Sunday, March 20, 2016

Pitching the Perfect Scene

Pitch Perfect 2 is a great movie to analyze using the information provided in the readings Assembling the Shots and Film, Space, and Image by Dick. Pitch Perfect 2 is a sequel to Pitch Perfect, a movie based on a cappella groups that perform music only using their voices. A scenario in the opening scene causes the female a cappella group to lose their ability to perform, so throughout the movie, the girls work together for their one shot at redemption.

The opening scene has the female group, The Barden Bellas, performing for the president of the United States on his birthday. This scene involves a lot of the different shots that the Assembling the Shots and Film, Space, and Image reading mentions.


Before the performance begins, there is a long, establishing shot of the group standing on stage with the lights off. When the girls begin performing, it starts with the singer who begins the song and a flood of lights. It quickly pans out to a medium shot and uses the same shots mentioned previously to showcase their performance.

The two-shot (including two characters) is used in the first few frames of the performance as well as when the commentators are shown talking to each other. A three-shot is usually used when viewing the president and his wife.

In addition to the various shots that are used, editing plays a huge role in the opening performance because there are so many different shots to piece together. The article Assembling the Shots talks about the rhythm, time, and tone. Each of these concepts apply to the beginning performance of Pitch Perfect 2.

This scene has a very fast rhythm. The shots of the group singing and dancing are quick, only being shown on screen for a short amount of time, but the commentators are shown for longer in order to balance out the quick pace of the performance shots.

The editor also creates time by having two concurrent actions depicted on the screen without one being completed before the other begins. For example, while the commentators are talking, the audience of the movie knows that the Bellas are still performing on stage. It switches back and forth between the two different scenes.

Tone is considered primarily light, shade, and color and it varies throughout the Bellas’ performance. At the beginning, the shades are dark, and when the music begins, the shades are bright and focused on the a cappella group to signify their energy on stage. The shades remain dark for the audience because it is not the focus of the scene.

While this is only analyzing a single scene from the movie Pitch Perfect 2, the rest of the film contains similar shots, rhythms, times, and tones.

No comments:

Post a Comment