Long time no see, YouTube!
This is Hack No Gem.
Today, the film we are going to hack is Steven Spielberg’s Jaws.
Warning. Watch out for spoilers!
Let’s first take a look at long takes.
There are a lot of scenes in Jaws that are shot in one long takes.
Spielberg puts several different shots into a single unbroken shot unless it was absolutely necessary to divide them.
This is a rare find in today’s films, because it’s a very complex process to choreograph everything in order,
such as acting, movements, camerawork, lighting and others,
and it’s even harder to execute all of these elements perfectly in a single take.
But when it’s done the right way, it’s seriously unbelievable.
In this film, cameras never move without any objectives.
Instead, they constantly react to and follow where the actors are going.
Also, Spielberg fully utilizes the background, middleground, and foreground of the shot
by moving actors from one plane to another,
which we will discuss further in this video.
Among a lot of good one long takers in the film, we think this is the best one.
Let’s first look at the composition.
Characters are cornering Chief Brody, the person they have to persuade,
to the edge of the boat, as if they are threatening him.
As the persuasion resumes, Chief Brody and The Mayor walk towards to camera twice,
giving us a medium long shot, medium shot, and medium close up shot
to naturally emphasize the content of the dialogue in one smooth long take.
It’s also an excellent location for a long take.
A long dialogue scene can get dull,
but here, the background constantly changes as the boat moves,
making this 2 minute long take with little camera movement a less boring one.
Jaws is not a film with intricate image systems,
but it still uses it as a device for provoking the theme and motifs
by repeatedly showing similar images throughout the film.
Here, it is being used to show the development of the character and foreshadow.
This type of visual evocation or comparison allows the audience to extract meanings
by constructing relationships between the constantly shown images to understand the story better.
Now let’s see how Spielberg visually provides information.
Let’s take a look at the characters.
First, Chief Brody.
Brody is a policeman in Amity Island,
and as you can see here, he likes to remain inside boundaries.
And he’s a bit… clumsy.
He might look like that because he is still a stranger to the island,
and because he is not experienced with being on boats.
He has an inner conflict of having been traumatized by water,
and he eventually overcomes it as the movie reaches the end,
making him the only noticeable multidimensional character of the film.
Next is Quint.
His strong presence can be seen from his very first appearance in the movie.
Unlike the people on the island, he kills sharks for a living.
The wonderful art done inside his house shows that he’s just the guy we’ve been waiting for,
and you can also see that from the smiles of Chief Brody and Matt Hooper.
Which doesn’t help much in the end.
You should’ve known it from early on when you saw this.
Next is Hooper.
He’s small and a childish brat.
He’s from a rich family, is stubborn, and is boastful.
At least he has some practical manners.
This is Mayor Larry,
who makes Chief Brody’s life difficult by opposing to close down the beaches.
His jacket full of anchors shows his commitment towards the fourth of July event on the island,
which is also visually shown with this one way sign,
when he stubbornly refuses to follow Brody and Hooper’s advice.
If there is Larry who makes Chief Brody’s life difficult on land,
in the ocean, there is the shark!
The interesting fact is that the shark doesn’t fully show itself until the late second half of the movie.
But instead, the film builds up the tension and terror of the shark by using other visual methods.
It’s strong, brutal, and vicious.
These are some examples of visually showing information.
Instead of saying what he hears in the phone call,
he types it in the typewriter to emphasize its importance to the story.
The billboard and the marching band foretell the upcoming significant event on the island,
And the floating wooden stick and the bloody rubber raft show who the victims are from the shark attack.
And here, a split field diopter is used to visually show that Chief’s attention is split into the person in front of him as well as the couple in the water.
The dolly zoom shot here shows the moment of shock as Chief Brody faces his worst fear becoming true.
The usage of color is pretty interesting, too.
Spielberg uses red, yellow, blue, green, and black
as a device to explore characters’ personality, situations, and relationships.
What’s intriguing is that,
while Quint and Hooper are wearing clothes of contrasting colors to show their gap in the beginning,
once they begin to know each other better,
they can be seen wearing the same color to visually show their closer relationship.
The compositions of shots are simple, yet stunning.
Spielberg’s superior skillset becomes more clear in group shots rather than singles.
In Jaws, often times three characters are placed in the foreground, middleground, and background of the shot to form a triangle.
The space and height difference between these characters create a triangle,
thus a vanishing point, which creates depth to the shot with its dynamic composition.
When shot in low angle, like many times in Jaws,
the low angle itself creates a vanishing point for each of the characters,
which makes the shot even more realistic.
The more vanishing points there are in the shot, the more depth and realistic the shot gets.
Also, placing the talker and listener in the same shot avoids disrupting the flow of the conversation
while effectively showing the action and reaction of both people at the same time.
When you think of sharks, this music immediately crosses your mind.
The theme music comes on whenever the shark appears from the water.
But in the scenes later in the film,
The music never plays, totally catching the audience off guard.
like THIS!
The soundtrack of Jaws is pretty adventure-y,
something you would hear from movies like Indiana Jones,
which can sound a little out of place if you hear it now.
The music that is too scary or intense through out the entire film might have made the movie too frightening,
which wasn't what Spielberg had in his mind.
He wants people to be frightened when they see the predator,
but also to get excited when they see progress within characters.
This is all we have for Jaws.
They put a lot of comic scenes to make it less scary and boring,
so we will end this by showing some of those scenes.
See you next week!
