"You Can't Take A Picture Unless It's Already Gone."

For this week I viewed a television commercial and a scene from a television show and analyzed them in terms of composition, lighting, editing, camera shots, and sound and how they portray relationships, narrative development, and representations.

I first looked at the series finale of one of my favorite shows, HBO’s Six Feet Under. For those of you whom do not know what this show is about (shame on you), it’s a dark and dramatic, yet comedic look at a dysfunctional L.A. family that runs a funeral business.

The final episode is about Claire leaving L.A. and moving to New York. It opens with a medium shot of Nate Fisher, the eldest brother whom recently passed away, against a white screen. He is dressed in a white suit and is lip-syncing and dancing. The shot is underexposed to make his blank surroundings seem perhaps heavenly, or emphasize the fact he is dead. The scene cuts to an extreme close up of his singing the words “I just want to celebrate another day of life.” We then see several frames of extreme close up shots that then move back out to medium shots of him singing and dancing, and back to an extreme close up of his face. This sequence happens several times, moving from an ECU to a medium close shot, to a medium shot, back to a medium close shot ending with another ECU. This part of the scene finishes with a camera zoom in on his opening and singing mouth.

It then transitions to the only daughter, Claire, waking up in bed. The music previously sung by Nate is now the music from her alarm clock that has woken her up. Perhaps this is done to try and make Nate’s death seem unreal, or just a dream. The camera pans across her room. The lighting is much darker in her room in comparison to the opening scene. The camera pans across her bedroom where we see her dead brother Nate sitting in a chair, allowing for a two shot of Nate and Claire. The shot becomes an over-the-shoulder shot of Nate. He talks to Claire and tells her to get up as everybody is waiting for her. The camera zooms in for a close up on Claire. We can see she is thinking deeply as if weighing heavy decisions.

The scene transitions with a cut and pan of the Fisher home. We get a full view of the large sign in the front yard that read Fisher and Sons, Funeral Directions. There is a cut to a long shot of Claire in the driveway. Her mother Ruth walks in front of the camera allowing for an over-the-shoulder shot of Claire. It changes from a two shot to a three shot when her brother David appears next to Ruth. Then there is a reverse angle as now we can see Ruth and David’s faces. Everyone is saying goodbye. There is a medium close shot Claire crying and hugging David.

Cut to a medium close shot of Claire and her mother. Then there is an over-the-shoulder of Claire, cut to a reverse angle of Ruth crying. “I don’t want to go,” Claire says. Quickly there is a cut to an over-the-shoulder where we see Nate. “Yes, you do,” he says. We go back to another over-the-shoulder shot of Claire facing the front of the house, where we see the rest of the family walking out the front door. We see Claire hugging and saying goodbye to her nephews. There is a reverse angle back to the family, followed by a medium close shot of Claire and her brother-in-law Keith hugging.

Claire announces she wants to take a picture of her family. Here the show cuts to a two shot of Claire and Nate standing right behind her. Then it cuts to a long shot of the family in front of the house. The audience sees what Claire’s picture would look like, and then backs to a medium shot of Claire. This is her final goodbye.

The end of the scene shows the audience a cut to Claire in her car, and an extreme close up of Claire doing each of the following: starting her car, opening a cd, putting it in the stereo, and putting the car in drive. We then see a long shot of her driving out of the driveway. Cue sappy music. There is one last long shot of the house and her family standing on the porch, waving goodbye. That’s it for Six Feet Under.

The lighting in this scene is very natural. They are outside and the light is bright, perhaps to signal the early morning. We hear lots of atmos and effect sounds like cars driving by and birds chirping. The cars in the shot tell me she is leaving.

One cannot help but notice the overload of medium close, close up, over-the-shoulder, and reverse angle shots in this scene. This is done so that the audience gets to see the emotion coming from each individual’s face, as well as see their reactions to others, and their points of view. Every time there is a medium close shot, it is of two people hugging and crying. The reverse angle shots almost always show someone’s reaction to the words shared when someone has to say goodbye. Generally the close ups are of Claire crying.

These shots were obviously chosen deliberately to show the real relations between the characters, and their honest emotions. Six Feet Under is an emotionally charged show about real people, real problems, and real feelings. The way the camera equally captures each character’s thoughts and feelings and then compares or relates them to another’s via over-the shoulders or reverse angles makes it more real. It also helps develop the theme and tone of the show: make the most of life, embrace it…screwed up or not…because everyone dies eventually.

