Editing and transitions

Hello blog, for this post, focused on analyzing the elements of editing and transitions, I choose to focus on the opening of Jurassic Park. This is because I think it's a great movie and has a very captivating introduction.

 1: We see a fade in from black shortly after the title screen, a commonly used way to get a film started. This establishes some setting and allows the audience to get some sort of idea where our story may take place.

 2: at 00:16 the camera straight cuts from the environment to a man. This transition allows us to see more of our scene and get a better understanding of what is happening. This also gives us a glimpse of the tone of the movie.

 3: at 00:16-00:22 when the camera cuts to the man we can notice an eyeline match. The camera work along with the transitions clearly show that the man is observing something moving through the shrubbery. It isn't till after the camera transitions back to the shrubbery that we are certain of what the man is looking at. This short sequence adds a lot of suspense and mystery for the viewer.

4: at 00:24 there is another straight cut, where the camera transitions promptly over to a group of men. This lets us know the man from before is not alone and also adds to the rising suspense and mystery.

5: at 00:30 there is a transition to another man who seems to be a leader, accompanied by more soldiers. These men are all armed which helps the audience to anticipate what is to come. This transition helps contribute to the theme of danger throughout the film.

6: at 00:37 the camera cuts back to the subject moving through the brush. This moment reveals the object to be a sort of mechanical object. The repeated switching from the machine back to the people can be seen as a sort of shot reverse shot were we can assume the humans are being watched from something in the tree-line. This reinforces the theme of humans vs. nature found in the movie.

7: at 00:43 there is a straight cut to another angle of the object where it is revealed that the mechanical object is a cage. It can be seen that the men have their weapons aimed at the cage, showing that this transition displays the sense of fear and tension among the characters.

8: from 00:43-01:09 is a long take where the camera and characters accompany the cage to it's destination. During this transition the characters can be seen giving a very high amount of attention to the cage, being sure to follow and watch it very carefully. This portrays to the audience that the characters are being very cautious.

9: at 01:10 there is a straight cut to the creatures POV inside of the cage that. This is an excellent transition, that confirms the audience's suspicions of a mysterious creature inside of the cage. We as the audience can see that the creature is staring at the humans, leaving us with anticipation of a tragedy soon to come.

10: at 01:13 we get another transition into a long take where the characters move into action towards the cage. We can see the characters attempting to secure the creature and cage in the destination. However we can infer as the audience thanks to the constant previous back and forth between the creature and humans that things won't go so smoothly. This actually excellently reflects an extremely central theme of this film and the series as a whole, being that things won't go smoothly for the humans if they try and manipulate nature.

Overall, this opening is full of transitions and shots that help build up tension and even give hints toward themes that will be further developed throughout the film.