Orson Welles Citizen Kane

In Robert Zemeckis’s 2000’s film “What Lies Beneath”, he shows the significance of camera angles, scores, and special effects. These all help establish boundaries and moods that are set throughout the movie without Zemeckis verbally stating them. Also, they make the scene more realistic and allow the audience to see the movie and a different view which makes for a different prospective. As well as decreasing the sense of knowing what will happen next. In Zemekis’s film “What Lies Beneath”, he is able to frighten his audience with the mysteries of a ghost which eventually revealed that her husband murdered Madison in order to keep their affair hidden.

With the lack of electricity as a key foundation of the entire play, the lighting throughout the first act is essential to appear natural. Chris Petridis, the lighting designer executed this through the illumination of the actors from ostensibly non-electric sources. Jacqy’s character is portrayed as prepared and as a result, assists the ambience of a fire lit stage with her use of a torch to bring attention to specific sections of the scenes for the audience. The purpose of the lighting is to guide the eyes of the audience around the space and to focus on what is important to assist the storytelling aspect. Throughout the second act, the group is in a warehouse during the afternoon with the appearance of a skylight for the main source of light, as an evolution of the lighting in act one, the characters are shown to use their knowledge of stage awareness with the use of lights while still in a post-electric society.

Released September 29, 1950, Sunset Boulevard is a film noir of a forgotten silent film star, Norma Desmond, that dreams of a comeback and an unsuccessful screenwriter, Joe Gillis, working together. Ultimately an uncomfortable relationship evolves between Norma and Joe that Joe does not want a part of. Sunset Boulevard starts off with an establishing shot from a high angle shot with a narrative leading to a crime scene shot in long shot (a dead body is found floating in a pool). The narrative throughout the film established a formalist film. Cinematography John F. Seitz used lighting and camera angles in such a way to create a loneliness and hopefulness atmosphere.

The entire room is dark without any lights in the room, and the ceiling skylight window is the only source of light that comes through the room. Jack also thinks that Room’s atmosphere and the actual Room are all that exists in the real world, and everything that he sees on television just exists on television and not in real life. Joy then lets Jack know that there is more to the real world than Room and its atmosphere. Together, they both get a glimpse of the outside world as they leave Room and head to the hospital and start over in a new home. The first half of the film takes place in the tiny shelter named Room, and this first half is filmed in low-key lighting.

The lighting in Donnie Darko movie is a key component of composition which creates our sense of illuminating for people and things. This movie uses two sources of lighting; natural light, such as daylight, when the scene is in an outdoor area for example, walking from school, at home, waiting at bus stop, or playing outside of the school on sunny days. Another source of light is artificial spotlight which is used in the movie indoors to cut and shape the light at the dining table, in the classroom or in the psychotherapist's house. Also, distinct shadows are used as an essentially smooth surface that reflects hard light in the Halloween party to feature deep shadows and scary areas in function of the plot. Three-points of lighting create ominous shadows in the horror genre for all the actors at Donnie and Elizabeth's Halloween party with lighting from below the cast to create monstrous objects in real life.

The Film Citizen Kane was a groundbreaking film in the 1940’s, the way Orson Wells depicts his film with different lighting, cinematography, choice of camera shots and mise-en-scene throughout this movie truly showed the masterpiece that this film is. In the Film Citizen Kane, it was the first movie that went against true Hollywood cinema by introducing flashbacks throughout the movie to show us how Charles Foster Kane changes throughout the movie. Throughout this movie the audience can see how Charles Foster Kane undergoes a variety of physical and emotional changes from when he was just a young boy all the way until his unfortunate death. Power, that’s all that Kane wanted in the start of the film. In the beginning of the film Kane gets ownership of the struggling New York Daily Inquirer, Kane suggests that he wanted to use journalism to apply to the public and protect the interest of ordinary people.

These different lighting techniques are applied in the movie to help set the tone and mood for the film scene. The

When lighting an exterior scene with a wide shot, not much could be done to balance levels. But when the director goes for a close-up or a medium shot, he uses diffusion or bouncing light to hide the hard quality of light from the sun. Diffusion and bounced light is in the movies since the late 1910’s and early 1920’s. Keeping the exposure of the actor’s face allows the audience to believe what is going on. The limitation of power on the non-studio shots makes lighting fixtures difficult to power.

There are many things that make “Citizen Kane” considered as possibly one of the greatest films every made; to the eyes of the passive audience this film may not seem the most amazing, most people being accustomed to the classical Hollywood style, but to the audience with an eye for the complex, “Citizen Kane” breaks the traditional Hollywood mold and forges its own path for the better. Exposition is one of the most key features of a film, it’s meant introduce important characters and give the audience relevant details and and dutifully suppress knowledge in turn. “Citizen Kane” does not follow this Classic Hollywood style exposition, instead going above and beyond to open the film with revealing as little information as possible and confuse/intrigue

The use of background light was an important focus in this picture, there was less attention to lighting the actors faces but in almost every frame there is well placed background light often combined with a moving light source. Repetition was also evident within the visual composition of the frame, the actors were rarely positioned within the center of the frame but always to the left or the right with a light source covering them from behind. Ridley Scott perfectly matches colorful high key light with low key lights creating impeccable contrast, this lighting used could be described as a modern Citizen Kane style. Although this is overall a very dark and low light film, the motif of shadows and darkness allows the beauty of light to truly be

The movie overlaps the interviews to tell the life story of Kane while the flashbacks are doing the storytelling. The story is not told in chronologic manor, uses several techniques to tell the story of Kane. The angles used to portray certain scenes, getting all of views in, having lighting changes, shadows are all creative to the movie and introducing these techniques into Hollywood

Shot Analysis: Citizen Kane Orson Welles, director of “Citizen Kane”, is well known for his unusual directing methods that defied conventional cinematic techniques. Welles provided his audience with original forms of cinematography, narrative structures, and music. The scene I chose to analyze is extremely important to the plot of the film because Kane begins to realize that he is going through some serious financial problems. During the scene, Kane maintains a sarcastic mood, until he finally decides to surrender and signs the papers that transfer the ownership of his media empire to Mr. Thatcher.

German Expressionism has influenced thousands of films and filmmakers since the art movement began in the 1920’s. It is known for its dismissal of the standard conventions of Western filmmaking for a more off-kilter style of storytelling. Some film historians consider Metropolis (1927) to be one of the most groundbreaking German Expressionist films ever made. However, there are many instances throughout Metropolis in which it deviates from the eccentric Expressionist style. There are many obvious occurrences of expressionism during Metropolis, for example the opening machine sequence, but conventional Western techniques are also common in the film.

A low-level shot is used on Nick in the inside of the house to make him appear smaller and emphasise the size of the house. A medium shot is used on Gatsby’s coffin under the staircase to show that he only made up a small portion of the large house he lived in, and what made up the house was the constant and extravagant parties. An overhead shot from the top of the stairs, looking down on his coffin, zooms in on the coffin as the camera moves down to symbolise that Gatsby lived a high life that was grand, but it was all for nothing as he died a tragic death, alone and without

The director used sepia lighting to emphasise certain moods in the themes. It emphasis the mood that Chris is feeling when he is dying. Through the bus window there is a light that is hitting Chris’s face which is symbolising God letting Chris into Heaven and is bringing Chris towards the light which is pretty much bringing Chris to his death. In the ending scene the use of lights is a symbol for life and realisation. When Chris is having a flash forward of him running into his parents arms its a very bright lighting this is a contrast to when to cut shots back to Chris dying which is a very dark and gloomy sky which represents his life now and how its about to end.