English:Film Study - Explaining Purposes of Camera Angles, Movements and Shots

Spoilers Ahead.

Two Weeks ago at English class we watched a movie which was Dragonheart, it was a movie about a knight known as Bowen. Bowen tried to hunt every dragon down believing that his Pupil Einon was corrupted by having a dragon's heart inserted into him.
However trying to find every single dragon he stumbled upon the last one without knowing and the dragon tells Bowen it wasn't the dragon's heart that corrupted Einon, but it was him self.



Wide shot of Bowen and the last dragon starting an adventure.

This is demonstrated by having the shadows and long shot with the characters signalling movement by having some type of transport whether it's legs or horses. The wide land also gives us that information.

This makes understand that this is a start of a adventure with a lot of travelling before any other encounters. This also could tell us that it's almost night time where they either travel or find a spot to rest/sleep.

The director did this to let us know that the characters will not have any battles but travelling for a long period in their time. Interactions between these two characters may also happen because they are travelling together.

This worked well by having the sun in the back and the lighting because that some how give us a hint that they are travelling without any obvious giveaways.

This reminds me of a lot of movies of a character wandering through deserts with the shadows. Angles are always not the wide shot though like it could be like the camera is looking down on the character from above.



Close-up shot of Bowen smiling after losing a friend and a chaotic battle.

We see this after Bowen storms Einon's castle to try and save his dragon friend Draco from being hidden so Einon can have immortality forever. However Bowen had to kill Draco to stop Einon's evil doings and thus the last dragon has been slain all the other dragon souls surrounded Draco's soul giving a beautiful sight to the people and a way to say farewell to Bowen.

This makes the audience think that Draco's death wasn't going to affect the world in a bad way because of the way the dragon souls went into the stars didn't give off any bad feelings and this might be the beginning of peace for characters.

The director did this to make us sad because of how Draco and Bowen travelled together, did stuff together and then get forced to seperate in the end. Einon's death wasn't really satisfying because of how Draco had to die for him to die.

This worked well with how the final battle give us mix emotions of anger and sadness because of how Einon and Draco shared a life so we didn't want Draco to die but then that means Einon will have to live. Bowen could've trapped Einon in a cage for eternity but he couldn't in the situation he was in.

This also reminds me of lots of other movies that ends like this so I feel like this is a cliche.




Low angle shot of Bowen's disadvantage against Einon

This is demonstrated by having a character on top of some one to show their dominance over the other character. Here we see Einon on top of Bowen giving him the advantage to push him onto the ground.

This shows us that having the camera looking at a character on shoulder level while having his back turnt to us means the character is usually at a disadvantage while the camera shows us the other character on top of him has the advantage.

The purpose of this is have us know who has the advantage and who has the disadvantage through a simple way that doesn't require words to understand.

Combined with the dark lighting might also help us in some way usually meaning the character is in the enemies territory.

This reminds of Obi Wan saying "I have the high ground Anakin"



Close-up shot of Einon disapointed/annoyed during his training to be a knight of the old code.

We see this when Bowen is training Einon to be a king who respects his people instead of his father who is all about greed.

This shows that Einon doesn't really care about the training as we see in the future he does what he wants when he becomes the king.

The director did this to give us a hint that Einon wasn't good to start with even though he had lessions all about being the knight of the old code.

This worked will with the happy music and mood so the director doesn't make too obvious to know.

This reminds me of other movies that gives hints to the ending in the beginning of the movie.