Media Studies Cover Work
Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope
The intro for Star Wars Episode 4 does well at telling the main storyline of the original trilogy in just a few minutes. Like any Star Wars film, it begins the title of the series (Star Wars), what episode (A New Hope), and a basic back-story of the film at hand. It goes on about the rebel’s (protagonists) exploits of taking down the empire (antagonists). It then pans out to a flat looking shot of empty space, with a planet in the far distance. Two spaceships then fly over, revealing that it is a low angle shot. The first ship is a relatively small ship on the run. This ship belongs to the rebels. It is followed by a ship that is huge in comparison shooting green laser-like projectiles at the rebel ship. This belongs to the empire. The size difference in the two vessels is symbolizing the difference between the rebel alliance and the empire. The rebel alliance is on the run and extremely small in comparison. Whereas the empire is very close to eliminating the rebel alliance; chasing them down very quickly and almost immeasurably bigger than the rebel forces. It then switches to a long/two shot of two of the main characters, C-3PO and RD-D2. They are walking down a lobby getting shaken about by the laser shots. It then shows one of the lasers hitting the rebel ship, and with that it stops moving and smoke starts pouring out. This is a long shot, still low angle. Then, the empire ship goes on top of the rebel ship, almost looking like it is going to consume it. The camera then switches to the droids again, now stopping and talking about how the empire troops are boarding the ship, and then a reasonably famous line is said by C-3PO: “We’re doomed”. It then shows a medium/long shot rebel soldiers running towards a door with sparks coming out, prepping their guns. It then goes silent for about 5 seconds. The view then slowly gets closer towards the door. The camera shows a few close-ups of some rebel soldiers, showing the worry in their eyes and sweat running down their faces. Then you see the attention shift back towards the door, showing literally dozens of stormtroopers running through the doorway, shooting at the rebels with maximum accuracy, killing them all. The shot while this happens is a long shot, with the occasional close-up of a stormtrooper or rebel soldier getting shot. You then see C-3PO wandering about looking for R2-D2. He finds him, and then it goes to a long two shot of Princess Leia putting data into R2-D2. The shot is still a long shot, but R2-D2 and C-3PO are running off. The attention switches to the door the stormtroopers came through, when out the smoke walks out the main antagonist, Darth Vader. This is a long shot, and it also shows stormtroopers standing in an army like manor, showing that Vader is of an upper class to them. This is the entirety of the introduction of Star Wars a New Hope. The music in this is composed by John Williams, and performed by the London Symphony Orchestra. The camera work and special effects of this first 5-10 minutes are great for at the time of movie’s creation, and tells the watcher all they need to know about the main struggles in the film, as well as introducing nearly all the main characters.
Finding Nemo
This film starts off with a couple of shots of an animated, yet very convincing, ocean. The view goes down until you see a coral reef anemone. At this moment, this is a long shot. You then see two clownfish. These are all long shots. These two clownfish are new to their home, and are looking after their recently fertilized eggs. The view then goes to a low angle shot of the eggs, and the fish go over them, talking about what they want to name all of the fish. The father, Marlin, is being lazy and names half of them Marlin Jr, and the other half Coral Jr. Coral, the mother, agrees to that as long as at least one of them can be called Nemo, which Marlin willingly agrees. All this is done with a medium/long shot at a low angle. Then, Marlin and Coral quickly look away. The view changes to an establishing like, possibly even a POV shot from Marlin or Coral, shot of neighbour fish grabbing their eggs and fleeing into their anemones it changes. Still in this shot, they see a Barracuda in the distance. The barracuda spots them and starts to swim towards them. Marlin tries to flee to their anemone, but Coral stays petrified. She looks at the eggs, then back at the barracuda. She swims quickly to the eggs, with the barracuda coming ever so closer. For the shot of Marlin, it is a close-up of him trying swim to the home. The shot of Coral is a medium shot, switching between that and a POV shot from her POV of the barracuda. Marlin sees the barracuda gets closer and closer, and fears the worst and hides in the anemone, trying to drain the sound of the attack out. This is a close-up shot. He gets up fearfully, and pokes his head out. He sees nothing, no Coral, no eggs, nothing. He starts to weep uncontrollably. This is a medium shot, and a POV shot when he is looking for anything. He then sees a single egg. He quickly swims towards it. He then holds onto the egg very comfortably. He then christens the egg Nemo, in memory of Coral. It then goes to close-up to a extreme close-up of the egg, which shows Nemo’s smaller fin. Then it shows the title of the film. This is the intro of the film. This leads to Marlin’s overprotective nature of Nemo through the film and his hesitance of him leaving.
