How does the Breaking Bad clip create meaning through the use of camera, mise-en-scene, editing and sound?

The first shot of the classroom scene shows a group of generic highschool students — bored and half asleep. This is conveyed through their slouched backs. Walter is the furthest away from the camera and wears a grey outfit that blends in to the rest of the setting, making him fairly small, maybe even intimidated by the students staring at him even though he assumes the role of a teacher. His boring outfit also resembles his personality — lack of excitement  leading to a fairly uneventful life. 

 

As the scene progresses however, the class becomes invested in his passion for what chemistry means to him. He lights up a bunsen burner to set up a demonstration. As he does this, the lighter makes a light clicking sound that catches the students’ attention. This use of diegetic sound also interests the viewer, suggesting that chemistry is the “spark”— excitement in Walter’s life. Here the camera cuts to a high angle shot of the classroom. Walter is the closest to the camera, making him take the lead. From the high angle we can also see the students’ faces, displaying interest in what he’s doing. He is also taller on in this shot as he rises in power. 

 

The bunsen burner lights and he starts spraying chemicals to the fire. As he does this, the fire changes colours from orange to green, red, then green again. The colours from the fire is vastly different to the dull palette from the rest of the setting. This, in a way, is how Walter is presented — that the chemicals literally right in front of him are the joy in his otherwise uninteresting life. Red can represent passion and green represents growth and they are all contrasting and vibrant colours.

 

Close ups are used in this scene to draw all attention to Walter. As he becomes more confident with what he’s saying, the camera gradually pushes into him until only he takes up the frame. This indicates his escalating power and confidence in the classroom. Walter then hears Chad chatting with his girlfriend. The flame on the bunsen burner — literally his “burning passion”— is carried to the next shot of Chad. Here, the flame is positioned in between the two, this can mean that they are interrupting Walter’s flame of passion, that has turned to more of a flame of anger. He is upset that some of his students don't care about what he loves, because chemistry is an important part of his life. We know that he notices this disturbance as we heard the diegetic sound of the girl giggling and Walter looking up, edited to connect with an eyeline match. 

Chad was not happy that Walter called him back to his seat so as a response he dragged his chair back to his desk while making an unpleasant screeching sound. Walter’s voice and the quietness of the classroom was contrasted to this derogatory sound produced. The diegetic sound is effective here as the audience knows Chad is doing this on purpose. The disturbance produced was insulting to Walter, and his lesson is interrupted even more. 

As Chad moves back to his seat, the dark shape of his back is concealing Walter. As Walter’s lesson was interrupted, his passion and excitement was forced away. Meanwhile his depression and misery, represented by the dark mass, washes over him again.  

Then the camera returned to the position and frame when he was passionate about his lesson, only this time he was annoyed and frustrated. Walter instructed the class to read from their textbooks and while indicating the end of the practical, the fire which represented his burning passion is diminished by himself as the scene ends.

We then cut to the carwash scene soon after. As he hands the change to a customer, from off-screen we hear someone angrily shouting. It turns out to be his boss. This immediately makes the audience feel sympathy for Walter because not only does he has another job from being the teacher, the other job doesn’t have an optimum working environment either. The colour palette inside the car wash doesn’t look great. The bright blue cashier desk clashes with the white curtains and the salmon coloured walls. This makes the audience subconsciously uncomfortable because the palette is not harmonic.  The perspective lines on the walls — the windowsill and the tiles — all lead to where the exit is, suggesting that Walter finds his work miserable and wants to escape but he obviously can’t because he needs to provide for his family.

 

 

 

Walter is then forced to wash cars. As he walks to the other side of the car, he coughs. This is to indicate that he is not in good health and should probably not be doing physical activities. This makes the audience see how miserable his life is and sympathise with him. He proceeds to wash a flashy orange car. The colour palette and the texture of this car is almost the opposite of Walter’s appearance — glossy, bright, sturdy — whereas Walter is grey, dull, and even stubby. The camera is at a low angle to compare the height of Walter and the car. The vehicle takes up a lot of space and from this camera angle it is bigger than Walter.  This makes him seem powerless against the expensive blinging car. 

Someone calls his name and the camera cuts to a high angle shot of Walter emerging from behind the car. He does this in a way that he appears to be scared and timid. We learn from the next continuous shot that this was seen through the perspective of Chad and his girlfriend. Walter at a high angle and Chad at slight low angle suggest that he is mocked and at this stage, powerless. He no longer holds authority because he is no longer their teacher outside of school, and judging from Chad’s “make those tires shine, huh?”, he is scrubbing Chad’s already clean car.

 

 

Walter goes home after being humiliated and the scene cuts to inside Walter’s car. First he takes off the diabled parking tag, which suggests that he needs free parking and can’t afford a parking ticket, then puts the tag in a built-in storage area. He tries closing the lid to it, but fails multiple times. This is where Walter’s miserable life really hits the audience. He goes home in a malfunctioning old car right after being mocked by his students for washing their expensive sports car.