I Am Legend

Analyze the Camera Work

The man was made to be the main character as each angle (if not every single one within the clip) had him in it or was of his perspective. He was put in the foreground in some as he was seen looking towards the dummy. The tilt shots of him shooting into the air and all around him made everything seem at an angle. Each shot was constantly moving, which made the man seem dominant over anything and everything that was going on. There were shots taken close to his face to show emotion and to enhance him. As the camera stood behind him, the shot gave him the dominance over the dummy standing there along with the car, buildings and the dog. The camera’s angle changed 30 times within the 3 minute clip, which I felt gave the clip a lot of action in just a little bit of time.

Analyze the Audio Track

At first all you hear is the dog barking and the car’s noises (accelerating/breaking). Then, the screaming that comes from the man’s mouth starts loud and a little hesitant at first he seems to be getting someone’s attention. Then he continues to speak then stops abruptly then speaks again.  Then demands in a quick few seconds to tell him if the person is real or not, then all you hear is the sound of rapid gun fire. The sound of airplanes, jets or helicopters swamp the air, as I hear the man breathing heavily as if he is out of breath. As the breathing gets louder, the gunfire begins again and it sounds as if the shots hit objects neither shatter, nor break) and then the sounds disappear. After a quick second of silence, something sounds as if had dropped, then the dog barks away as if something is wrong or something bad is happening.

Put It All Together

I noticed the camera in the first 20 seconds or so was placed perfectly at an angle where there was a partial view of the man’s sight. When the man is driving towards the dummy, the camera is directly in front of him showing the fear and confusion in his face and the sound effects of him breathing and the car speed makes the scene wanting people to be on edge. As the camera follows him after the initial shots were fired at the dummy, it captures, again, the anger, frustration, confusion and fright he is going through.

In Ebert’s How to Read a Movie, I learned the foreground in stronger than the background, low angles make people into gods, tilt shots make everything seem out of place, few tilts have a positive feeling, and movement to the right is more favorable than to the left. In this clip, the tilted angles of the camera made it as if the man’s world was out of balance, as shown in the fear and confusion in his facial expressions. When the man was standing there staring down the dummy prior to firing the first round of shots, him being in the foreground made him dominant in the moment. The low angle of the camera when the man was shooting into the air and all around him, gave him the power of a god. He was in complete control during that moment as the camera captured it. The man went back and forth being on the left and right, he had no specific placement during the scene.