Film Language

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Solondz window leaving shot.

Interesting shot to show someone leaving and the person watching them go out of a window.

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Dehumanising by removing the eyes from the shot.

WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE

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WORLD BUILDING - the distinctive patterns and fabrics and colours of a world.

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Reading a letter shot 

Interesting and engaging way of covering letter reading.

from WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE

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Audience crawl dolly

WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE an interesting way of looking at all the people that Dawn is at school with.

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Seperation from environment thought dolly

Shot from beginning of WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE

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Alone-in-a-group dolly in

WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE Shown here on a photograph, to demonstrate how cut off Dawn is from the rest of her family

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Dolly in dinner table shot.

Great for tense family mealtime.

HAPPINESS.

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Stage as succintly and elegantly as you can.

e.g, from HAPPINESS where two women are snooping on a woman with a zimmer frame. This could have been three shots - it's just one.

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Offscreen close up shot

Just having someone like this, talking to someone out of shot, is powerful and fascinating.  

HAPPINESS, Philip Seymour Hoffman's character talking to his psychiatrist. Later goes to a Kubrick pull-out.

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Direction switch

Switching the direction of the frame to suggest that something is odd and off.

eg WHIPLASH After drumming to the point where his fingers bleed, Miles plunges them into a waiting jug of water. Here the frame is normal, then is turned 90 degrees.

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Using the mobile phone as an mM

eg WHIPLASH

Miles receives a text message from this girl that is into him who we feel he should be having a relationship with, but is instead dangerously obsessed with drumming. The message comes up over the video of drumming he is watching but he ignores it and returns to the drumming.

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Dolly out world expands shot

We start on a mid shot character who is undergoing something which will change their world, after the news is delivered (or similar) we dolly backwards revealing them as this small thing lost in a bigger picture. 

e.g. in that comic movie that Will's friend Jack showed us, after the little boy receives the news that his mother has died.  

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Identical behaviour matchcut sequence 

eg in Wolf of Wall Street where the brokers from the Wolf's firm all claim that they know nothing about his crooked deals. 

WOLF OF WALL STREET 

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Foot sex shot

Good to convey a sense of predatory conquest that is more about the body than the soul.

e.g. The wolf is finally fucking this girl he has a crush on because she is so beautiful.

WOLF OF WALL STREET 

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Subtext sex shot

Good way to shoot sex and show someone being disengaged from it.

eg in WOLF OF WALL STREET when she fucks him for the last time having privately decided to dump him afterwards. 

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Scorcese shoots reasonably tight to the eyeline