NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote
The movie Swing Kids is a drama set in the Germany just before World War II. Thought the movie it show the impact of the Nazis on the people of Germany and how hard life could be if you did not follow the Nazis rule. The Witness is a police murder mystery that stars the famous Harrison Ford. The movie is about and Armish boy how witnesses a murder which unravels a corrupt police section. Even though both movies are quite different they both similar components for instance hiding form someone (In Swing Kids it is from Nazi finding out their true identity; and in Witness it is the bad guys); they both show hoe friendships can be made or broken in extreme situation and both in my opinion have edge-of-your-seat endings. Unlike Swing Kids the main camera shot used in Witness are mid-shots and full shots and there are even quite a few long shot, while in Swing Kids the main camera angle are close-ups and mid-shots.
It is interesting to notice that there are very small amount of close-up used in witness. I supposed they are used to go in the line of the film Swing Kids which is very character analytical film and the close-ups help you analyze the character more easily and give the film much more feeling, while Witness being the police murder there are a lot a of serious and intense scenes which I feel is brought out the much further out camera shots. As usual in most films, including these two, extreme long shot or establishing shot are used to verify the setting of the film or a scene (depending if the location does change) however the establishing shot is main used in pans for Witness which give the same effect. In Witness most the camera angles used in the film were mainly eye level shot and below. There is one scene in the film were overhead shots and high angled shot were used, this was when the Armish people were building the house with Books.
In Swing Kids overhead shots and high angled shots were probably used in the same amount as Witness (maybe a bit more), the time when it was used was when the swing kids were dancing in the club. Compared to Swing Kids, Witness uses much more low angled shots and under shots (even strange angles) than Swing Kids in fact they are used quite regularly on the film, while eye level shots are the main camera angles used in Swing Kids. The way that both films use their camera angles is quite the opposite to each other, thus Swing Kid uses a lot of eye level shot but few low angled and under shots and Witness uses a lot of low angled and under shots but uses few eye level shot. I think this done to go along with what I said about following the line of the film.
Because Witness was made much more recently than Swing Kids it has a few camera tricks than Swing Kid, for example, if you notice in certain scene their eye colour changes to give them a gentle look etc. , this happens in the scene were Books get the car to work and the radio comes on, when Rachel stands up her eyes are sort of blue while they are brown though most of the film. Another trick that Swing Kids did not have was strange lighting like in the scene were Books has fever and the only light is a orange flame it give the whole scene an intimate feeling. The tilt used in Witness (when man is dying when the wheat was falling on him) was much more effective the one used in Swing Kids (when Thomas and Peter are fighting), the death of the man in Witness felt more painful than in Swing Kids, even though this partly due the actors acting the tilt really set it off. The tracking and dolly shot were used much the same as normal film in both films which was to follow an object. The difference in panning between the two films is that in Swing Kid the pan would show round about were the next scene was happening, but Witness shows were that scene was happening.
The point-of-veiw shots used basically the same both help you feel the feelings of the character. Example: in Witness the terror of the Armish boy witnessing the murder and in Swing Kid the terror of Peter looking into the box. In all I thought that the producer of Witness did a better job than Swing Kids because of its little extra tricks and its strange camera angle. However talking into account when both movies were made they both did a fairly good job.
Free research essays on topics related to: establishing shot, long shot, camera angles, swing, close ups
Research essay sample on Establishing Shot Camera Angles
