A4
The Elevator Analysis
- Story Elements:
The protagonist was the skinny man in the blue shirt who was initially in the elevator. The catalyst for the rest of the story– i.e. the crisis that begins the journey– is when other, more hefty people begin to pile into the elevator. The middle of the video picks up as the man begins to calculate the cumulative weight of the folks getting into the elevator; as he adds up the tally and glances at the maximum weight capacity in the elevator, he realizes that the total weight in the elevator is well over the maximum capacity. He then decides to get off of the elevator, initiating a change within the plot of the video, as well as transitions us into the beginning of the end of the video. As he gets onto a new elevator full of smaller people, he has enacted a change that is ultimately not a whole lot better than his initial circumstance; the elevator full of skinnier people is in fact a cesspool of sickness. This is the “new normal” that the protagonist has created for himself.
- Manipulating Light
The majority of the shots for this film were pretty warm or green colored; it looked like the videographer didn’t really know what white balance was. The majority of the color within the film came from the people’s clothing who were walking into the elevator; otherwise, the environment seems pretty industrial and bleak. The lighting seems pretty neutral, mostly just coming from the lights provided by the lighting within the elevator and hallway (probably why the lighting is so warm). The movie was definitely shot on a digital camera, with a wide-ish lens in order to get all of the people in the elevator included in the frame. The overall look is nothing to write home about; it’s very obvious that this is a dated student or amateur film, given the off coloration and mediocre shots.
- Framing
The majority of the shots seem to be medium center shots, with the other people in the elevator “dirtying the frame” around the main subject, which would be the man in the dark blue shirt. The shots that aren’t medium– when the protagonist is out of the elevator, when the heavier man is walking towards the elevator, and when he’s calculating the numbers on his phone– the shots serve to provide visual information about what’s going on and what’s about to happen. There’s very little camera movement; all of the shots seem to be stationary. There isn’t a whole lot of depth within the video; everything is relatively in focus.
- Visual Style
I would describe the visual style of this film as casual. There’s nothing flashy about the cinematography; it’s something someone with a handful of friends and a semi-decent camera could do without a whole lot of effort. I wouldn’t say this is a bad thing per se; the casual nature of the storyline lends itself to the stylistic choices. I would say, however, that some color correction and white balance could have definitely amplified this movie quite a bit; the color is so not neutral that it kind of detracts the viewer’s attention from the events unfolding and draws their focus to the coloration of the video, or the lighting, or how old the video might be. I’d say some neutral color correction could work wonders for this video.
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