shot analysis

SHOT ANALYSIS‘CONTAGION’ TRAILER

ELLA ASH

MEDIUM CLOSE UP SHOT

This shot is a medium close up shot as it’s closer than a mid shot with just Megan's head and shoulders showing. It’s effective as it also gets a bit of the context into it.

ESTABLISHING SHOT/ PAN SHOT As well as this shot being an establishing shot to establish a location, when you watch the trailer it also shows the camera movement of a pan, which moves across the scene, focusing on the ‘Danger of Death’ sign which relates to the narrative. We used a tripod to make sure the camera remained still and the pan was smooth and professional.

FOLLOW SHOT (tracking shot)

Follow shots/ tracking shots can be used with either a dolly track, Steadicam or handheld camera, so for our trailer we used a handheld camera to create a sense of panic and represents the character running.

HANDHELD CAMERA/ POV SHOT

This is a perfect example, even more so than the still on the previous slide, of the effect of using a handheld camera, however in this case it represents a POV of a zombie, therefore using a handheld camera would be the most appropriate technique to use to put this across to the audience.

HIGH ANGLE SHOT

This is an example of a high angle shot which we used in our trailer and made into surveillance style footage, as CCTV cameras usually look down from a high angle. The effect of the high angle also makes the zombies the main subject and it’s clear to the audience they are in fact zombies. We managed to capture this from positioning the tripod on top of a bridge.

POV SHOT

Again, this is probably a better example of a POV shot in which the camera looking out onto the road out of the windscreen, represents the passenger.

LONG SHOT

This still, is an example of a long shot. It captures the scene and shows the protagonist, the car (prop) and a zombie coming towards her. In this case they both take up the majority of the frame.

OVERVIEW Overall, I feel we captured a good variety of shots that work well in our trailer for various effects, particularly the handheld camera shots, which are conventional considering the genre. We did plan the majority of these shots, however some shots for example the long shot were taken spontaneously, but we felt that they were effective. If I were to film the trailer again, I’d perhaps be looking to get an extreme close-up shot to show emotion, and an over the shoulder shot to represent confrontation between a character and a zombie, or perhaps a conversation.