Writer and Director J.J. Abrams’ Super 8(2011) tells the story of a group of friends, families, and a community. When a disaster train accident occurs, a town goes into disarray when peculiar things begin to happen, personal items and people begin to disappear, and all of the animals flee. The military gets involved and eventually the town must be evacuated.
We find out that an alien was on the train and immediately there is sympathy felt for it and those trying to save it, while the air force attempts to keep this information classified. In this photo shot from the film, we see two families brought together from this incident, with blurred images in the background that can be made out as the military men who were just previously shooting at the alien.
The medium shot focuses on the dominant, the two children standing closely to their families who, although have their differences have been brought together through a series of unfortunate occurrences. The positioning of the characters shows their importance, while also in a loose frame, allowing the characters movement, although they are frozen in awe of what they are seeing, however still suggesting room to grow as people as they appear to have already done within the film. While there was distance between these four characters at the beginning of the film, their character proxemic has moved to intimate as they hold onto each other.
The density of the scene is moderate, focusing on the families with character forms made out in the smokey and hazy background. This suggests the importance of family, as it is hard to really make out what is going on in the background and the dominant is lit up, easily seen first. Family had been a theme which has appeared throughout the movie, leading up to this moment when the characters realize this.
Libby, I think this is a very good analysis of this shot and of mise-en-scene in general. In this shot, the positioning of the characters is very important. Instead of Joe and Alice being on the outside of their fathers, they are on the inside so that they are the characters who are closest together physically, as they are also literally the characters closest together. Also as a result of their connectedness they have brought their fathers together and this shot reflects that. I wouldn’t exactly say the character proximity is intimate, but somewhere between personal and intimate. I agree with what you have to say about the density and the dominant. The subsidiary contrast is the mayhem going on behind, which is noticeable but only after you have focused on the dominant. Great job!
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