Cinematography

Today, the movie industry has become a huge moneymaker in the entertainment business. You cannot turn on the television without seeing advertisements for the next big blockbuster film. While most of the films these days entertain with amazing special effects or raunchy comedy, there are still films that thrive because of great acting, directing, and editing. Three films that I believe would be great examples of the way these aspects can cause a film to excel are ?Any Given Sunday?, ?The Cell?, and ?Almost Famous?. ?Any Given Sunday? shows how, by using editing, a movie can portray an intense situation realistically. In ?The Cell?, color is used to differentiate between how we see things in reality and how things are seen inside our heads. ?Almost Famous? is a great example of the ways that sound and acting can enhance the quality of a film.

Al Pacino, as run-down head coach Tony D?Amato, and Jamie Foxx, as energetic quarterback Willy Beaman, star in this behind the scenes look at the conflicts that occur inside a modern day professional football team. While the backstabbing and stubbornness of people involved in a football program are greatly exaggerated in this movie, I chose it because of its portrayal of the on-the-field action. Having played football in high school, this is the first film that has been able to effectively capture the speed and intensity through the movie screen. The movie gives you the emotions of every type of person involved in the football game. Every view from the players on the field to the coaches on the sidelines to the fans in the crowd and watching on television is shown. Quick cuts of slightly blurred panning shots along with close-up shots of the intense looks on players faces many times give the viewer the feeling that they are involved in the play themselves. The movie also geniously uses a combination of true speed and slow motion scenes to allow the viewer to experience both the speed and intensity of the moment at the same time. One montage begins with the team walking up to the line in true speed, goes to slow motion as Beaman surveys the defense, goes to full speed as the lines crash into each other on the snap and a defender closes in on Beaman. Then as soon as the hit is made, it is switched back to slow motion to highlight the viciousness of the hit. Between plays, though, the movie takes you back outside of the players and shows the emotions of the people viewing the game. Panning shots of cheering fans and screaming coaches along with occasional shots of the game being broadcast on a television with commentators giving their take on the action send the viewer back to the reality that they are only watching the action and not participating in it. While watching this movie you truly feel like you are in the game.

?The Cell?, instead of focusing on accurately portraying reality, takes you to the dream world. Catherine Deane, played by Jennifer Lopez, is a child psychologist involved in an experimental project that allows her to travel inside the mind of coma victims to try to draw them away from their fears and thus out of their coma. This movie portrays the journey inside the mind much like you would depict a dream. When Deane is inside a young child, whose main concern seems to be a fear of the ?boogie man?, the world she enters is a beautiful desert scene where the sky is bright blue with puffy white clouds. She is always dressed in bright white dresses and seems to glow. This depicts that she has earned the child?s trust. All color is brighter in this dreamlike world. Even though these experiments had not been successful bringing the child out of the coma, Dean was able to learn a lot about the child. This caused a couple of detectives to approach her about entering the mind of a serial killer who had slipped into a coma with the goal of discovering the location of his most recent captive. She tentatively agrees and enters the mind of this man. In the killer?s mind, colors and dress once again stick out, however, they are very