Week 25.09 - Socials Roundup
Posts from 24 Feb - 02 Mar 2025
Week 25.09 posts include shots from Monsterland (2020); Streets of Fire (1984); Doctor Who (2005-2022); The Lady from Shanghai (1947); and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (2005).
Monsterland
This scene from Monsterland 1.01 "Port Fourchon, Louisiana" uses multiple techniques to make sure the 'flash moment' is viewed as what it is; a visual representation of what Toni (Kaitlyn Dever) is thinking, a fantasy.
As Toni talks to a customer (Jonathan Tucker), the scene clearly establishes their positions on either side of the diner table, staying within similar shots, Toni always Frame Left, customer always Frame Right.
When the flash moment happens (0:28), the scene cuts from Toni, to Toni - if it had cut from the customer to Toni dancing, we might think Toni had jumped up from the table, whereas this way it's immediately clear the cut is 'breaking' their conversation. In cutting back to her instead of the customer, it further reinforces this is *her* concept.
Finally, the shots play quite different in the details; in the flash moment the lighting is slightly warmer, Toni has no cigarette, and her expression is completely different.
Doctor Who
Sometimes the actor/prop moves off-camera for a Texas Switch . . . sometimes you move the camera!
Doctor Who 9.08 pans the camera Left to Kate Stewart, has her look uuuuuuupwards while sound effects ensue, then pans Right; meanwhile the actor in uniform and actor in Zygon suit have switched places.
Simple, effective, fun!
Streets of Fire
Would love to see more of the best shots in movies of "cars in tunnels with teal lamps and red taillights reflecting off the rain-spattered pavement."
Basically, more this:
The Lady from Shanghai
Stunning use of backlighting motivated by meeting in an aquarium late at night — like you do!
Through the scene as the actors move it sometimes creates stark silhouettes, stark surreal facial outlines, shines through paper making it seem almost translucent, and look at this photo where Rosalie is in darkness but there's an eyelight!
My favourite is this shot-reverse-shot which looks like the 'Two Faces or a Vase' optical illusion.
Masterful work by Welles (and one of three DPs; hard to tell which shot this scene, because saying the production was 'interfered with by the studio' is an understatement).
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance
The film opens on a choir singing, then ignores it until this scene, where Geum-ja tips the plate of tofu being offered her.
On the cut to a shot of the ground we expect to see tofu crash — because that's basic film language — but instead a cymbal drops in the same spot. This doesn’t only create a much louder crash, it brings the choir into the scene, which also brings music back into the film.
This cut is echoed later with much darker implications: a chair yanked from under a child cuts to a woman fainting as her chair falls, murder and its effects demonstrated but not shown.