Help me find a shot-by-shot analysis of famous movie scenes.
October 10, 2008 12:01 PM   Subscribe

Help me find some shot-by-shot breakdowns and analysis of famous movie scenes, with examples of the shots!

This is the only good example I can find of what I'm looking for. I want examples from relatively mainstream movies, preferably with action. Bonus points if the site has examples of the same moment from different camera angles.
posted by Cool Papa Bell to Media & Arts (7 answers total) 17 users marked this as a favorite
 
2001. Not exactally shot-by-shot, but similar in nature.
posted by jeffamaphone at 12:43 PM on October 10, 2008


What you seem to be asking for there are mis-en-scene analyses of which I had to do many at film school.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mis-en-scene

David Bordwell and Kristen Thompson's blog has loads though you'll have to hunt through the archives.

http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/

Their books are full of them too. Film Art is the most famous and has this kind of analysis within. There is a new edition every couple of years, and its worth looking backwards through those editions because different films are covered since they update each time to include newer films. They have a number of offcuts from their books on the website too.

I'm not sure what you mean by "the same moment from different camera angles" since a film moment to moment tells its story in series of single camera angles edited together and its the choice of these shots and how they're edited which determine meaning (unless you're watching some split screen film like Timecode).
posted by feelinglistless at 12:47 PM on October 10, 2008


David Bordwell posted Reflections in a Crystal Eye, a great shot-by-shot analysis of the sequence where the alien thingies appear in Spielberg's War Of The Worlds (scroll down for the enlargable picture sequence). He has a few other similar posts, tagged "film technique".

And the following links may not be exactly what you asked for, but maybe they'll help you in a slightly oblique way. I'm interested in this stuff too and I've found a few books and articles that helped me crack into this stuff a bit, so I'll reproduce them here:

Roger Ebert did a little bit of written shot analysis that you might like in the article, How to read a movie. This article contains a really interesting, densely-packed list of the "rules of visual storytelling" that Ebert has noticed over the years.

Jennifer Van Sijl's book Cinematic Storytelling has shot-by shot analyses of many major films.

David Mamet's On Directing Film contains a chapter where he and a bunch of students verbally storyboard a hypothetical film sequence, which I think would be of interest to screenwriters and directors.

And Scott McCloud's Making Comics has some really interesting insight into sequential art, which is really relevant to storyboarding.

Last of all, I asked metafilter a while back about how the internet could teach me to be a better filmmaker, and got some answers that may interest you.
posted by pseudostrabismus at 12:49 PM on October 10, 2008 [1 favorite]


Oh also, you might seek out DVDs that include commentary tracks from the cinematographer. The DVD for Fargo has commentary from the Coen Brothers' favourite DP, Roger Deakins, and it includes a few interesting insights about the shot choices.
posted by pseudostrabismus at 12:52 PM on October 10, 2008


Understanding Movies. I've read a fair number of books about filmmaking and film literacy, and this is probably the best all-in-one book in the business. The author especially likes to use North by Northwest and Seven Samurai for examples. The amazon links to the newest version which is way way too expensive, but you can find older editions for under $20.
posted by nushustu at 1:08 PM on October 10, 2008


Response by poster: Thanks for the answers, but I'd rather have Web sites and screen shots than books right now, please.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 1:21 PM on October 10, 2008


There's some shot analysis in the Criterion Contraption blog.
posted by barnone at 10:12 PM on October 11, 2008


« Older Looking for a Wordpress tagging plugin.   |   Question about how ordering services work in... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.