Nicholas Fite
(side note: this one is kinda hard to tell where act II begins. It’s very diegetic. I’m assuming the taking of “boy with apple” is the beginning of act II, as that’s where we know what everyone wants and their problems.)
Act 1:
This shot is a full dirty triple from a low angle. The camera and characters are mostly still. Likely using a wider angle lens to get everything into the shot, around 35mm. Everything is looking rather sharp so the aperture of the camera must be pretty small, so the f-stop should be around 20. I found this shot interesting because of the colors of the scene. The bad guys are draped in black, the good guys in purple, and the room is green. It shows how the good guys are out of place in this house, as the purple and green clash quite a bit. The blacks, browns, and greens of the room and the clothing of the other family members makes them stick out. They are outsiders both in the sense that the family doesn’t want them there, and in the sense that they don’t fit into the scenery. The bad guys are also trapping them within the screen. Both on their left and their right they are trapped by them.
Act II:
This one does some interesting stuff with the foreground and the background. The shot size is full, even when the character is in the foreground, it’s shot from a low angle and it’s a single. The shot begins with the character leaving that hatch and running to the left, then we see a shadowy version of him in the background running to the right. The camera doesn’t move. Despite the loss of detail in the character (that I’m assuming was animated in after the fact) everything is still sharp and in focus. Given all this, I’m assuming it’s a relatively shallow lens, around 35 mm, with a small aperture, an f-stop around 22. The way that the character moves from left and then to the right gives the story a whimsical feeling. The movement makes sense, but the logistics don’t. The story is technically a girl reading the story, of someone hearing someone's retelling of the story, so this break in logic makes sense. It overall adds to the feeling of the movie.
This is a single mid shot from a low angle. The background is somewhat blurred, so the aperture is a bit more open but not too much. Due to how close the background feels to the character, it seems to be a longer lens. The lens is likely 100-200mm with an f-stop around 10. The character is in the exact middle of the screen, with no major movement from the camera or from him. In this scene, the character is going to die and he’s watching as the killer follows him. What’s interesting is what’s going on with the character’s glasses. They’re showing these blue reflections which draw our eyes to it. He’s watching as the killer gets closer and closer to him, so his eyes are emphasized in the scene. His death is already guaranteed, so he’s already being cast in shadow.
This is a high angle crowd shot. The camera is still, and the little bit of motion we do see is the man in the light gray shirt stabbing the man in the dark gray shirt. On the edge of the frame you can see that the floor seems to almost bend away, this is something you get when you use a wider lens and the frame around the hole seems to be a bit blurry. This seems to use a lens around 30mm and an f-stop of around 10. The best thing about this shot is the frame within the frame. It shows that everyone in there was trapped. Everyone in the hole is going to die. From the objects in the scene you can also tell that they were playing a card game. So, without any context, you could tell that the man in light gray caught them off guard and killed them all.
This is a low angle single cowboy shot. We can see what the character in black is doing with his hands, and shows that he is in a position of relative power. The camera is also in the point of view of a character hanging off of a cliff. From this we can get an idea of what he is about to do, and who he has power over. Everything seems to be in focus, and there seems to be some rounding on his face due to a wider lens. The lens is likely around 35mm and has an f-stop of around 18.
Act III:
This is a full low angle dirty crowd shot. We can see the feet of all the characters, they’re being blocked by the people in the Mendl’s car, and we are seeing them from below. The camera doesn’t move, but we do have army personnel moving from the left to the right. The lens is likely a wide angle one around 35 mm and has a pretty small aperture with an f-stop around 20. This show shows how the army is out of place in The Grand Budapest Hotel. The black of their clothing, their banners, their tanks, and their cars clash with the scenery of the hotel. While the more pink and subtle brown on the Mendl’s car, where our main characters are, more cleanly lines up with the aesthetic. Interestingly, on the building, the banners have turned the typically white Z’s (a play on the nazi SS) pink. Like it’s trying to integrate, and failing.
This is a low wide double shot. We can fully see the characters, and they’re pretty small in the scene. The background has a slight blur to it, so its aperture must be a little bigger. The lens seems to be around 35 mm with an f-stop around 18. The camera was originally closer, but was pulled back to this distance. An important thing to note is the colors, lighting, and aspect ratio in the scene. The character telling the story is wearing purple and red while the character listening is wearing brown. It makes the storyteller clash with the background, and makes the other character seem like a natural part of it. There is a spotlight on their table, further emphasizing they are the only people in the room. Then the aspect ratio changes from something more square to a more traditional movie aspect ratio. The change lets us see more of the room, further emphasizing the loneliness. Something that is pretty consistently brought up in the story is the idea of being someone from a different time. In this shot, the storyteller is still dressing like it’s that older time, when all the staff wore purple, but the room around him doesn’t compliment that anymore. The room has changed, but he hasn’t. All of this creates a scene that is lonely.
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