Sunday, 12 October 2008

How are Camera techniques and editing used in this screened excerpt of shameless

A long shot of Frank is used, from behind to enable the audience to see his location, the fact that he is walking forward and with another person, it also lets us see his state, he is drunk and the long shot lets us see him staggering about. The long shot used here also lets us see a car moving slowly and up close to Frank on the road, it enables the audience to see that the car is following him. It the cuts to a point of view shot from the view of the person driving the car, this shot reinforces the idea that Frank, the character in this scene, is being followed. A tracking shot of Frank is then used in order to track his and the cars journey, because both of these are in the picture we therefore know something is going to happen.

As the car speeds up more point of view shots from the car driver are used to again reinforce the fact that the car is following Frank, but this time they are used to make it more understandable that the car is actually trying to hit him, when this happens as the car swerves it speeds toward the van, a match on action shot is used here to show the car speeding toward the van, and hitting it. A long shot is then used to enable the viewer to see what has happened.

Close ups are used also, firstly of Franks face so that it portrays his shock after what has happened, and also editing is used here; an eye line match is used to after we get a close up of franks face to show his shock, he is looking at something, we then see what he is looking at, his son Phillip, this reinforces also the look on Franks face.

Pace steadily builds up as Phillip the fight begins, cuts get shorter. The fast pacing here is used in order to show the audience that a lot is going on, also to keep the audiences attention as this is an important part of the story.

When the fight builds up, quick cuts to other characters that are not actually where the fight is taken place are put in. These are mainly medium close ups. These are used to show what other people are feeling; such as we see a medium close up of Sheila looking gout the house window in shock. It also establishes their location, such as these characters are witnessing the fight from the house. A fish eye shot is also used when we cut to other characters, and this is used so that the audience can get a look into Karen’s state of mind at this point she is confused and the fish eye shot shows this as the room is out of focus and unsteady, it represents her state of mind.

The camera seems as though it has become handheld when the fight begins, it is unsteady throughout, this creates a more realistic charm to the scene, it is almost like the viewer is there and also it creates the element of danger, the camera is unsteady there for things in the scene are unsteady. The camera then becomes steady one again when the main drama is over.

Many high angle shots are used in this scene, one reason is so that we can see that frank and Lip are fighting on the floor, this enables the viewer to see properly what exactly is happening, also we see a lot of high angle shots aimed at frank, this is to show that his level of moral is extremely low throughout this scene.

An extreme close up is used to show the viewer the state of franks face from what Phillip as done to him, it also give the scene more of an element of violence, we see blood all over the screen and somebody pressing a tissue on it to mop it up, we instantly no this scene is taking place after the fight. The fight has ended. A zoom out shot is also used here after the close up, so that we can see whom else is in the room and so that the rest of the scene can rake place. Editing is also used in this scene. We see an eye line match from frank toward Karen, and obviously the audience know why he is looking at her at this point, he can’t say anything because of the situation between the three characters.

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