Film Language - Capturing Emotion

In class the other day we watched a famous scene from "Jaws". We analysed how the director used different techniques to capture emotion. I have put a link below so you can watch the clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW23RsUTb2Y

In this first shot I can see that the composition of this shot is done to make the viewer feel uneasy. When the character to the left is kept in the shot after he has stopped talking to the main guy on the right and when he is talking to him he is clearly not concentrating on what he is saying as his eyes are focused on the girl in the sea, making me think something bad is going to happen, because my attention is being drawn from what the actors are saying. 




As the scene goes on the atmosphere relaxes as the camera moves further away showing the main character Brody is now less concerned about what is going on around him. 




There are a succession of quick cut shots of a large group of kids playing in the sea, this creates a frantic atmosphere once again but this time a POV shot from the shark shows the view form underwater and reinforces the danger that is unfolding. 





As soon as it cuts to this shot; a point of view (POV) of the shark, the audience is immediately frightened and fearful for the children in the sea. This is a really effective shot and way to play on emotions as usually its not what you can see, but what you cant see that makes you more scared and this pov shot shows us the shark is there, without revealing the predator, playing on the audiences worst fears. This effect is increased by the non diegetic, famous Jaws theme music, which creates a very eery, intense, atmospheric suspense for whats going to happen next.

The final technique I thought adds the most to the tension building of this scene is the dolly zoom.

This is where the camera moves forward on a dolly but is zooming out at the same time to disorientate the viewer and to capture the emotion of the character.