Name: Ammaar Akhtar
Date: 9-5-24
Class: DTC 208
Duel is such a unique film in that even with a relatively basic plot, it is able to truly keep people at the edge of their seat as the movie goes on. Of the 4 scenes listed, I chose the first clip, “Duel Remastered (1971) – Road Trouble | 4K UHD” (https://youtu.be/31n1H8PNXh4) because I believe it has quite a number of different continuity edits hidden in a short time frame. One of the most heavily used continuity edits here is the Match-on-Action shot(s) that are present throughout the scene. The constant switching from looking towards the main character to looking back through the rear view mirror makes the scene feel continuous; it is clear to the viewer what is going on and what they are looking at. Going along with this, another common edit used in this film is the POV shot. Throughout the scene, many of the shots are either looking back through the rear view mirror, or looking out of the protagonist’s car’s window up towards the truck in some way. This makes the audience feel like they are really there in the car, experiencing the events of the film. Another type of edit that is more or less used in this scene is the 180 degree rule. For most of this scene, anytime the camera is outside of the protagonist’s vehicle, it is somewhere on the right side of both vehicles (or left from the direction being driven). There are a few parts of the scene that seem to break this rule, however, for the most part the 180 degree rule is adhered to well. Some of the subtle parts of the sound design really intrigued me the more I watched this scene, for instance how as the camera slowly moves ahead of the protagonists car to reveal the truck, the sounds of the engine get louder and drown out the other sounds of the scene. Something that most people would say “of course, that makes sense, the truck would get louder as you get closer to it” but is just one of the small details that make this sequence great.