What Do You SEE

Training Day is a suspenseful crime thriller. The story itself takes place in the city of California, but the movie takes place more or less in detective Alonzo’s black 1979 Monte Carlo. This movie is action packed, intense, and crime filled. Therefore, the picture most convey these adjectives. I have furthered my knowledge in the technical aspects of film by taking classes in film at Hunter College and have a better understanding of why shots are filmed certain ways and which shots evoke certain emotions. In the class we have been learning different elements of filming that have drastic affects on the meaning of the film and the picture all together. The amount of work that goes in to thirty seconds of a film is truly amazing. It takes many months of preproduction to figure out exactly the meaning the director wants out of the picture and the different shots that will best represent that meaning.

In Training Day the majority of the film was shot in extreme close-ups, close- ups, and medium shot close ups. The majority of shots were filmed with long lens’ to further the intensity of the shot by focusing solely on one actor or object and having the rest of the image out of focus. The reason I think the director and cinematographer decided to shoot the film in this way is because the film is intense and the story is dramatic. In shots that are extremely close up and focused solely on one thing you tend to feel the intensity of the moment due to the picture alone. Every single shot in the car was a close up and the majority of extreme close up shot were shot of Alonzo and Hoyt in the car having deep discussions that were key to understanding the different characters in the story. I decided to analyze the best I knew how Training Day. In the very first shot Hoyt was shot out of focus extremely close up and with hints of blue dark lighting. The shot continued with dark lighting and hints of blue and a continued to be shot with severally close ups. The beginning shots and several after where shot with long lenses. I knew that they were shot with long lenses because the background was extremely out of focus. A scene I found very interesting was the scene when Hoyt meets Alonzo in the restaurant. When they walked in, the scene seemed to be shot with a wide angle lens but quickly shifted back to the long lens. I found the angles at which the shots were being shot very interesting most of the shots where below eye- level except for in the restaurant. When the picture showed a shot of the two talking and not a close up of one or the other, it was shot at a high angle and with a wide angle lens. I feel the director decided to film that shot like that so you could feel the entrapment of his film by shooting down towards the actors and to give the audience a birds-eye view of the place at which they were meeting. The film was also shot at a high angle and with a wide angle lens when the car was being shown as they were driving in the city. I feel that the director decided to film the picture that way because it allowed the viewer to really get an idea of the city and it incorporated the city into the film.
Another scene I really enjoyed and found the cinematography very interesting was the scene that followed the first gun shooting. They are driving on the highway and the car is being shot driving at a high angle and shot with a wide angle lens then the shot shifts to the car scene where the shots are extreme close ups and close- ups on the actors faces. The shot shifts again to Hoyt pulling over and the composition of the shot is really nice because the car is in the left foreground part of the screen and, the background is the rest of the highway and a highway ramp that very nicely balances the picture. The shot then focuses back to the actors and is shot with a long lens at a bottom angle and as the intensity of the scenes drags on the camera slowly progresses to a normal eye level shot. The actors are again shot with extreme close up shots. Another shot I noticed was the shot in which they entered the house as they entered Alonzo’s home. He begins to kiss his wife. Then shot is shot with a wide angle lens and it shifts to a close up of her son with a long lens the background in which Hoyt is sitting is completely out of focus and then rack focus is used and shifts the focus to Hoyt. Rack focus is again used toward the end of the film when Hoyt had a gun to Alonzo the shot shows the gun and the street and everything else is out of focus and then rack focus occurs and the focus is shifted to the foreground in which a pack of KOOL cigarettes is focused on.

The film was amazing and I recommend everyone to go see the film. After reading this I hope you too will notice the little technical things I was able to pick up throughout the film as I watched it and further your knowledge on the aesthetics of filmmaking.