Karl Serge Aswad 12190627

Cinematography comes in three basic elements, frame, sound, and color. Those basic three is
what depicts a movie is. we know that frame is the view, what a person is seeing, which includes
the color, and sounds which contains the voice, SFX and background noise. We will also talk
about how Alfred Hitchcock uses the editing to captivate our attention, how Quentin Tarantino
uses sound to move the audience, and how Francis Ford Coppola uses framing and color to
dictate a scene.

Editing (Alfred Hitchcock)

Lets start with Alfred Hitchcock, in the movie Psycho, he uses a technique called Rhythm editing
to make the viewer feel a certain way. chaotic editing, which is fast passed amount of shots being
shown, and slow passed shots to show calmness. In the movie Psycho, there is a scene (in the
picture below) where there is a lady going in a shower. There is an average of a few shots being
shown in that part, because there is no action or tension being depicted. After that when the killer
enters the bathroom and murders the women, there is a fast passed shot where there are a lot of
shots happening at the same time, that is to convey tension. Once the murder is over, then it goes
back to a calmer shot speed. As you can see in the following picture the amount of lines that
depict how many scenes there are with the how fast the shots are. the technique is called 78/52.

Another technique that Alfred Hitchcock used called cutting on action. This technique is used
when she was getting brutally stabbed, This was happening at a fast passed. It does not need to
be used when running around. It could be used when action is happening such as when the
person is moving quickly because of being stabbed and she is reaction, the violence is happening
so fast to give that chaotic feeling.

Sound Design (Quentin Tarantino)

Now, lets discuss Quentin Tarantino, we will discuss how he uses sound to keep the audience
engaged. As obvious, Quentin Tarantino is a director that loves creating violent movies he says its
because its fun. There are two sides to tone, there is the realistic sounds, which would be used in
movies of war, when you hear bullets and real life shots, on the other hand there is the stylistic,
which would be used in cartoons. Here they are not trying to sound realistic, more like formalistic.
However it is not white and black, there is a gradient to it. This is when his style is, in the middle
of the gradient.

Karl Serge Aswad 12190627

Example in Kill Bill, on the one hand there are moments when you use realistic sound design like
when she was being learning how to cut the ball with her master. On the other hand, when she
was fighting the large mob, you could hear when she would cut there head, the sprinkle of blood
coming out of there heads, that is more stylistic because it can’t happen in real life. When would
happen is that there were really strong effects happening that would come across as formalistic.
These sounds would be usually created from Foley Artists, who would create these sounds in an
own studio. Like they would create walking on snow by using a bag of sand. Such people are
those who create the stylistic and realistic sounds but I digress. Quentin Tarantino is the master of
using stylistic sounds, which means that he exaggerates the sounds in the movie to keep people
captivated.

Cinematography (Francis Ford Coppola)

Framing is the view of when is going on in-front of the lense. This depict what is the scenario
that’s going on in the movie and most importantly what is the power dynamic going on in between
the character. The third part is how Francis Ford Coppola directs a scene and uses
Cinematography. In the workings of the Godfather. He collaborated with a person named Gordon
Willis, who is a director that mastered the use of darkness in his movies. He is known as the
prince of darkness. In the movie, they created darkness in the movie to describe the world of the
underground. Example, in the first scene when they were inside of the house and he was granting
the wishes of the people, it was in a dark room, which he correlates to the “shady” mob world.
And when they go out of the room, it all bright and fun.

Furthermore, the directors goals when shooting a scene are depicted with three questions:

1) What is the movie about?

2) What is it you want to say?

3) How do you feel like saying it?

4) How do we handle these things?

The reason why these are important is because back then, they did not have little TVs to rewatch
the scene. All of the shots were taken in the present moment, they had to rely on taking the shot,
sending it to the studio, and receiving it back a week later. So filming was very challenging back
them, which meant that they had to use mathematics to depict how the scene will be.
Furthermore, we will discuss on how he used framing through out the movie the godfather.

In this scene what the director is trying to show the transfer of power between Michael and Sunny,
this scene is important because I will show you how the framing can set change your perspective
of a character. In this scene Michael was an outsider to the family drama, and this is how he is
entering the mob world. At the beginning, the frame follows the the 2 arguing about mob issues,
then the camera redirects to Michael sitting on the chair explaining the plan to the people, the
reason why this is important is because when the camera is moving towards Michael, it is
assuming that Michael has the power and is the rational voice in the group.

Karl Serge Aswad 12190627
There reason why I want to show this part is because I want to show how camera angles and cuts
can depict who has the influence. For the first time, Michael has turned from an outsider who has
no influence on the family business, into the person with power. In addition to that, the

environment that is around him is dim and dark, which also depicts the entrance into the mob
family. The technique that Coppola used is called blocking and staging, which describes what is
being hidden in the space in order to change the viewer’s perception of the characters.

Overall, I have described how Alfred Hitchcock uses cutting in action to dictate the scene from
chaotic to calm. How Quentin Tarantino uses the gradient of realistic to stylistic sound in his
movies, and lastly. How Francis Ford Coppola and his colleague Gordon Willis use shadowing
and stage technique like blocking and staging for the power dynamics of the scene.