Blog #3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ChPTKPzB4I The scene I chose is from Christopher Nolan's film The Dark Knight, where the protagonist, Batman, and the police commissioner are interrogating the antagonist, The Joker. The scene begins with a push in medium shot towards the commissioner interrogating to The Joker. This shot establishes where the characters are in the scene as well as what's going on. The next scene is The Joker in the shadows. He also gets a push in medium shot. Their shots switched back and forth throughout their conversation and establish the 180-degree rule. By the end of their conversation, both their shots have pushed into a medium close-up shot. The combination of these shots and actions increases the intimacy and eerie feeling of the scene. When the commissioner leaves, the camera comes back to The Joker in a close-up shot. Next, Batman reveals himself from the shadows, behind The Joker. After hitting the joker a few times, Batman sits down at the table with The Joker. For their conversation scene, the shots remain medium close up shots. At first, the shots followed the 180-degree rule, but then the rule was broken twice. Following the 180-degree rule is great for the sake of continuity, but breaking it on purpose can convey importance to dialogue or the scene in general. Breaking the 180-degree went with the dialogue of the scene, The Joker was talking about "things will change" and "turning point" after the 180-degree rule broke. Batman then gets upset with The Joker. Here we get a regular medium shot of Batman grabbing him roughly across the table. For the rest of the scene, Batman is holding up The Joker in a medium shot. When Batman was about to beat The Joker again, we see a dutch angle on The Joker. The dutch angle is used to convey the idea of disorientation, franticness, uneasiness, imminent danger, and madness. The use of the dutch angle was a great idea because The Joker was a little disoriented but hysterically laughing from the initial beating and now in danger of getting a worse one. After Batman hits him to the ground, we get medium shots of Batman and The Joker, but this time we're looking at The Joker from a high angle and Batman from a low angle. Then at the end of the scene, when Batman grabs The Joker off the floor and closer to his face, we get medium close-up shots.