Before reading what Roger Ebert wrote about reading movies, I wanted to write down some of my own thoughts. When Roger Ebert says “reading movies” does he mean analyzing the movies and dissecting into parts of a movie?
Something I have noticed, especially in horror movies, is that when it is a “scary” scene the music changes and focuses on a certain object or be in a certain position to drag the attention of the audience. Roger Elbert stated that he has noticed that movement to the right is used more often than movement to the left. Or in Ebert’s words “right is more positive, left more negative” and “the future seems to live on the right, the past on the left”. I wonder if this is because of how we read, literally. We always read to the right.
I chose to read the article called. “15 Essential Camera Shots, Angles and Movements” and watched “The Shining – Zooms”. Both of these focused on the idea of zoom. “Zoom shot movies into or out of the frame by using a zoom lens rather than moving the camera”. Many times zooming in or out of the frame is used as a way of dramatizing the scene of the movie. So for example in The Shining, they use zooming in on the characters to create suspense and dramatize the scene of the horror movie. It allows the audience to know that something, good or bad, is about to happen and builds up that suspension.
