Ah, the power of youth.
At the heart of the ideological messages about freedom versus confinement portrayed throughout the film Super 8, J.J. Abrams sets apart a group of film-making adolescents as the heroes of their time. The director's models of photography reveal both the tense, unyielding sense of control taken upon the adults in the film, as well as the open-minded, explorative views of the featured children. This consistent contrast in tight and loose framing is indicative of the plight of adulthood as it relates to the suburban environment in which this film is taken: while adults are overtaken by responsibility and the things that we must do, the uncertainties of adolescence are compromisingly met with still having room to those things that they want to do. The military's efforts to confine and conceal the adults of the town greatly underestimate the potential impact of youthful endeavor (i.e. the scene wherein the kids were completely ignored while filming in front of Dr. Woodward's home as the military moved documents), and the parents in the film unsuccessfully persist in enforcing confinements upon and between their respective children (i.e. Alice and Joe told to stay away from each other by their feuding fathers; Joe's father sending him to baseball camp over the summer to get him away from his film-making friends).
Regarding the mise en scene elements of the displayed frame, there are several elements that compliment the consistency in the overall freedom versus confinement theme, beginning with the loose framing , wherein the characters have a great deal of room to move about and thus move toward their escape. The lighting appears to be natural, as the emphasis on the objects and people are highlighted by street lights and the glaring flames of exploding train cars. The dominant in the frame is Alice at the forefront, whose positioning and fearful expression lead the audience to sense her endangerment. The three boys behind her constitute the subsidiary contrast, and reinforce the sense of danger in the frame as they express the horror of their demise amid the wreckage that threatened their lives. The four-plane depth upon which the frame is set gives ample room for its highly detailed density, with wind-blown hair and clothes, the chipped paint on an apparently aged building, and the evidence of danger from the burning train car. In case this dialogue doesn't make it clear, I say now that I admire the photography project of this film for its consistency and symbolic depth, and I believe that the "Spielberg spirit" was indeed captured in its making.
At the heart of the ideological messages about freedom versus confinement portrayed throughout the film Super 8, J.J. Abrams sets apart a group of film-making adolescents as the heroes of their time. The director's models of photography reveal both the tense, unyielding sense of control taken upon the adults in the film, as well as the open-minded, explorative views of the featured children. This consistent contrast in tight and loose framing is indicative of the plight of adulthood as it relates to the suburban environment in which this film is taken: while adults are overtaken by responsibility and the things that we must do, the uncertainties of adolescence are compromisingly met with still having room to those things that they want to do. The military's efforts to confine and conceal the adults of the town greatly underestimate the potential impact of youthful endeavor (i.e. the scene wherein the kids were completely ignored while filming in front of Dr. Woodward's home as the military moved documents), and the parents in the film unsuccessfully persist in enforcing confinements upon and between their respective children (i.e. Alice and Joe told to stay away from each other by their feuding fathers; Joe's father sending him to baseball camp over the summer to get him away from his film-making friends).
Regarding the mise en scene elements of the displayed frame, there are several elements that compliment the consistency in the overall freedom versus confinement theme, beginning with the loose framing , wherein the characters have a great deal of room to move about and thus move toward their escape. The lighting appears to be natural, as the emphasis on the objects and people are highlighted by street lights and the glaring flames of exploding train cars. The dominant in the frame is Alice at the forefront, whose positioning and fearful expression lead the audience to sense her endangerment. The three boys behind her constitute the subsidiary contrast, and reinforce the sense of danger in the frame as they express the horror of their demise amid the wreckage that threatened their lives. The four-plane depth upon which the frame is set gives ample room for its highly detailed density, with wind-blown hair and clothes, the chipped paint on an apparently aged building, and the evidence of danger from the burning train car. In case this dialogue doesn't make it clear, I say now that I admire the photography project of this film for its consistency and symbolic depth, and I believe that the "Spielberg spirit" was indeed captured in its making.
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