In Saving Private Ryan however the camera work is a lot shakier and shuddered when a bomb went of as if the cameraman can actually feel the vibrations from the explosion so it looks as if they were actually there. This clip also uses the parallel camera shot where you are right alongside the soldiers and you don’t feel powerful or in control at all it made the clip a lot more tedious for me anyway. I feel the director of this film approached the camera work with a lot more thought and consideration than the director of The Longest Day. This clip also uses a lot of low angle shots and close ups it hardly ever shows long shots except for the German bunkers and the beach at the start.
For sound overall I think Saving Private Ryan is far better than The Longest Day and I say this because there is absolutely no non-diegetic sound in it until right at the end, which gives a very powerful emotional effect when the camera surveys all the dead bodies lying along the beach and being washed up onto the shore.
In The Longest Day I cannot recall hearing any non-diegetic sound at all which I think was a big mistake by the director. I did not feel that it was as emotionally affecting as was Saving Private Ryan. When comparing diegetic sound I thought that the two films were evenly matched with dialogue and gunfire, the bombs in Saving Private Ryan were slightly better but not much.
The realism of the settings in each of the two clips is significantly different. Saving Private Ryan made me believe that they were actually on the Omaha beach at the date and time of the war. The Longest Day was in my opinion totally unrealistic and it looked like half the time they were standing in front of a screen playing the background of the sea and other boats. Also the captain of the boat in focus stands up looks around and after a pause says: “There it is men”, creating the impression to me that they are not actually there because I do not think it would take that long to spot the beach right in front of him.
When comparing the SFX in both of the two clips I found Saving Private Ryan of definite better quality. This was because The Longest Day only contained body shots where the character in question would scream; clutch his chest with his arms and fall over apparently dead. Also if a bomb went off near running soldiers they would carry on running a further two to three meters before enthusiastically jumping into the air and hitting the ground also apparently dead. In Saving Private Ryan there are all kinds of wounds ranging from headshots, loss of limbs and guts strewn everywhere. The effect of this portrayed the brutality of war and how it is not a thing to be taken lightly.
Each director develops the characters in different ways. In Saving Private Ryan there are a number of characters that are being built up, with small things to start, and then focusing or repeating those actions. For instance, The captain (Tom Hanks) starts off the scene by opening his water bottle with a shaky hand and having a small sip. Then, at the end of the clip, he repeats this whilst surveying the battlefield upon which he has just crossed. Other actors with smaller parts do such things as kiss crosses hung around their necks or pray before they take a vital shot. I think the director of this film was trying to show the audience that the Americans are not an invincible army, but are in fact just normal people fighting for their country.
In The Longest Day, I feel the director was trying to represent the opposite of what Saving Private Ryan did. The captain and his men seem to have no fear whatsoever showing that they think they are invincible. One example of this is when the captain is strolling around talking to his men right in front of the enemy’s machine guns as if he isn’t in the middle of a war.
Finally I think Saving Private Ryan was trying to portray that even if you win, war is not a good thing, whereas The Longest Day was simply a chance to show off that the Americans won that battle. I preferred the Saving Private Ryan clip because it contained the best SFX, it was honest and overall more emotionally moving.