SHOT DECONSTRUCTION
The shot I have decided to take reference from for the world builders project is the sequence from the classic fantasy franchise The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) in which the fellowship is escaping the Balrog throughout the paths of the mines of Moria. There is a part of this sequence where the fellowship is forced down a staircase above a fiery pit, creating this warm sense of lighting. My scene being of Dwarven architecture, natural rock formations and lava, this works almost perfectly to take reference from. Peter Jackson is most well known for adapting this Fantasy adventure, and while the story was laid out for him, the visuals were pretty much created from scratch.
The first thing to take away from this shot is that it has a clear path defining the foreground, middle ground and the background. It clearly creates this sense of depth and really creates distance between the main focus of the shot, (the fellowship), and the audiences perspective at the start of the shot, and at the end if clearly shows how much distance that the characters have travelled. It is made this way without much subtlety as well, as the staircase has 3 different sections to it, seamlessly fitting into those three categories. from that it really gives a sense of scale and depth to the shot, the purpose of this is to show the distance from point A to point B. And because the staircase is directly in the center of the screen, that’s where the audience’s eyes are drawn to first, so they know that this is the focus of the shot.
Another thing to bring up about this shot is how the colours all blend together to create an aesthetically pleasing pictures. The shot is not crowded with a bunch of assorted colours, instead just different shades of 2. A brownish tinge for the stone and the red tinge for the fire from below. The scene is lit entirely from the fires from below to create a real menacing sense like incoming danger. Red is a very dangerous colour and clearly communicates what feeling the scene wanted to express to the audience, “As a dominating colour, red adds gravity and heightened awareness” (Cao, 2018). From the use of pretty much only 2 primary colours in the shot it effectively communicates the feeling of the environment and the story just using visuals. This is somewhat the same colours I want to go with for my world builders project.’
The main comparisons that i can show between the two shots is the distance from between the beginning and the end. it real gives a sense of scale, as if it would take a character a while to cross it. Without this distance that i took insp
iration from, the shot would look kind of boring and not have a sense of danger to it. I wanted to give of the sense of danger, and with the long walkway without anything stopping anyone from falling off like in the shot from The Lord of the Rings I feel like it’s conveyed clearly. another thing from which i took inspiration from after deconstructing the shot was the colour. The shot above is trying to convey the urgency that the fellowship is going through, so it’s using warm colours which makes sense. While I’m not trying to convey the same feeling, it really comes down to the same spectrum of colour, which again is warm oranges and reds. the colours that i used also resemble the above shot above by still adding some dark spots all ro
und to have harsh shading .
So, the main things that I want to take away from this shot for my final project is the depth and the beginning point and the destination. Another is the sense of danger though the use of limited colour and lighting and conceptually the contrast between the man-made objects and the naturally formed objects.
References
Cao, J. (2018). 12 colours and the emotions they evoke. Retrieved from https://www.creativebloq.com/web-design/12-colours-and-emotions-they-evoke-61515112
Jackson, P. (2018). The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001). Retrieved from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120737/?ref_=ttpl_pl_tt
Shot Composition Archives | lessonbucket. (2018). Retrieved from http://lessonbucket.com/category/filmmaking/shot-composition/
Zack McNaughton, animation 