Five Shots: MARS EXPRESS
just what it says on the label
This fantastic animated tech-noir is getting released on various services (including free on Kanopy in some regions!) in the next few months.
Here are some shots we loved.
Vertigo and Rack Focus
The camera tilt as Aline Ruby steps out onto the balcony continues through the cut to her face, giving the audience the off-balance feeling she’s experiencing.
Aline begins inching along the wall; the next cut shows her Point of View inching along the slab. At first she’s looking at where her feet are going, before a rack focus shifts her perspective to the crowd below. This is a pretty terrifying thing to see how high up she is — which because it’s a POV shot, makes us feels the height, too!
Sound and Closeups
A sound in an ‘empty’ room triggers a series of shots which lead the viewer to a realisation — and the scene to a transition — without any dialogue or exposition needed.
First, we see Carlos ‘turn on’ in response to the sound. Carlos’s look (0:06) prompts a new shot over his shoulder, where we see he sees Aline doing pushups.
The next cut takes us into the room with Aline; sweat drips on a mat plop plop, then the camera dollies in to show blood spreading on her bandaged hand.
The blood prompts a transition to an arm repair scene — one of two.
Terminator: Homage
Mars Express pointedly stages two arm repairs reminiscent of the Terminator: one on human Aline, and one on ‘backup’ Carlos.
Carlos’s robotic arm is the more explicit Terminator 2: Judgment Day reference. Though he doesn’t handle it himself, the tech’ shot full of spare parts still creates shots which display his Terminator-likeness.
Angles To Make The Most of Your Medium
This robot spends most of the film with a split face.
Because it doesn’t involve an actor and prosthetics, nor a complex and detailed animatronic, nor CGI, you can compose a weird and complex shot using a fun angle of the head with essentially the same amount of work as it would take to draw a straightforward angle.
Thus we get THIS delight:
Though you could also make the depth of field as deep as you want, putting everything past the robot’s shoulders ‘out of focus’ really keeps the attention on the great, unsettling, jawdropping cranium shot.
Establishing Shot
Similarly, why not draw angles which are much rarer to see — because they’re harder to build — in real life?
