Pearl Harbour

The next film I have chosen to write about as part of my research is Pearl Harbour. Made in 2001, Pearl Harbour illustrates the part of WWII when Japan decides to get involved and attack Pearl Harbour, America's primary naval dock, in Hawaii.
Throughout the whole of the 2 minutes opening scene, match on action shooting style has been used.

This is the first picture the audience sees in Pearl Harbour. It fades in from a black screen just after the slow, soft Pearl Harbour theme music starts. (Pearl Harbour Theme [Youtube])
The colours used are very warm and so gives the audience a feeling of security and safeness. To create this type of colour the director may have used a yellow lens in order to make the image have a sepia-like effect.
We are not actually close to anything yet as far as we know, and this means that the audience has not been asked to have a strong emotional connection with what they are viewing, however this does not deplete the warm feeling given off by the colours used.

Here there has been no change in position of the shot, but an old bi-plane has entered the screen flying in from the top right hand corner of the screen with what looks like black smoke coming from the rear of the plane.
This to a certain extent gets rid of the sense of security given by the warm colours as the smoke coming from the plane is either meant to be there, or it is not and the plane is coming in to crash land.
As this gets playing on the viewer's mind we get a close up of the plane for a few seconds.

Here is the close up of the plane, which seems to have been shot and then slowed down to a slightly lower frame rate.
This effects allows the viewer to see the propeller turning and gives a lot more detail to the plane, despite it being in silhouette, and adds interest to the scene as the viewer is still being given no clue as to why the plane is flying. And what it has to do with the storyline.

The picture that fades in after the last shot is of the sun slowly rising as the Title of the film 'Pearl Harbour' fades in as text and then after roughly five seconds fades back out.
for this whole sequence so far there has been no colour that deviates away from the sepia theme, as even the title has been coloured to match the sun.
The fact that this is all happening at dawn may represent freedom as opposed to war (as being the opposite of this). This gives a positive feeling off, and when combined with the warm colours and open spaces really gives a feeling of security.

After one more clip of a tracking shot the plane swooping down under the camera, we are in a POV shot from the ground, watching the plane come in, panning across the screen as the plane comes in to land.
This is the first piece of footage that has used colour. We can see that the plane is red, and therefore is not a war plane, but probably belongs to a local farmer. From here we can also see that the smoke coming from the plane is meant to be there as the music is still calm and there is no apparent distress going in with the plane or within the cockpit.
From all of these indications, the viewer has almost now been reassured that there is nothing wrong and therefore there are no nervous feelings being made.

The next shot shows the plane a little higher than before, apparently not trying to land, but flying around leisurely over fields and grassland, putting in a shallow bank, hinting to the audience that there is no need for panic and everything is laid back and under control. Using planes to get around like this is not uncommon in some parts of the US.
In this clip, small, formal text is faded in and out, showing the location and year that this is set in, giving an obvious time scale to the audience on what they expect to see in the theme, as opposed to a modern day theme.

Here is the classic example of a match on action shot, where we see the plane carry on its banking turn but from the ground, rather than as a tracking shot from the air. A barn looks to be next to the landing strip which is most probably where the plane is kept.
The presence of the barn, and the stationary prop is a classic indicator that we are on a farm.
As we find out in the next couple of shots, there are a couple of young boys, no older than 12 years playing in an old, deceased plane, pressing all of the buttons, pretending that it is real when the plane flies over them when coming in to land. The boys are looking up in awe at the machine flying past them and jump straight in after it has landed and the pilot (one of the boy's dad) has climbed out and left the scene.
We see these shots as a first person, as if we could be there, so this allow us to identify easily with the excited emotions of the boys, however the shots have been taken from third person views but as close ups so that all of the sound can be heard and emotions can be easily conveyed.

Once the boys are in the plane, they start fiddling with all of the knobs and levers shouting things such as 'dirty Germans!' until the wrong lever is turned and the plane starts up.
As this happens we then see the expression on the boys' faces turn from joy to utter terror in a matter of milliseconds. The plane then starts accelerating along the runway, bouncing up and down as it gains speed until the engine is cut off and the plane skids to a halt just before the end of the runway.
During this scene, the audience are drawn in to the emotion of the boys... The terror of actually flying the plane and not knowing what to do, combined with the excitement and joy of gaining flight for a few seconds. For these shots close-ups of the boys' faces are used, as this is the most direct way of linking an audience in with the emotions being expressed on screen.

After this event, the boys run back to the hanger, 'My dad's going to kill me' being one of the lines said on the way back. And true to this word the dad is very upset by what has happened and drags the boy off and starts to hit him and shout at him. The other boy feels it necessary to take a plank of wood and hit the dad over the head with it to stop him beating up his son.
This scene makes the audience feel more sorry for the boys as they seem to be being treated badly by the father which makes the audience feel sympathy for the boys.
Another trick that has been used to create this feeling is by filming it all from the boys' perspective, so that the audience find it easier to connect with this side of the story.
When the dad is back on his feet the boy with the plank of wood calls him a 'dirty German' to which he goes all soft and less threatening, explaining that he had fought the Germans in the trenches.

This exchange of words has turned the situation on its head, perceiving the boys as being a bit more naive and reckless than was first thought, and the dad being a softer character than was first thought. This swaps the feelings that the audience had for the characters around and now is inviting them to feel sympathy, and almost guilt for wanting to judge him so quickly before they had really got to know the character.
In the final image I have used, the father has just walked off, obviously hurt by the comment given to him by one of the boys, and the son running after him shouting for him. As the boy reaches his father they put their arms around the back of each other, showing a level of trust that has been created from the event.
The feeling the audience has been left with from this is one of a positive nature as the boys are still 'best friends', and there has been no love lost between the father and his son.