Author: Zach

For this, I chose to talk about the video that combined all 6 Star Wars movies into one. It is one of the more unique works that I have seen in a while, as it combines 6 different films from the same series to some success. I would say its use of effects is unique as it has all the special effects that make Star Wars but has every film layered over each other, running in time with each other. This also applies to sound. Traditional cinema was altered by the layering of several movies considered traditional sci-fi.

This scene communicates the chaos of this family of 6-7 people. Visually, you can see the cramped space they are living in and their poverty. The visual anchors from what I can tell are the mini-wheat cash box, the milk jug, the baby, and the mom. The way the cash box is moved around and how it’s passed around shows just how tight money is. As for how a family can make plans in under 2 minutes, it is pretty standard to me since my family can make plans in under a minute sometimes. The continuity is on full display, with the location of all the objects being where someone placed them.

A framing video of my cats in their tree and Baymax(the big grey one coming to greet the camera).

Continuity is very important and is demonstrated very well in Spielberg’s movie Duel. I am going to use the scene called Road Trouble.

The first scene is a cut-in/ match action with a close of David at the end of the cut-in. It then cuts to a 180-degree shot with David in front to show emotions before the truck driver loses it. A few shots after this are close-ups of David’s face from the perspective of his windshield. Spielberg keeps this angle on David only zooming out a bit to not be over-saturate with the close-up.

The next big close-up is at the gas station and it’s of the truck itself. This more or less shows the difference between David and this truck driver.

The editing of the shots makes the scene seemingly continuous which is if not the best thing to make a space believable. in terms of the narrative the fact that the scenes are made to look like they are in somewhat real-time with very few jump-cuts. There are no empty frames as the audience is supposed to be with David throughout almost of the whole movie. The few cuts were to change angles and locations. The most major cut is when David is pulling into the gas station to show the calm of David’s driving and the shock of the truck driver’s driving.

For this post, I decided to do the first Lord of the Rings movie and it was tough choosing what sequence I should do because almost all of this movie is pure gold for shots and framing. I went with the council of Elrond because I feel that it has a great variety of framing throughout the entire sequence.

extreme long shot (landscape and architecture)

close up (face)

high longshot

medium longshot

extreme closeup(Frodo’s hand and the One Ring)

medium(Waist up Frodo and Gandalf)

extreme close up (The One Ring and the reflection of the Council of Elrond)

medium (waist up of Bormir probably the perceptive of the Hobbits)

pov and/or extreme close up (Borimir reaching for the One Ring)

low long shoot(Gandalf talking in the black speech of Mordor)

another close up of the One Ring

longshot(full body of the council)

close up(Aragorn’s face)

Longshot(fullish body)

Medium waist up(also a great shot to show the scale of hobbits)

Close up (one does not simply do framing for Lord of the rings)

extreme close up( the one ring and the council arguing)

Longshot full body( another great scale of the hobbits)

medium (from the pov of Frodo)

medium close up(Frodo Merry and Pippin)

Medium( of the entire fellowship).

There are many medium shots because Peter Jackson(the director) was probably aiming to show the scale of the hobbits in regards to the rest of middle-earth. The close ups of the Ring was done since the ring itself is basically a character all of its own. Through the editing and framing we can see how each race(elf, dwarf, man, and hobbit) interact with each other and how the ring corrupts people. The close ups were fairly important important to convey how each character was feeling without having to explain too much.

I am Zach and I’m in my 3rd to last semester here at WSU-V and my specialty/superpower is social media management and web development.  My favorite video from YouTube is: