These technical and effects such as close up, tracking shot, zoom in, Depth of Field Effect, slow motion, opacity, sound will grab more eyes and attentions. These technical and effects look as normal as other movie, but Quentin use special way to demonstrate these technical and effects in Kill Bill 1 and so make this film so successful. Now I will introduce these special technical and effects.
1. Close upAs we known this is a movie talk about a lady’s revenge, so why she want revenge and why Kill Bill 1 is different from other revenge movie？ One answer of these questions is camera shot, in fact the director use a lot of special shots in this movie, but one of the reasons why the movie is so successful is use close up to focus on main character - bride’s face at the beginning of the movie, we can see despair, fright, supplication and sadness from her face clearly, so we can quickly get the answer why she revenge, so the director is good at use camera shot to demonstrate character’s feeling.
We have to admit, Quentin is good at catch facial emotion to demonstrate character’s feeling, we can choose a typical example from Reservoir Dogs.
As the picture above showing, the cop seeing a man goes toward to him and wants kill him, so we can see despair, fright, supplication and sadness from her face clearly as well, it is similar to Kill Bill, the cop and Bride are the same, they both see a man wants to kill them, and we can catch the same facial emotion from their face, so we get the feeling in their mind easily, so it is the reason why Quentin’s film are successful.
2. Tracking shotDirector is good at use camera movement to make mysteries, such as use tracking shot to shoot the movement of someone’s feet without any introduction, it is a clever way to grab audiences’ attention.
The picture above shows someone goes towards Bride with tracking shot, so the director left a question at the beginning of the movie, who wants kill bride? And audiences will think about this question while they watching this movie, and in this movie director use a lot of tracking shot to shoot someone’s feet moving in order to make movie has a lot of sense of mystery, it makes audiences wants continuing to watch this movie. We can compare with Rush hour 3, the genre of this movie is crime, Lee is catching the killer, the killer is turning around and Lee can see his face, with this photography people all know what happen next, so makes less mystery to grab audiences’ eyes.
And we can compare with another Quentin’s film as well, this film called “Reservoir Dogs”; I just show a picture of this movie.
As we know this man holding a knife in his hand and he wants to kill the cop, I think is similar to Bill holds a gun and wants kill Bride, in Reservoir Dogs, the scene is use panning to shoot this man dancing while he goes towards to the cop, it is a funny scene as well, but at the beginning of this scene, Quentin just choose shoot the whole body of the man, we can see who is him immediately, great shot but less mystery let audiences thinking.
These two scenes is similar, because one is the man wants kill the cop, and another one is Bill wants to kill Bride, and both use tracking shot, but in Kill Bill Quentin use tracking shot to shoot the feet movement instead of body movement, it makes more suspense, so I think Kill Bill is different from other movie, even the movie direct by him such as Reservoir Dogs.
About this Movie, there is one scene give me deep impression which is O-Ren Ishii brings Gogo and her crazy 88 member go to dancing hall. There is a video clip to help us to understand this scene.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJlu_xo79k8
This scene uses a lot of camera technique and a piece of powerful background music.
At the eleventh second, the camera movement is tracking shot, with the dolly technique to shoot they move forward toward to the room from the back, this shot tell us where they going at the beginning of the scene, and then use tracking shot to shoot their feet moving from left to right, the reason why Quentin not choose shoot their face first is he wants leave a question to audiences, who is moving? And audiences can get the answer easily from characters’ clothes, in order to grab people’s attention.
Next camera shoots from front to demonstrate the facial details of characters with Zoom in technique.
3. About the zoom in, as the photos showing below
The camera zoom in from long shot to medium shot, these shots becoming bigger and bigger with zoom in is in order to tell audiences who they are, because with the camera zoom in, people will catch the characters’ face and emotion clearer and clearer, from the third image we can see the confident and arrogant from their face, so Quentin is successful use zoom in to the express the emotion of characters.
And this scene with a good logicality, after zoom in, Quentin use cross cutting to introduce “crazy 88”, “Gogo and Sofia”, O-Ren Ishii, this technique divide the group into individual, it can detail showing how strong O-Ren Ishii is and it can makes people feel scared, in order to demonstrate how difficult Bride win the fight. But if O-Ren Ishii just pass the camera as normal, audience will not easy to catch the facial details, so director use slow motion as well, it cans show the emotion of every single person clearly with cross cutting and slow motion.
Quentin is good at use zoom in to demonstrate character’s emotion, I got more photos to prove this point.
