Most people typically do not focus on how the camera is working
when watching a film; we are more focused on the effects that the camera
placements and movement have upon us, without necessarily being aware of them. This
article explained the many effects different camera techniques can create for
viewers. Good camera technique is essential in getting the audience to not just
see the film, but to experience it.
I really enjoy films that experiment with camera use. Darren
Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream makes
great use of framing, focal, and movement techniques to place the audience in
the characters’ chaotic, illusionary world. The movie is about drug use and
lives spiraling out of control, and the camera conveys that sense of disorder through shaky pans, fast forward and slow motion scenes, fast-paced montage of extreme
close-up shots, special lenses, and other effects.
This scene from Requiem
for a Dream uses a fish-eye lens to distort the frame, putting us inside
the head of the hallucinating, mentally unstable Sarah and allowing us to experience her visit to the doctor’s office from her perspective. The use of deep focus
also makes her doctor seem so far away from her, and his motion is sped up
while hers remains slow. The distance and differences in speed between Sarah and the rest of her environment visually emphasize how she is “in her own world” and separated from reality.
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