Author: Brent Ocampo

Video clip: Road trouble

Most of the shots in this scene portray a good sense of continuity. We are almost always looking at David Mann from the right side, as if we are in the passenger seat. It makes us, the viewer, easier to keep track of where the car is going because we’re always at the same angle, and we see the trees and outside view moving past him. The only time the camera looks the other way is when David passes the psychotic truck driver and we see them fall behind us.

An example of a Match on Action Shot (I believe in this case it’s in reverse) would be the shot of the truck in the side mirror when he honks and the camera zooms out when David Mann turns around to look. Now I’m not actually 100% sure if this is a Match On Action as it’s only technically one shot that goes from zoomed in to out, but I do find it cool how this zoom out was used. The scenes after this follow the same thing I mentioned in the beginning, we’re still in the passenger seat and it helps us understand the car is moving the same direction.

The movie I chose to analyze framing is Transformers (2007). I think there’s some cool scenes that effectively show the difference in scale between the humans and robots.

[Long Shot] ^

To open the scene, you see Optimus (the truck) drive towards the human main characters. You get a good idea of the environment and setting, as well as the time of day.

[Medium Close-up] ^

The humans curiously watch Optimus get closer.

[Medium] ^

Sam is far enough in the frame to be a Medium shot, but you also get to see Optimus get much closer to them.

[Long Shot] ^

The camera cuts back to a long shot, with all 3 characters fully in the frame.

[Medium Shot] ^

As Optimus gets close enough to stop, we obviously get to see how much bigger the truck is than them. Notice how the camera is around waist level instead of their eye level, this makes the robots look a lot taller than they already are.

[Medium Close-Up] ^

The camera is at a low angle as Optimus slowly transforms, and it progressively looks further up and in this frame you can see it with the building perspective.

[Medium Shot] ^

After being in a low angle in the last shot, we’re now in a higher angle shot which can represent Optimus’ point of view. The camera slowly rises too.

[Medium Close Up] ^

As he slowly transforms, it cuts to a high angle of Optimus. The camera descends and orbits around him to showcase all the little truck parts transforming into place. Next picture is a screenshot during this camera orbit, it’s all one shot.

[Long Shot] ^

Once the camera finishes lowering and orbiting around him, we see a long shot of the humans being surrounded by the other transformers, who also start to transform. The camera pans around them to show everything happening, and it’s fitting as the humans are also looking around wondering what’s going on.

[Medium Long Shot] ^

Optimus towers over them in another lower angle camera.

[Medium Close Up] ^

[Close Up] ^

[Close Up] ^

The closeups from both humans looking up help us visualize how tall these alien robots are. There are a lot of shots that show either a high angle view (Optimus’ view) , or a low angle view (Human’s point of view). I think the movie did a good job with these different types of angles to show height and size.