In this episode, “A Study in Pink”, police officers are investigating murder cases of a number of persons who all seem to have killed themselves by taking a hazardous pill. However, things get messy and they turn to their unofficial consultant, Sherlock Holmes, who gives out a number of evidences that pointed to a particular serial murderer. In this episode, the director used the craft of art direction to enhance and support the plot, the characters and the themes of the series. The glamour of movie is completely dependent on the work of the art department. According to Film Trix (23, March 2015), art direction is responsible for the designing of the set, the colors of each set location among other parameters that the director of the film has to consider in movie production.
The episode embraces the theme of crime solving and the director of the film has used a number of creative techniques to expose this theme. These themes include: the random input creative technique, the metaphorical thinking technique and the mind mapping technique. Random input creative technique is used to motivate one’s imagination to see a situation in different perspectives and new angles. Metaphorical thinking creative technique on the other hand is a thinking technique that links two universes of ideas and it is mostly founded on similarities while the mind mapping creative technique is an effective way of structuring information and note making that is beneficial during brainstorming sessions.
The craft of art direction has enabled the audience of the Sherlock to clearly locate the venues of every scene. Through the art direction, we are able to learn that the deaths of MP Beth Davenport, Sir Jeffrey Patterson and James Phillimore all happened at different locations where the victims of the murder cases had no any reason for them to be at these locations but the causes of the death are similar. On October 12th, Sir Jeffrey Patterson is seen on the floor of an office building nervously taking a capsule from a small glass jar and eating it after which he gets seizures and dies. On November 26th, James Phillimore is spotted crying in an empty gym while having a capsule from a jar after which we see the newspaper headline hit the first page announcing his death. On January 27th, MP Beth Davenport attends her wild party to celebrate her nomination as an MP which was taking place in a bar. Before the party ends, she is seen in a fenced yard full of rental containers screaming with a jar and capsules on her hand. Later, the Metropolitan Police Service calls for press meeting to announce her death. This art direction has helped us to understand the plot point of the episode by giving us the location of every murder case. It also reveals the events that happened before the occurrence of the death of the victims. All of these victims died through the use of a similar drug capsule whose source was being investigated.
From a number of scenes in the film, the production of the film is questionable as a number of errors are evident from the film. For example, when Sherlock and John enter the taxi at the Street of Baker leaving for the scene of the first murder case, a filming crane is reflected behind the taxi. When cabbie flags open the bottle, he puts the capsule pills on his left hand but before he is shot, the pill is spotted in his right hand. When James Phillimore is at the gym, the number of pills in his hand were three but later, Sherlock and Jeff in their study discover that there were only two pills. Once Holmes and Watson walked out of the house on seeing it for the first time, a police van is located over Sherlock’s right shoulder but once Watson moves past the police vehicle varnishes. Also, Jane’s cane and his sweater change positions in the hotel scene as the shot shifts. Therefore, the art direction of the film, the filming and the editing of the film had some issues that lowered the authenticity of the Sherlock film.
Digital Theater Sound is a group of digital audio encoding technologies that are used in film theaters, home theaters and video games. In the Sherlock film, Sherlock gets into the cab but John, still looking through the window, calls the cell phone of the victim. The cell phone rings but it remains unanswered in the cab. Cabbie accepts to Sherlock that he knew him when he chased his tax. The tax drives to an empty institution and shortly warns Sherlock with a firearm but it is of no importance as they both knew that Sherlock will see it to the end. John, still standing adjacent to the laptop signs in to the victims account, gets a beep sound of the laptop as it updates the GPS location of the victim’s cell phone, and he quickly fastens it off in pursuit. These instants made use of the DTS to depict the use of electronic devices in the film.
References
Baker Street (2020). A Study in Pink. Web.
Film Trix (2015). 24 Crafts of Movie Making. Web.
Miro (n.d). 9 Creative Technique for you and Your Team. Web.