Renaudin, Super 8 mise en scene

Super 8 attempts to capture the tone of some of Stephen Spielberg's films produced and directed in the 1980s. Super 8 is an American tale, dramatizing the crack-up of America's industrial infrastructure. Set in a small rustbelt town during the summer of 1979, Super 8 tells a familiar '50s sci-fi tale. The kids are out late one night, secretly filming by the town railroad, when a pickup truck apparently stalls on the tracks, causing a massive explosion that has apocalyptic consequences for the small town. Outer space creatures begin to invade the town and the U.S. Army takes control, and orders a mass evacuation. Suburban heaven becomes a war zone, while a rapport between the kids and the aliens and comedic portion takes flight. True to Spielberg's 1980's films, through it all, the kids keep working on their project.

Named for an obsolete cinema technology (8mm Film), Super 8 is involving enough to create its own reality. The movie begins when a mom is crushed to death in a steel-mill mishap, and the story line never wanders very far from smashed metal. Machines, and what they represent, exist to pulverize or be pulverized. Without necessarily meaning to be, Super 8 is an American tale, dramatizing the crack-up of the nation's industrial infrastructure.


Super 8's mise-en-scène

In this screen shot Preston is showing Lamb's dad the film of the train wreck and the alien monster. This is one of the most critical scenes in the movie and to the development of the plot. The way Lamb's dad is leaning into Preston he is, in a sense, in control of the situation. The background is out of focus and the actions of those characters are not significant. The tight framed shot lets the audience concentrates on the interactions between the characters. In this frame, and in the film, the dominant object is the reel of film and what it captures. The characters are positioned in a three quarters turn.