Tuesday 9 December 2008

Film Language

Two extracts from different eras and analyse the cinematograpghy (what are the key differences?)

Psycho (1960)


I have chosen to start of by looking at Psycho which was produced in 1960 and i will be looking at the cinematography in this particular trailer and i will compare the key differences in both the trailers that i have chosen. for the cinematography i will be looking at the camera framing and the camera movements. At the start of this extract you can see the lady in the car they have used a medium shot so that you can clearly see the character and some of the setting around her this is because they want the viewers to take a look at her facial expressions as well as knowing what is going on around her so that the audience have a feeling into what the film will be about from the short extract. This has also created a suspence which makes the trailer seem more intresting and this will therefore make the viewers want to watch the full movie not only that but the colours that have been used such as the black and white effect makes it more effective and grabs attention to the lighting that has been placed around the main character. Not only that but you can also see the facial expressions of the main character this makes the trailer more intresting it also gives away what the films genre will be and in this case it will be a horror movie.

Dumb and Dumber (1994)




Lastly i have chosen the film Dumb and Dumber i chose this one as it was produced more than 10 years later from Psycho and i will be taking a look at the key differences that this particular film has compared to Psycho and from this you can see that the movements of the camera are much faster and they tend to use traking shot this is when the camera follows the action along the tracks laid for the purpose and in this case the main characters postion. At the start of the trailer three characters are placed in a car and they are shown from the audiences point of view instead of what they are seeing through their eyes and because of this they have used a medium shot you can see this because the characters faces and part of the body are shown not only that but you can also see the car that they are in, from this you can see the facial expressions of each one of the characters which also presents to you what the genre of the film is about and as you can see this film is shwon to be a comedy you can also see this from the facial expressions used in the trailer. Through out the trailer they have used medium shots i think that they have used this because they want the audience to see not only the facial expressions of what the different characters are doing but also the setting around them and their props which are used in the extract. They have also used zoom in most of the trailer so that from seeing the setting you go onto seeing the facial expressions of the characters, each clip is only a couple of seconds long yet it still indicates what the film will be about.

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