Look, Listen, Analyze

Follow along with me as I apply some of the film and editing techniques I discussed in my last post to an actual movie scene.

The video above, while it is blocked out, is the scene I will be analyzing. I suggest you click the link to watch it as youtube as it has curse words in it. Lets dive in though, despite technical difficulties.

This scene is from the movie fight club, while it has been a while since I have seen the movie, I’ll be going over the techniques used and what I believe their purposes to be.

1. The camera work: The first thing I did was watch the clip without any sound jus to analyze the camera work, and here is what I noticed.
   • 6 camera cuts. This scene uses a technique called a Hard cut. The hard cut is often filmed as a shot-reverse shot, which takes two separate shots and cuts them together to imply a continuous conversation.
   • Lighting: The lighting is dark, indicating something intense or moody happening, but by the look of the characters that seemed already apparent. One man has duct tape over his mouth on the floor, the other standing over him speaking to him.
   • Camera Angles: The shots jump between a high angle and a low angle, which tells me the man we are viewing from a low angle is the one with power in this scene. This, in turn, tells me the the man duct-taped on the floor beneath him is not in power, or somehow being threatened. I also picked up this indication from the way the characters were dressed. Costume choice is important often, and very noticeable here.
2. The audio track: Next, I looked away from my screen and listened to the audio only, here is what I gathered:
   • Music in the background: There is a fast paced, sort of mysterious music in the background as one man speaks.
     • Abrupt end of the music before the end of the scene: The music is not throughout the whole scene, it comes to an abrupt stop before the delivery of a concluding powerful line.
   • Character noises: The voice of the man who seems to be in power is stiff and firm. His words sharply pronounced, and his choice of words quite direct and threatening. Over the music, we can also faintly hear the man who is duct-taped breathing (im assuming when the camera is on him).
3. All together: Finally, I watched the scene inclusing body the video and the sound. Everything came together.
   • The camera cuts: The camera cut back and forth to indicate that these characters were communicating between eachother. While only one was speaking, the other’s expressions were needed to understand the tension in this scene.
   • Lighting: The lighiting is moody on purpose, I was correct when saying that the man shot from the low angle is threatening the man on the ground. Now the context of the final threat, im not sure of.
   • The Camera angles: These were in fact used to convey who is in power in this scene and who is not.
   • The music simply added to the tension, and stopped abruptly before the final line to emphasize the importance of this closing threat from the character in power.

After leaning about video techniques and seeing them applied, I feel more confident in my skills. I am excited to practice and refine them in my own video work as I prepare to go abroad and create a documentary this upcoming summer.