Fast And Furious 7 Shot Analysis

Fast and Furious 7 Shot Analysis

Shot 1

The first shot I am going to talk about is right at the start of the trailer/scene. The scene is basically about the crew driving out the back of a jumbo-jet and then parachuting down onto the road. Pretty crazy.

Anyway, the first shot that catches my eye is of a red light:

So the scene is of them driving out the back of a 737 jumbo-jet at around 30.000 ft. Just think about that for a second. Red is usually associated with danger. This is starting to add up.

Driving out the back of a plane is clearly dangerous but what does this tell the audience?

Considering the light fills a good ½ of the frame then I would say that on a full-screen there would be a big patch of the colour red. For me when I was watching this I started to feel uneasy, because I associate the colour with danger, and the same time it also intrigued me because I wanted to know what this meant or what this danger was. Every shot in a film has been edited in for a purpose so this shot must be there for a purpose, the director clearly wanted it there to spark some form of emotion with the audience, right? If that was their intention then it certainly is successful, because it sets off some emotion for me, that’s for sure.

Shot 2

The second shot I want to talk about come just after a mini-build up including short and snappy shots of all kinds (LS, CU, MCU etc..) including my previous short I spoke about:

I would say that this shot is a medium shot. They are usually used to begin to establish what is happening within the scene, that has pad off, because you can clearly start to see what is happening here and there is everything in frame to tell the audience that. The car, the ramp and the ground below.

In terms of emotion on this one for me it is quite tricky to explain. It isn’t what will happen with everybody but people respond to different situations in different ways. If you have ever been on a plane for the first time then you will probably know what I’m on about, even if you haven’t been on a plane but you have been high-up possibly with a sheer-drop then you may even understand. This shot makes me feel uneasy, if you are really intrigued in the scene to the point where you feel like you’re there (which happens to me a lot) then it could make the emotion feel more alive and real.

When you take off in a plane and the wheels leave the floor there is a change, I’m not quite sure what this change is but it just doesn’t feel the same as being on the ground/what it was just seconds before. Like you’re floating perhaps (which you basically are). Anyway, when I saw this shot, all of those feeling came back to me, that feeling of uneasiness, and that feeling of being high up. It’s a tough one to explain.

Shot 3

Moving onto the third shot:

I’d class this shot as an establishing shot. This is because it is definitely showing what is happening; you can clearly see that cars are falling out the back of a plane. Establishing shots are a great thing.

If anything, this shot make me feel even more uneasy than the last, maybe it’s that I don’t like heights too much but there we go, people respond different to all different situations as I’ve said. Why does this shot make me feel even more uneasy? It’s because it’s fully open and high up, there is nothing around the frame, nothing that feels concealed. At the same time tough it make me feel intrigued as to the end result of this scene - the cars are only going to end up somewhere and the audience wants to know how/what/why they are doing what they're doing.