Comparing Pillow Talk and Fringe Essay

Media Essay - Comparing Pillow Talk and Fringe

In this essay I’m going to compared Fringe and Pillow Talk. Fringe is an American science fiction television series created by J. J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. The series follows a Federal Bureau of Investigation "Fringe Division" team based in Boston, Massachusetts under the supervision of Homeland Security. The team uses unorthodox "fringe" science and FBI investigative techniques to investigate a series of unexplained, often ghastly occurrences, which are related to mysteries surrounding a parallel universe. On the other hand Pillow talk is a 1959 romantic comedy film directed by Michael Gordon. It features Rock Hudson, Doris Day, Tony Randall, Thelma Ritter and Nick Adams. The film was written by Russell Rouse, Maurice Richlin, Stanley Shapiro and Clarence Greene.

The pace in Fringe is faster than in Pillow Talk. For example in Fringe there are faster cuts in between the different scenes. Also there are many straight cuts from one person to another also this is called over the shoulder shots. But in Pillow Talk they show then two characters in the same shot which is called a two shot. Also I have counted how many cuts there are in 20 seconds of Fringe and there are 7 but then in Pillow Talk there are 0. So there is just one long scene that last for 20 seconds without any cuts.

The style of the editing in Pillow Talk is very different to Fringe. In Fringe there is a split screen and different cuts for example dissolve and a wipe. But in Fringe there are none of these and most of the cuts is straight cuts. This may be because Pillow Talk is quite an old film whereas Fringe is quite a new episode which means they have better technology and are able to make the sharp camera shots. Also in Fringe there are more close ups of people faces so you can see only the person talking in the shot.  But in Pillow Talk most of the shots are mid shots of the people so you can see their conversation without the camera changing.

 There are quite a few similarities throughout Fringe and Pillow Talk for example. There both use mid-shots to show the characters but in Pillow talk this it’s the main shot that they use where as in Fringe the shot that is used the most is a close up. This could be because they don’t want any background in it and only need to see their face, but this is different in Pillow talk because the background in it is quite important. This is because the Mise-on-sceen in Pillow Talk makes us know that is an old film.  For example their clothing and make-up are quite old fashion. But in Fringe this is very different because we only see their faces as they are close ups but we can still tall that this is a more up to date series. But this could also mean that are similar because most of the shots are the same in both clips.

Looking at Fringe and Pillow Talk as a whole they are very different from each other and the audience responses would also be very different. This is because I think Fringe in more Sci-fi and Pillow Talk I find as quite a romantic film so this would have a different effect of the watchers and audience. In Fringe the audience would find it hard to keep focused on the screen because there are so many cuts and changes in the camera angles it’s hard to keep focused, and that’s like most film and series these days. Where the audience would follow what’s going on more in Pillow Talk because there are not as many cuts and the scenes follow into other. For example when the lady is standing at the sink and the camera does a pan and follows her to the phone so you can see where she is walking. If this was to happen in Fringe then they would use a cut to film the scene answering the phone.

In Pillow Talk when there are two characters in the scene the camera would get them both into the shot which is called a two shot whereas in Fringe if there are two character speaking to each other then they would use a cut from one person talking then to the next. So from this again you can tell that the technology was not as good then as it is now. Finally altogether Fringe has a lot more cuts uses more close up’s than mid shots to show an up to date series and Pillow Talk has less cuts and more mid-shots to get the background information in to show to the audience that this is an old film.