Floorwalker Film Techniques

878 Words4 Pages
Any good movie worth writing about has something that sticks out. Whether it be camera movement, the set design or even just the angle in which the movie was shot in. The four films I decided to write about are Charlie Chaplin’s The Floorwalker (1916), Buster Keaton’s Sherlock Jr. (1924), Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941), and Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen’s Singin’ in the Rain (1952). I have chosen the movies I have because I can appreciate the cinematic skill found in the films. The first film I am covering is Chaplin’s The Floorwalker. The specific film technique that stands out to me is the static camera. Static camera is when the camera has no movement and is fixed on one area. Movies were still relatively new in 1916 so even though static…show more content…
follows the sheik like a literal shadow. The tracking shot shows Sherlock Jr. and the sheik’s movement in sync with one another. At one point the sheik picks up a cigarette, smokes it then tosses the cigarette behind him and Sherlock Jr. catches the same cigarette then proceeds to also smoke it while still trailing the sheik. The scene also shows the two tripping and stopping in the middle of the street in unison all the way down to the train station. Deep focus was a distinct film technique used multiple times throughout Citizen Kane. This technique was described as “a dialectical leap forward in the language of the cinema, enabling directors to preserve the “realism” and “ambiguity of dramatic space” (Naremore 323). Deep focus allowed the scenes to be more realistic by having action take place not only in the foreground but also in the middle ground and background. One notable use of deep focus was during the first flashback of the movie. The scene shows a young Charles Foster Kane playing in the snow through a window in the background. In the foreground, Kane’s mother and father are talking with Mr. Thatcher about him becoming the guardian of Kane. While Kane’s mother and Mr. Thatcher are talking you can see and hear the young Kane outside yelling “the union
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