Analysis of 'Super' Dir: James Gunn

In preparation for the flat scene I re-watched the final scene from Super, a scene that I thought was trying to get across similar messages to what we were and a film that does it in a very stylish and visually pleasing way, something I could get inspired from. This is because the film gets across a lot of emotional effect through a variety of ways, and all in a sequence that only lasts about 1 min 30secs.

One of the ways they do this is simply through the acting. It may sound stupid but up until analysing this sequence I hadn't considered showing the actors enough for them to get across their own emotion, I'd just been considering stylistic ways in which to create an emotion through the camera angles etc. The emotion in this scene it could be argued is mainly because of Rainn Wilson's acting, sometimes it doesn't take anything too stylistic to create a mood, rather you can just go to a basic close up and let the actor do the work. Though it would be foolish to rely on this. I think the key to getting a good scene is to get a balance between this and an interesting camera work, something this scene and indeed this film as a whole does well.
Another main way this scene gains emotion is through the score, and if anything I think it relies much too heavily on it. The music is very typical uplifting but emotional and I think if it was not in the scene the sequence would be much more void of emotion than it is with it in. Again this exemplifies how every aspect makes emotion in a scene though and its how they interplay with one another that gives a scene some memorability.
There is also voice-over to the scene to basically wrap it up, something I'm not particularly a fan of but since it is used in moderation and is cut down to all that needs to be said it actually works quite well at tying up the story. I don't want to use voice-over in ours if we can help it, I think it would be much more of a feat to achieve a whole story with minimalist or no dialogue.

Here you can see Rainn Wilson crying to get across a personal emotion.

One of the shots that stands out in this sequence is when we cut to behind Frank to view all the drawings he's received. This plays a part in the story so by the end when we see them all we feel happy for this character we've learnt to sympathise with. The camera work is very clever here since we first cut to quite a closed shot of Frank looking at all the drawings then as we slowly zoom out it reveals the rest of the scene showing how the walls are consumed with these drawings as Frank sits fixated on them. By cutting between a shot in front and behind him we begin to piece together how much they mean to him since we see his reaction in the front shots and then the scene in the behind, this simple cut to both sides works to great effect.
The shots of the drawings on the wall behind him are beautiful at showing the scene in a single image, it would have worked even without reaction shots. This shot of the drawings surrounding the subject is one I think we'll definitely try to get whilst shooting our scenes.

Showing the drawings engulfing the walls. I also like how Frank is framed slightly off centre, its a slight touch but is unexpected and makes the frame a bit more interesting.

To furthermore get a feeling and connection to the actual scene it cuts to panning close ups of the wall of drawings so you get to see them in detail. This makes the whole wall feel much more personal since you know that each one of the drawings has a story to it, so when we again see the whole wall we appreciate it more. Some of the drawings also replicate things/moments from the film its self which gives the story a nice full circle feel. The colour of them all makes them outstanding and interesting to look at and explore too.

Example of the brief childish colourful stories on one part of the wall.

These two photos show how the drawings actually reflect the real world of the film, as both show Frank and his rabbit.

Overall I think this scene is executed well, and it is showing something similar to what we want to in our interior scenes, so I will take a lot of influence from this. This will mainly be visual influences I reckon in terms of good ways to show the drawings on the walls and engage with the scene and character.

My notes from watching the scene