AS Film - Cinematography lecture 05/10/12

In this entry you will find the sequences studied today with regards to cinematography. Remember, we considered the size of six different kinds of shot - the extreme long shot (xls), the long shot (ls), the mid shot (ms), the head and shoulders shot (hss), the close up (cu) and the extreme close up (xcu).

In the films you watch independently of class try to recognise these shots sizes, how they have been used and  to create what kind of meaning.

Shaun of the Dead - Director: Edgar Wright (2004)
In this sequence Wright uses a variety of different shot sizes to represent Shaun and Ed's first encounter with the zombies in their back garden. The stand-out shot (achieved in post-production during the editing sage) is the point of view of the two friends through the open wound of Mary's back.

The Notebook - Director: Nick Cassavetes (2004)
Cassavetes opens his film with the titles set against various extreme long shots and long shots of a rower winding his way down a North Carolina river. The slow, languid movement is set against a burning red sky at sunset, which gives it an almost dreamlike quality. The cut to the interior of the house allows a different perspective, taken from the point of view of the elderly woman. The head and shoulders shot of her allows the audience to perhaps relate to her emotions and the theme of 'loss'. The geese flying in slow motion towards the house helps to direct our eyes towards the woman's position in the upstairs window.

Jaws - Director: Steven Spielberg (1975)
One of the classic horror films of the 1970s, and the film which propelled Spielberg into the big time. The use of camera to represent the anxiety of the police officer, Brody (Roy Schnieder) is gained through a series of close ups and mid shots, and one very memorable use of the zoom. A sequence with a number of cinematic techniques and tricks to draw the audience in. Note particularly the 'editing' technique of having a blurred figure pass by Schneider three times at the beginning of the sequence, each time allowing us to get closer; the false scares associated with the horror genre such as the floating lady on her back with what looks like a shark fin coming towards her, only for it to be an elderly swimmer with a bathing cap on; also the young woman screaming at the antics of her boyfriend beneath the water. Spielberg opens the sequence with a long shot of the lady entering the water and close it with a long shot of the chewed up remains of the yellow li-lo; however the sequence is most famous for its use of the 'reverse tracking zoom' as Brody realises that the shark has just attacked the young boy, Alex. Borrowed from Alfred Hitchcock's use of the same shot in Vertigo (1958), Spielberg unsettles the audience with this iconic use of the camera to demonstrate Brody's sudden realisation that his worse fears are about to come true.

Part two of cinematography, focusing on camera movement and camera angles next week.