been in a fight. This is because ‘John’ is shown sporting a black eye along with cuts and bruises and also tampons stuck up his nose, this shows us how much work has been put into make-up and hair as well as lighting as these three are used to make this scene seen unusual and interesting.
The focal point of this scene would be John’s face, after research on this topic it seems that the makeup artist has used: -Skin wax: to add texture to the black eye, also it provides a base and is just heavy enough to make lids of the eyes appear closed and swollen -Ben-Nye Bruise Wheel: which is a palette used to give colour to the face, the colours used red, purple and green.
This is applied with stippling sponge with a dabbing motion, the makeup artist has also created a deep line using purple underneath the other eye to show beating consequences – Collodium collodion: a scarring liquid used to create the cuts, this liquid indents the skin making it appear more deeper and tensed compared to rest of the face, the more layers you do the deeper the cut will look – around 5-10 layers are needed to achieve the look in this scene -Eyelash glue and or latex: used to create damaged skin grafts, using tweezers to pick at it while it’s drying.
Ben-Nye fresh scab which is a bloodlike gel, is used to fill in the damaged skin John is also shown with tampons stuck up his nose, the tampons had non-toxic skin safe red ink in them to show the blood some which has deliberately been dripped onto t-shirt to give it realistic look. The hair artist has also used intentionally ruffled and messed up John’s hair to show tiredness and that he has woken up not long ago. To really make the makeup pop in this scene, Mosley has used high key lighting with a tint of blue to it; the high key lighting prevents odd lighting patterns and also avoids dark shadows.
Due to the character being outside, the source of lighting is a mix of both natural and artificial lighting. The lighting itself gives a dramatic feel and the sense of setting conveys how character feels hurt physically. This scene is very visceral and has great impact on the audience as it has a serious tone to it but its take on dark humour evens it out. The scene was captured with shallow DOF as the background is blurred which allows the character to be the main focus. This scene teaches us that greed can bring self-destruction and how it brings out the worst in people.
I believed John was saner than Alice but this scene shows us to what extent even a sane person can go for money. It is well said “selfishness and greed, individual or national, cause most of our troubles” (Harry S. Turner). I think that John should’ve thought and taken wiser decisions such as: leaving the teapot, stopping Alice from stealing it in the first place and being more cautious around it. The director Mosley mostly relies on mise-en-scene to teach us that greed can get the worst of people.
This is because it is a part of human to be greedy and if this sort of artefact was to be discovered by today’s society than the world be a bloody mess. “Every society had a trial and the trial for my ummah is wealth”. These are the words of the prophet SAW and I believe this film accurately conveys these words, this has been shown through John and Alice and how they go bonkers getting money from the teapot they don’t see how it’s impacting their personal lives negatively.
Mosley has taken a plausible taken on the Brass Teapot and has also incorporated realistic thinking such as: people’s attitudes, scenarios created, settings, character’s affections. The Brass Teapot makes very effective use of camera work, soundtrack and mise-en-scene and without these, this film would’ve been uninteresting and boring. This film had a very interesting take on the concept of greed in human nature and these 3 techniques worked collectively together and helped exaggerate that oint, this film really taught the audience that Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is indeed accurate and that money is nothing compared to love and safety. “You aren’t wealthy until you have something money can’t buy” (Garth Brooks) as the ending is showing Alice’s protruding belly. Its human nature to make mistakes but learning from them is the hard part and that is what Alice and John do they learn from the experience as experience is knowledge.
