The second attack happened in the middle of the day; Spielberg makes the audience use their imagination at first; the attack had to happen because of the music, but the camera flicked between situations. The situations were all of the children running into the water, and the dog ‘Pipit’ with his owner. The colour yellow is used to link the potential shark attack victims together. The child in the water was using a yellow lilo, and his mother was wearing a yellow sun hat and the dog owner had a yellow tee-shirt on. The dog owner throws a stick into the water for the dog, he follows but he vanishes. This is the last we see of the dog; this leaves the audience to imagine what happened to him. This is used because the imagination is much more powerful than actually showing the death of a dog. When the boy swims out on the lilo, the audience sees the view of the shark; the repetitive music is introduced and you follow the shark approach slowly, this view is a tracking shot. Brody, the shark expert quickly realises that something is wrong, and a track and zoom shot is used to represent this. This shot has the illusion that the scenery behind the character is literally moving away.
In ‘Jaws’ Spielberg employs a variety of effects so that the audience knows to fear the shark. I feel the most significant attribute to the film is the music; whenever the shark approaches a potential victim, the same music is brought in. the movie uses some extremely graphic scenes to portray the power that the shark holds. The best example of this is when a man tries to help a victim, and literally has his leg bitten off! The reason for this is to shock the audience, it makes them, jump; and they know to fear the shark. The reaction of the characters reveals to the audience the impact of the shark, screams and running shows how it affects them, and therefore the audience feel the same.
‘Jaws’ was specially directed to build up tension. When the film starts, there are two shark attacks in a very short amount of time (about 10 minutes); this captivates the audience. Also, the shark attacks help the audience to make an opinion about the shark; and that the close together attacks make the viewers think that the shark is a ‘killing machine’.
On the 4th of July, Brody’s son, Alex was involved in the third attack. Alex and his friends were on a boat in the same part of water where the shark is; this makes Alex a potential victim. However, the tension comes when Brody realises his son is in danger. When a man comes along in a dingy to warn the children, the danger shifts to this person. The tension is cut by this man being attacked and the severed leg falling to the bottom of the ocean. In the last scene of the of the movie, the people who try to catch the shark attempt it with a small fishing boat, when the shark exposes itself, it is made clear that the boat is too small, and that all of the passengers are in danger. The tension is cut when one of the men on the boat is literally bitten in half!
When ‘Jaws’ was made in 1975 it was obvious that it was ahead of its time. Spielberg employed many new ways of portraying a film. The scariest part in the film is when they are on the small fishing boat and the shark suddenly jumps out in front of Brody, this is because the tension is built up well. At the time of this film, again the yellow is used; a yellow barrel is on the boat around this time. ‘Jaws’ is still in the film charts even now, 30 years after. This is because of how brilliantly it was made.
