COLLATERAL

We watched 10 minute clips of five movies, Collateral, Kill Bill, Perfume : Story of a murder, Psycho and Batman- The Dark Knight and had to analyse a few things in particular. Things such as the interesting types of camera angles, scenes which created tension and suspense for the audience and the pace of the movie.
All five movies were very different, the first movie we watched was the opening scene from Collateral.

A cab driver finds himself the hostage of an engaging contract killer as he makes his rounds from hit to hit during one night in Los Angeles. He must find a way to save himself and one last victim.

This movie was one of the hardest to analyse as we were watching only 10 minute clips it was hard to get to grips with the story line straight away.

The interesting camera angles I picked up on were firstly:

• A close up face shot with the blurred city lights behind him, the colours and reflections enabled the audience to create an atmosphere for them.

• The camera switched from person to person a lot of the time, creating a tense and exciting feel.
• When the car was upside down and the camera was inside the car, this was great as it made everything seem so real and it created a real sense of fear not only for the audience but because it was so real you could feel the fear of the characters.
• Smoke slowly drifting in front of the camera created a nice effect, it gave a mysterious feel.
• When the police officer discovers the body in the car, the camera really zooms in. This is effective as you are not expecting it.
• Another thing I found really effective was when the man was running towards the camera, this really built up the tension and as someone in the audience it was exciting for me as it felt like he was running towards me.
• When the camera zoomed in on the lit up mobile phone was effective as it was a key object at this point in the movie, it was something which he was relying on and the camera really showed this.
• Also when he enters the building and the camera closes in on him swiping the card for him to get in to the other part of the building. When the camera zooms in on this, it clearly tells the audience that it’s a key part; in this case, he wasn’t supposed to be entering the building.
• We also looked into the parts of the movie that created tension and suspense for the audience:
• The lighting being very dim at several parts in the movie created tension as a lot of it was set at night and gave it a more mysterious feel.
• The police cars driving past, flashing lights and sirens created suspense and tension as it emphasised either trouble or danger.
• The car chases in the movie were exciting and kept the audience gripped.
• The music was fast, tense and exciting.
• The characters running and all you could hear was them breathing, this created a real sense of tension as you had no idea what to expect next.
• The phone ringing and the waiting of the person to pick up created a lot of tension and suspense for me personally.
• When there was no music being played, just pure silence was also another key thing for me that created an awful lot of tension and suspense.