Godfather analysis

This is the shot when Sollozzo and McCluskey pick Micheal up and they are on the way to the bar.

• Close up shot at Micheal's face, being in the middle of the frame. 
• We can barely see his entire face as well as Sollozzo's and McCluskey's
• Contrast in light appear strongly in this picture. Everything is very dark accept the light shine through the back window. It's probably from a car behind and the streetlight pole. 
• Sollozzo and McCluskey is pushed to the sides and barely shown by the streetlight. They remains in the dark almost the whole the scene. 
• Plus, the two are the only talking in the car.
• Micheal is very still, not much of movement. He barely turn his head. 
• As we can see, his eyes are almost looking at the same spot every time. 
• The difference in movement between Micheal and Sollozzo shows that Micheal is very different with the other two, which are very active and talkative, full with movement. 
• Micheal is looking still, he's calculating something. He's thinking what happen next (the gun, the murder)

• The closing scene of the "Godfather" 
• The scene is shot in deep focus, presenting Kay in the front and Micheal in the back. 
• Even though Kay in the bigger figure, standing real close to the camera, Micheal is the one in focus. 
• Added to this, the two are both in the frame, but the distance between them is far apart. Furthermore, the two are separate by the line in the middle of the frame, creating the audience a feeling of disconnection.  
• This shot then cut away to a medium shot of the room Micheal is in. 
• The purpose of this shot is suggesting the audience a view of who and what is happening in side the room as well as giving a perspective of Kay. 
• Micheal again is in the middle and surrounded around by the three other character
•  presenting Micheal is the central attention. 
• The eerie sad music from the beginning of the music is once again play in this scene. 
• Its suddenly get louder and louder when two second man kisses Micheal's hand - toward the climax as well as giving the audience a pity feeling of Kay when the camera cut away shot close up to Kay's face. 
• Then the volume gets lower as well as the pitch suggesting the scene is over - leaving the audience an uneasy feeling. 

Time distortion

• The movies seems to happened in a really long time compare to the entire movie had been put into just two minutes
• Hitchcock distorts time by using many pan shots to make the length of the movie longer, showing from place to another at the same time showing different actions happening at the same time. 
• He sometimes use connection cuts during the conversation of the characters in the movie. 
• ex: Hitchcock shot at one of the window and back to Jeffries face and then to another window and so on. That would make the scene seems longer. 
• Compare to the clip of the entire movie had been put into just a two minutes long. If it wasn't Hitchcock editing, the movie would only last for 2 minutes. 

"Movement" - Dirty Harry

A short clip from the "Dirty Harry" movie was about two man, one with a gun chasing the other (the injured one) in a stadium. The tension is built up even more in the dark night.

In the beginning of the clip, there were a few scenes where the two were running toward the camera. The camera was placed at a low angle when the injured one running by to show that he was moving fast. He was moving toward from the left to the right down the stairs. The camera was staying still except the director used a little of a pan shot and that he then moving away from the camera to emphasize he was running away and in fear. In the other hand, when the man with a gun moved toward the camera, the camera was placed just a little lower than a point-of-view angle and he stopped right in front of the camera showed that he was probably slower and moving behind the injured man.

The man with gun became more significant while the other became less significant toward the middle of the clip because the man with gun tend to only ran toward the camera while the other ran away from the camera.

Toward the end of the clip, the injured man was shot with a stationary cam and a long shot when he was running down the field. Based on what Giannetti says in his book, the longer and higher the shot, the slower the movement appears to be. After he got shot, he felt to the ground. Then, the camera was only placed at a high angle showed his lack of power. In the end, it was greatly ended with a helicopter shot flew away from what was happening showed the empty stadium in darkness covered by a foggy sky.

Jaws - Mise en scene analysis

Jaws - Mise en scene analysis

The dominant in this shot is the medal-stick-like cage because the cage is the biggest and brightest object. The bright color of the dominant makes it stand out from the rest of the objects appear in the frame. The cage draws all the attentions to it because it appears to be really big and extremely close to the screen. In order to make it like that, the director uses an extreme low angle shot, which the camera is placed extremely close to the cage, suggesting a sense of vertically and heighten the importance of it.  

From the shot, we can conclude that Chief Broody, Quint and Hoover are doing something with the cage. Just by looking at the shot, Chief Broody is pushed to the left corner of the frame and he is standing inside the cage while Quint and Hoover are outside of it. By placing Broody in the left corner without any space to move around, we can say maybe he is stuck inside the cage, trying to get out. All the three characters are facing away from the camera. The distances between the three are about more than 8 inches between, personal distances. There aren’t alot of spaces between the character. The characters seems to be structured into the confines of the frame and the spaces seems to be enclosed. It’s clearly a closed form and a tight framing.

15 Elements

• Dominant:
• The cage and the top part of the frame, the brightest
• Lighting key:
• Back lighting using the natural lighting source. Key light and fill light.
• High key lighting? b/c the features are bright and that features few shadows on the principal subjects
• Shot and camera proxemics:
• Medium-close up shot
• Angle:
• Extreme - low angle
• Suggesting the height the importance of the cage.
• Color value:
• The dominant color: bright silver, the other objects are in darker color, make the dominant stand out.
• Contrasting foils: no because the three figures look like they are all fixing or trying to open the cage.
• Lens/filter/stock:
• Seems like the director used wide angle lens
• Subsidiary contrasts:
• The 3 man figures
• Because there are only 2 main things in the frame, the 3 men and the cage.
• Density:
• The shot has a little degree of density because there aren't many texture in the picture.
• Composition:
• Vertical: based on the vertical sticks of the cage, suggesting strength
• Binary structure:  emphasize the parallelism
• Form:
• Closed form: structured within the confines of the frame. Space seems enclosed and self-contained.
• Framing:
• Tight: because chief Broody and Quint are very close to the edges and they kind of go off the frame. and have no room to move.
• Depth:
• 3 planes:
• The 2 figures at the bottom of the screen, foreground.
• The cage and the other figure, mid-ground.
• And the sky, background.
• Character placement:
• Chief Broody and Quint: place at the left and right bottom of the frame. Suggesting the meaning of powerless against the cage.
• Hoover: place at the top of the frame and he’s on top of the cage, not inside the cage like chief Broody.
• Staging positions:
• All 3 characters facing away from the camera.
• Character proxemics:
• Personal distance between the 3 figures - more than 8 inches apart from each other.

Spirit of Sharknado

The goal for a disaster type of movie is to scare or suspense the audience. But Sharknado is made meant not to be one.  The effects Sharknado have on the audiences are very different. I don’t think Sharknado scares anyone neither suspense them. For not able to do so, I don’t think Sharknado is really a disaster movie.

As we discussed in class, the intention of Sharknado might be is trying to make fun of the disaster movies and the movie viewers in this days. People today care too much about how high quality and how fantastic the movies are rather than the plots of the movie. And I also think the cinematographer of Sharknado also might want to give the audience an idea on viewing movie differently.

Sharknado is known to be a bad movie because of the unrealistic of the sharks and especially the CGI. The CGI is so horrible that it allows the audience to laugh at it and somehow take it less serious. But I have to agree that the sharks look so unreal there were lots of ridiculous moments in the movie. For example, where the bar girl feel out of a helicopter and then a shark just randomly pops out of now where and catch her in its mouth. How could such a coincidence happen! Another ridiculous thing would be the shark. To me, they look like a bunch of black Japanese Koi fish swimming happily on the street.  The most ridiculous moments from the movie to me is a shark can bite through the ceiling of the car with much energy after being sucked out from the ocean, from the water for hours or so. And everyone in the car is just freaking out from a fake shark.

The director also had been using the subject matter in Sharknado. The low-angle shots are taken from the ground when a shark is dropping down toward Finn, makes the shark look threatening and powerful, and to show that the motion of the shark is speeding up. It also minimizes the environment; the only background is the sky. There is also a long shot with a high angle which showing the sharks just naturally drop down from the sky when the tornado is just at the back. Isn’t it supposed to be sucked in and swirl around with the tornado? The light sources had been using Sharknado is mainly the available lighting. Another reason that Sharknado is terrible is because of how quickly sequences of events occur. One moment, it would be sunny and all, but in a minute or so, the tornado of sharks would be whirling around the city.

Well, from the horrible special effect of Sharknado, I think Sharknado somehow success on sending out messages to the audience on how people don’t look at the classic of the film anymore. Even though Sharknado is memorable because of its terrible effect, I still think it’s a good movie to watch with friends where you laugh at all the cliché parts.

I've never laugh so hard before! Sharknado...

       I have never laughed so hard before! And there is Sharknado! I was kind of enjoying it even though Sharknado is the worst movie with the worst editing I've ever watched, but I have to say I like Sharknado. I feel Sharknado gave the audience far difference feelings compare to all the movies nowadays. It is actually interesting on how the sharks would sucked up from the ocean and brought to the land by the tornado even though it doesn't seems to be so real because there would be other creatures in the ocean rather than just sharks. 

        I like this movie because I think it's funny, it gives me times to laugh at compare to all the movies with perfect storyline and outstanding photography. Sharknado's editing is really bad; all the scenes don't go together. It is almost like the scenes were shot at many different times and location then being tossed together. Many things that happened in the movie are not logic at all, which makes me laugh. For example, the moment after killed two sharks which jumps into the house through the window from the flood water outside, the house just collapse, broken into pieces and then there isn't flood when they get out of the house. 

         I don’t really like any specific movie genre neither really hate any of them. For me, a good movie must be catch audience attention, tell a story, and entertain them. Movies I often watch are horrors, comedies, crimes, animations and romances. I also watch movies base on the review and comments the movie gets. The more good reviews the more I will watch them. I love horrors even though I am a scaredy-cat to be honest. But I love how the story scare and frighten the audience.

        My top five favorite movies ranking from the best would be “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”, “The Blind Side”, “The Orphan”, “Frozen”, and “Twilight Eclipse”. “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” is my top movie because I got it from my aunt. My aunt is a big fan of Harry Potter. She never gets bored of them. She could watch them again and again. So I like them more and more over times to times she watches them.

        I do watch movies, not actually a lot because I did not have any interest in English movies 4 years ago because I did not get to learn much English back then. I started going to the cinema with my friends when I move to Malaysia a year later, which was the time I get more and more interest in watching English movies. I watch movies just because of the entertainment. Since I moved to Singapore, I do not have much time to hang out, going to cinema anymore. I end up watching them on my laptop, but not often anymore. And since I do not have much time, I only watch 2 to 3 movies a month.