2-minute-scene Analysis on "Shutter"

The following scene is taken in a motel bedroom while a young couple sleeps. It starts with a clock on the wall, its ticking sound, and the sound of a stormy night. Suddenly, the man wakes up, as if he was having nightmares in his sleep -the woman never wakes up; this first shot on the protagonist is a close-up shot. The man finds the windows open and the curtains blowing.

The actors, who are supposed to be sleeping, are wearing their pajamas. Besides, there's little light since it's a scene that is taken at night -supposedly. There isn't any text during the whole scene.

When the man wakes up, the only we can hear is his breath. There's no narration, music, or dialogue; the use of silence is essential so as to make the scene more intense. Here, the man starts checking if there's anything wrong in the bedroom. At this point, the audience can see the actor with a straight-frontal camera angle and a close-shot.

During the rest of the scene, there will be mostly close-ups on the main character so that the spectator can see the expressions of fear in his face.

The man lies down in his bed again, but unexpectedly his bed-sheet starts going down and down. This surprises him, so he bends his head over to the end of the bed and sees, unexpectedly, a person with a mask on their face. It is here, 01:03, that we are able to hear a sudden start of mysterious music.

In 01:12 there’s a frontal-straight, medium-long shot in which we can see the couple.

The camera movement technique used here is panning; however, it is not used for any kind of dialogue, but to show the feelings and reactions of each of the characters in the scene.

The Early Years of Hollywood

Since early 20^th century, American film industry has had a great effect on the many other countries’ film industries. Its history is divided in 4 main periods.

Eadweard Muybridge, in 1873, shot a horse galloping. He used many cameras which were fixed in certain points around the racetrack. This was an essential starting for the brains waiting out there.

From early times, cinema in the US was aimed to satisfy a very big group of people which was expecting something new they did not know. Moreover, this had also another reason: cinema was going to be for the good of society and the US as a country because it was intended to improve the economic situation.

In the US, the first exhibitions for large audiences took place mainly during vaudevilles’ breaks. And, business men were the former bringers of drama to the masses. For those times, and because of the aim of cinema, movies had to be eye-catching, and, more importantly, it had to tell a story which seemed real or possible to the spectator.

The first great success in American cinema was “The Great Train Robbery” directed by Edwin S. Porter, which lasted only 12 minutes; however, it was Porter's most successful piece.

For those early years, New York became the meeting center for film-making, especially mentioned the Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens. Among other film production centers included Chicago, Florida, California, and Cuba.

Nonetheless, the weather in New York made it a bit troublesome to make films in the outside; therefore, from 1903 film-makers decided on to move to Los Angeles, but not until around 1910, director D.W. Griffith arrived in the city, and so by 1913 many film-makers had already moved to this new place also because they were trying to get rid of the high taxes they had been paying as a result of Edison’s creation[DM1] and the patents upon the subject.

It was in 1910 when Griffith filmed the first Hollywood movie: a melodrama about the Mexican era of California in the 1800s, called “In Old Califo

rnia” – formerly, Cecil B. DeMill’s feature-length production made in 1914, “The Squaw Man”, was for a long time thought to be the first film shot in Hollywood.

California, eventually, became widely-spread known because it had all kinds of environment, but generally shiny weather. In fact, California had everything such as seaports, country, wild hills, and even dessert. More and more people continued to come.

As for the first 30 years of development, Hollywood applied the Star-system, which tried to ensure the productions’ success. This system created personas for each of the young promising actors. Little by little Hollywood started to introduce the use of genres in their films, just what the audiences had been waiting for. However, it was of great importance to successfully develop these emerging young stars so as to get the cinemas filled.

Early studies on history expressed D.W. Griffith as the “father of modern cinema.” Nevertheless, neither he nor anyone who worked on the discovery of new techniques had been successful in the classification and develop of cinema language, yet it is possible to notice some techniques used in Edwin Porter’s works – with no further knowledge than the application.

Fortunately, Griffith was able to keep developing the matter, and for that reason calling him “the father of modern cinema” makes sense.

During the Golden Age of Hollywood –also related to the Hollywood Classical Narrative Style—the silent era starts to end as sound films were being produced, and many works began to adapt certain principles: westerns, slapstick comedy, musicals, and biopic among many others. The principal focus was that the merging of video and music did not have to be very noticeable.

What was possible was to predict which studio had produced a certain film only at seeing the actors and actresses that starred in that film; this is because each studio had its own style and identifiable features that made it possible to find out, which is very different from what occurs today. If you pick up one film and see it, you will struggle at trying to guess where exactly it was made or what company is behind the production. Moreover, artists themselves were involved in the production and filming of a new piece of work, which at the same time made only slight differences in terms of story in the film.

However, filming was a business and motion picture companies counted on thousands of people on list such as actors, scriptwriters, directors, craftspeople and others; also, they had different places in which they could show their material, but those needed to be new and fresh, always.

Movies with inappropriate content had to pay a $25,000.00 fine for not following the censorship guidelines of Motion Picture Association of America, whose president was William Hays.

Through most golden age, MGM was the great company which owned the most famous stars, and also was nominated for having created the star-system.

With good approving from critics, MGM created Gone With the Wind which became the most successful piece of art of all times, even today.

Despite the big number of films being launched simultaneously, risking too much on every movie was a big danger for companies. And, in those times there were many movies; their scripts were fantastic while their actors almost unknown. However that made them a greatest film of all time.

The teaching of the history of film comes to be very significant since the students reach broader knowledge regarding cinema than only “watch a movie.” Moreover, movies are a basic feature; they are eveywhere and there are movies of all types and likes, so we as teachers have an immense resource –-also entertaining and eye-catching-- to work with when wanting to introduce film into the classroom.

Film as part of the curriculum would help the motivated students to develop their critical thinking skills as well as to appreciate more the changes it has experienced from its very first steps to the movies shown on TV today.

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References:

Websites

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistema_de_estudios

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cine_en_Estados_Unidos

http://www.duiops.net/cine/sistema-de-estudios.html

http://www.duiops.net/cine/control-de-la-produccion.html

http://www.youtube.com

Books

“Film History: An Introduction” by Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell.

Romanticide

Heard it was when the sun went away,
but none of us was prepared to listen.

I would have had thee at my side,
and thou, then, left the ocean and me.

A whole evening had been quite,
and we, caressed by the wind, watched the hordes on the beach.

There was a disturbing sensation about the moment,
thou, then, stood on thine feet. Gone home.

The multitude running, desperate, and terrified.
I stayed on the sand, cold,
waiting for a response to that chaotic scene I had witnessed.


Boom! - I heard,
and felt frail.
Blood quite before my eyes,
blood on the sand,
but thou were not there to behold.
Thou not there to look after me.
Felt to sway,
I hoped not to pass away.


Yearned to be covered with thy skin,
but thou were not there.
Thou never heard I loved thee.

School Project Commencement

Let me introduce myself and this blog to you.

I am studying English Pedagogy at Universidad Andrés Bello – Santiago, Chile. I love watching movies and listening to some music. And, now that I'm coursing Film and Literature, I think I've started to like movies more in a deeper sense. We learn about Film history, we study some of its genres -though on its surface mainly; however, as I see I'm learning and enjoying it at the same time, I've become really interested.

Now, this blog I've created will be aimed to present every single work that I do at university -more precisely, in my Film and Literature class though I may also be presenting personal pieces of writing of any sort.

The main goal is that you can see what is being posted, and, hopefully comment on, or help correct any pieces of work so as to get the appropriate feedback.

This is it for now--I hope I didn't bore you.

I will see you soon.

DM.