This scene is extremely effective at portraying the true relationships between the characters. They love one another, will be missed and everyone is sad that Claire is leaving their home. With so much time and effort spent on hugging, crying and saying goodbye, the audience knows this is not going to be a short weekend trip. We know that this is more permanent, and somehow closes this part of the story. It keeps us hanging on; wanting more even though we know this is it. It makes us cry (you lie if you say it doesn’t), we realize that we’ve become attached to these people too and share the same emotions. It always brings us back to that common ground, no matter how different, we are all human.

I would love to work on a film unit in my classroom to look at just these things. How does film portray us as human beings? How do we relate to those we see on television or on film? I would love to use this show, about family, and maybe compare it to another show such as Dexter, which is about a serial killer. How are the characters portrayed? What are their common qualities? What are their differences? I would love to also take a look at the use of different shots, and also to examine why they are used. What does a particular shot show us as the audience? What was the director trying to do here? What do they want us to understand? I think an assignment just like this would be very valuable. A shot by shot analysis of a scene to dissect it for content. It would be great to teach the vocabulary necessary for this assignment in my classroom, and then have my students evaluate two film scenes looking at tone or theme. I would also love for my students to create their own films or commercials and have their peers critique them on the elements learned.

Finally, I present a shot by shot analysis of a Pepsi commercial that used to be on television. You may find it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31pEZWaIhr0

Shot One: Establishing shot of a young boy walking down the sidewalk in a neighborhood. This establishes the location and player.

Shot Two: Long shot of boy walking.
Again, proves the young boy is the main character in which the commercial is centered around and gives us a closer look at presumably his, neighborhood.

Shot Three: Long shot of a market storefront in the neighborhood.
Here we see the other player, a soda machine. It’s front and center.

Shot Four: A high angle shot from the soda machine looking down upon the boy.
The machine looks huge and shows us that the boy has many soda choices.

Shot Five: A medium shot of the point putting coins into the machine.
He has made a choice to buy a soda. But which one?

Shot Six: Long shot of the boy standing in front of the machine making his soda selection. We can’t see what he has chosen. Somewhat suspenseful for a soda commercial.

Shot Seven: Extreme close up of the can that the machine has dispensed.
Here we see that the boy has chosen Coke. At first we think this might be a Coke commercial.

Shot Eight: Extreme close up of the boy’s feet in front of the soda machine.
He places the can of Coke on the ground next to his feet. This makes us wonder what the heck this kid is doing. We keep watching.

Shot Nine: Long shot of the boy in front of the machine. He is looking for more coins for more soda.

Shot Ten: Extreme close up of the boy putting more coins in the machine. He’s buying two sodas?

Shot Eleven: Extreme close up of the boy pushing the Coke button again. He must really like Coke.

Shot Twelve: High angle shot looking down on the boy from the machine. We can see one Coke can on the ground, and the other Coke can just dispensed from the machine. The boy is putting the second can on the ground next to the first. What is he doing?

Shot Thirteen: Extreme close up of the two Coke cans on the ground, with their Coke labels facing out. This ensures we see that they are Coke cans. We see the boy stand on top of the two cans.

Shot Fourteen: Long shot of the boy standing on cans in front of the machine. He reaches up.

Shot Fifteen: Extreme close up of the Pepsi button on the machine. He pushes it. OMG, he used the Coke cans to get to the Pepsi! Clever!

Shot Sixteen: Extreme close up of Pepsi can just dispensed from the machine. The label faces out. The boy grabs it.

Shot Seventeen: Long shot of the boy walking away from the machine with the Pepsi in his hand. We can see the two cans of Coke left on the ground, in front of the machine.

Even with all those choices, he chose Pepsi. He was willing to pay for Coke to get to the Pepsi. He was willing to work hard to get the Pepsi, and was willing to literally walk over the competition to get what he wanted. Then end shot shows us the slogan of “The Joy of Pepsi” and the Pepsi label to reinforce it. There was a very soothing, casual acoustic guitar playing in the background. You can hear other kids in the neighborhood playing and yelling. The lighting was natural and gave it a lazy day of summer feel. Of course with this young boy’s thirst quenched by that refreshing Pepsi he worked so hard to get!