Analysis of Jurassic Park (directed by Stephen Spielberg)

Analysis of Jurassic Park (directed by Stephen Spielberg)

Descriptive stage

Establishing shot:

2 red cars in a green field, couple of green tall trees and a light blue sky.

Close up to the cars stopping and shot on the characters. One with jean jacket stands up and looks shocked. Woman focuses on leave, turns her head cause of the man standing up and looks and camera cuts to the dinosaur.

Focus on the dinosaur and various shots on the dinosaur. Characters approach the dinosaur

Analytical stage:

-         Camera angles

-         Lighting and colours

-         Sound (diagetic)

-         Composition – contrast

-         Close up / Long shot

-         Editing

-         Script

Trees work as a frame for the cars (vertical framed), as well as to compare the size of the cars to the trees. Light focuses on the field, and the music score makes the viewer feel happy and adventurous. It’s a long shot to focus on the size difference and the colour of the cars contrast with the field, making them more noticeable. Green is the main colour since it expresses nature. Big depth of field.

Camera starts zooming to the cars and cuts then to a close up of the car. Sound of the car is caught to bring us back to earth. Close up to one of the cars. A triangular composition. Red represents danger. Slight compression of time, maybe just less than a second. Clouds get into the scene, perhaps representation of danger, as well as red being the dominant colour so it may express danger. Trees have less leaves (already eaten by dinosaur). More diagetic sounds

Camera zooms in into the man with the blue jacket, he is shocked and in awe (sound track makes us feel intrigued to create suspense). Natural lightning. The frame of the car is framing the character. Creates a lot of suspense. Red scarf continues to symbolize the tension. Red is becoming the motif of the film.

The camera cuts to the woman, who is staring at a leave. She is clearly distracted from what the man has just seen. The man touches her head and turns her so she can sees what the man is seeing. Woman is speechless and keeps her mouth open as she stands up, clearly representing the total shock of what she has seen. Non-diagetic sounds start playing, increasing the “whimsical” feeling to the scene. This scene is a close up to the woman, in order to keep the suspense since we cannot see what they are seeing.

Camera then cuts to the dinosaur, from a ground shot pointing upwards. This shot is done in order to emphasize the size of the dinosaur, since this dinosaur is so tall that he is even taller than the trees, and at least 10 times taller than the car. Whimsical non-diagetic sounds from the OST (original soundtrack) keeps playing, and increasing the adventurous and happy feeling given by the scene.

Characters start approaching the dinosaur, while still not being able to believe their eyes. Camera still focuses on the size of the dinosaur, while then it cuts to the car they where in, where another character all dressed in black (you could say that the colour of his clothes represent how he is a believer in the chaos theory, but in the novel it is explained that he always wear black since like that he has not got to worry about what clothes mixes with what). He says “that crazy son of a bitch he actually did it”, showing that he believes that something will go on, foreshadowing the future events of the film.

Then it cuts to the man in the suit and with a beige hat, the camera focuses in a close up to his face as he says “We are gonna make a fortune out of it”, showing the intentions and foreshadowing the events that will happen. This also makes the audience dislike this character, thus making the audience want him to be the first victim.