CINEMATOGRAPHY: THE DESCENT

A01 | ZMINA HAWTHORNE

This is the first shot in clip three taken from the movie ‘The Descent’. The POV (point of view) shot shows an out of focus shot of Sarah’s daughter, Jessica with a birthday cake. The shot is then brought into focus as Jessica blows out the candles on the cake. The shot is brought into focus to draw the audience into the cake as that’s the focal point. This shot conveys to the audience that Sarah is hallucinating and seeing her deceased daughter just after she had died.

These are the establishing shots of Sarah realizing that she’s been hospitalized after the car accident that was shown in the previous clip. The close up and mid shots are static and show her appearance after the car accident.

This is the trombone shot (or dolly zoom) of Sarah with shock, fear and realization that the darkness is coming for her. A trombone shot is used when the camera is zoomed in on the focal point at a fixed point then as the shot is then tracked as moves closer to the focal point the camera is then zoomed out.

In the second screen-cap the shot is a POV (from the ‘darkness’) coming after her which conveys to the audience that something may be coming after her. As Sarah continues to run the hallway gets darker which highlights the fact the it seems like darkness is closing in on her.

This is a 360 degree tracking shot of Sarah clutching onto her friend Beth, this is a closing shot of the first clip. This shot represents the fact that Sarah has escaped from the dark and now in the safe hands of her friend, that’s why she is clutching onto her.

This is the last part of the clip taken from ‘The Descent’. It shows Juno crying. This is significant as Juno has also lost someone she loves in the accident – Paul (Sarah’s husband) who she was having an affair with.