Analysing Stephen Spielbergs Directing Techniques In The Film Jaws

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Analysing Stephen Spielberg’s Directing Techniques In The Film Jaws

 In the 1970s Jaws was the scariest film around. For months afterwards people would be  too afraid to go in the water, this was an age when dramatic devices were needed to create a spine chilling film without the use of special effects. Stephen Spielberg is one of the greatest movie makers alive today, and with a film like Jaws as a debute, his talent showed from the start. Some of the dramatic devices he used in this film were camera angles, non-diagetic and diagetic sounds, and colours to set the mood and atmosphere. The film is set on a small, idealistic island called Amity Isle, a tourist friendly, holiday hotspot that would never have expected danger to harm them in a million years, but  a rouge shark they got! Who’s out on a mission to eat every living thing around the Island and will stop at nothing to divert it from its feeding frenzy.

     The opening scene sets the film up dramatically, as the film starts underwater with the camera on a track, it is also a point of view shot, because it looks as if the camera was swimming through the water. Building suspense, the music starts off as a slow cello chord, like a heartbeat, gradually getting faster and faster until, suddenly, it changes scene. The colours used are blues and greens, serene and cold colours that, when used in this film, make the audience feel alone and in danger. When the scene changes quickly the colours used are reds and oranges from the warm glow of the campfire, when they are used in this scene Spielberg makes the audience feel safe and warm. He creates that atmosphere because there is about twenty people there all laughing and talking happily, with no sign of danger around. The sounds in this scene are relaxed, like the strumming of a guitar & music from a harmonica, this relaxes the audience and lowers the suspense from the opening scene well, making the audience lower their guard. The camera angle used is a pan shot, to show every one in the scene and to capture the atmosphere, this relieves the tension.

     Next the camera performs a close up on a girls face, she is isolated from the group, and in the shadows to show this. As she lures the boy away from the group, the audience is no longer relaxed, but waiting for something to happen, and the tension builds up once more as they become more, and more separated from the group. The sounds heard are panting and laughing from the boy and girl, this makes the atmosphere exiting and sexual because the girl is teasing the boy and luring him into the water. When the girl approaches and dives into the water, you can hear the waves crashing gently against the sand in near silence, Spielberg uses these sounds and the girl to subtly lure the boy into the water like a Siren does to pirates.

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      Chief Brody enters the film after the first attack. Before now the audience is still uncertain of the current situation and the story behind the attack, and as Brody is a new character - A technique the director uses to help the storyline unfold - the audience will find out information when he does. At the start of the scene Brody’s wife indicates that they are from  New York, this is an important detail to his character, as in Amity Island there are only two kinds of people; Tourists, who come every spring/summer holiday, and Islanders, who ...

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