Week 5-6 Assignment: Five Master Shots

These last two weeks, Sophonie and I worked together to create a simple video with an example of each of the five master shots.

Here is the video:
Five Master Shots

In the video, we begin with an example of contrast. While contrast is often used to show the stark differences between two very different circumstances, such as extreme poverty and wealth, we chose a simpler approach. In our example of the contrast shot, we chose to take a video of Mickey drinking a cup of coffee followed by a video of me drinking from a bottle of water. While we are both doing the same action: drinking, we are drinking two very different things. As everything else in the clip is the same, the contrast between the water and the coffee is emphasized.

The next shot that appears in the video is our example of parallelism. Parallelism is used to represent the similarities between two different characters. In our shot, we chose to first film me walking. We then filmed Sophonie walking from the same angle. The next shot is of Sophonie running. Finally, we filmed me walking calmly in a hallway, followed by Sophonie in the same shot appearing in the background. While we are two very different people, the shots helped show the similarities between us, as we were both walking, but appear to be taking separate paths, and then later our two paths seem to join. By using parallelism, we were able to connect the scenes together to create a short story line.

The third shot that we used was leitmotif. Leitmotif is a recurring idea that is used to associate with a certain place, character or mood. Usually, it is in the form of musical melodies, but we chose a more visual approach for this shot. For our leitmotif shot, we chose to first show me doing a front roll, or somersault, and then connecting this shot with the next by having Sophonie do a cartwheel in the same place. While we have slightly different actions, the overall idea is the same, in which we are both doing a motion in which we spin forward through the shot. While we did not use music in our shot, we used a recurring action to connect the two shots together.

Next, we chose to show an example of symbolism. Symbolism is used in film to show a symbol which then translates over to the next shot. For instance, a filmmaker may use a match and then follow the image with a shot of a bonfire. While the flame of a match is not equivalent to the flames of a bonfire, the idea is the same in our shot. In our shot, we chose to begin with Sophonie reading a book titled "Witch Dreams." The shot then moves up to a poster labeled "READ." The shot then returns to Sophonie laying down, asleep, and the camera focuses on the title of the book that she was reading earlier: "Witch Dreams." The title of the book is used to symbolize that the earlier shot of Sophonie reading was all a dream.

Finally, we had an example of simultaneity. In simultaneity, the film shows two different shots that appear to be occurring at the same time, but have contrasting events. For our example, we chose to first film a shot of the class quietly doing work during first period. This is then followed by a shot of a dog sleeping peacefully in a bed. This shows that while the students are working hard in school early in the morning, the dog is living a very different life at the same time, in which she is fast asleep in the early hours of the day. This shows two very different events occurring at the same time.