The lady shows above called Sofia and this plot is about Bride waiting in front of traffic light while she riding on the motorcycle and she see Sofia making telephone call in the car, and Bride recall her memory cause Sofia was making telephone call as well when Bill and the killers killing people in the church, but at this time Bride is wearing the helmet, how can demonstrate Bride’s anger and surprise at this time? So Quentin choose zoom in to express Bride’s emotion, and first is medium shot, shoot outside from the window, but it is just the normal angle that what Bride can see from her eyes, next the camera zoom in into close up to Sofia’s face, from this zoom in, we can get a information which is Bride seems can remember who the lady is, the last the camera zoom in into extreme close up and focus on her mouth, and next scene jump to Bride’s flash back, so the extreme close up tells us the emotion of Bride which is Bride pretty sure Sofia is one of the killers, because Sofia is doing the same thing as she did four years ago – making telephone call, even though we can not see Bride’s face, but from the zoon in we still can catch the emotion if Bride.
4. From the photos below we can also see many people in one shot, but how to express O-Ren Ishii is the leader of the group? So Quentin use one effect called “Depth of Field Effect”.
The picture showing the camera focus on O-Ren Ishii as the foreground and other people behind is blur, from this effect, although many people in one shot, but we still can stand out the main character of the whole group.
5. Slow motion
This movie use slow motion quite well at the right time, this is an action movie that with a lot of fighting scenes, especially the character fighting with the weapon, the weapon must be moving fast, how to make audience will not miss any fantastic action details? Slow motion can solve this problem effectively, such as one scene is Gogo uses meteor hummer fight with Bride and this weapon moving fast, if movie use normal motion the audience may not catch the action, it lead to nobody knows the power of this weapon, and will not know how difficult Bride kill Gogo as well, so this technical detail makes audience feel the way of Bride’s revenge is very difficult. It can make the movie more attractive. We can compare with Rush Hour 3, it is a action movie as well, but it does not use any slow motion during the fighting, you can say it is more real, but it is some boring when people viewing the fighting scenes of this movie.
This movie use slow motion quite well at the right time, this is an action movie that with a lot of fighting scenes, especially the character fighting with the weapon, the weapon must be moving fast, how to make audience will not miss any fantastic action details? Slow motion can solve this problem effectively, such as one scene is Gogo uses meteor hummer fight with Bride and this weapon moving fast, if movie use normal motion the audience may not catch the action, it lead to nobody knows the power of this weapon, and will not know how difficult Bride kill Gogo as well, so this technical detail makes audience feel the way of Bride’s revenge is very difficult. It can make the movie more attractive. We can compare with Rush Hour 3, it is a action movie as well, but it does not use any slow motion during the fighting, you can say it is more real, but it is some boring when people viewing the fighting scenes of this movie.
6. Window (Opacity), in my opinion, this is the most characteristic technique and effect in Kill Bill movie, let me use a pictures to introduce what window is.
This effect is use Opacity technique to include two characters into one shot, why director wants use this technique? Because we all know Bride is woke up from a long coma and she must recall her memory that who hurt her, director definitely should use flash back to demonstrate this plot. Like other movie, director normally use transition to make the photography like old style movie, it is a good way to demonstrate but quite common. So how Quentin use special way to demonstrate flash back? The answer is opacity, the foreground is Bride’s eyes and background is enemy, it means from Bride’s eyes she can recall her memory that who tried to kill her many years ago, it can give audience direct impression, so it is an important effect that makes this movie different.
7. A good film impossible only has good photography, also need include good background music, these scene include a powerful music, at the beginning of this scene the music makes us nervous and scared because the music telling us O-Ren Ishii is coming, but we still can not see their face, after that the camera turn to the front and audiences caught their face, while zooming in, the climax of background music rang, it means we see the crazy 88 and O-Ren clearly, the climax of background music sounds like “bang bang bang”, with this sound, the shot is cross cutting, once “bang bang bang” rang, the one of character face showing, the sound can help the scene to keep their confident and arrogant facial emotion in audiences’ mind. After that the background music going fast as well, because the photography shows people scared of O-Ren Ishii, the background music can match this photography nicely and helps the photography to demonstrate how dreadful O-Ren Ishii is. Then this scene finish.
Above all, this movie with those special technical and effects give us a different experience of film shooting from other movies, the difference comes from special and the special makes a film successful.
List of Reference
http://www.siggraph.org/education/materials/HyperGraph/animation/cameras/traditional_film_camera_techniqu.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1japIhKU9I&feature=fvw
http://www.siggraph.org/education/materials/HyperGraph/animation/cameras/traditional_film_camera_techniqu.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1japIhKU9I&feature=fvw
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