It's Always Fair Weather.

Earlier today, we learnt a few things about the cameras that our college can provide us with. We also watched four clips from a number of different genres of films. These films included The Quantum of Solace, Hard Boiled, It's Always Fair Weather and Children of Men. We were asked to think about a few different aspects of the way these scenes were filmed, and specifically our group focused on the scene from It's Always Fair Weather.

During this scene, the character that the camera is focusing on is a man wearing roller-skates. He seems to forget that he is wearing them after noticing a woman in the rollerskating ring, and dances down the street in them whilst singing a musical number and gathering quite an audience of passerbys.

We noticed that mostly medium or wide shots were used during this scene - distancing the audience from the action, but allowing them to see absolutely everything that is happening in the scene. The main character the scene focuses on is clearly also doing all the dancing involved in the scene, and it is almost as if they want to show this. Instead of using a double for such things, and simply focusing on the feet as he dances, they've made sure to show the person and some of their surroundings - like the interest he is receiving from other people in the street at the time. Even though the whole of the musical film is filmed in a completely unrealistic way (because who sings and dances in the street whilst wearing rollerskates?), it manages to give the film a theatrical feel, as if being performed on stage.

The camera also tends to follow the dancing man through the street as he passes. There are only a couple of different shots, and the majority of the time, the camera is simply following after him on a track/dolly shot. On a few occasions - such as at the beginning of the scene where he is simply singing and not dancing - they do seem to use a tripod, or possibly a handheld camera to get a closer shot of him, however.

The whole scene gives the audience a happy and jolly feel to the film, and with all these things combined, it definitely does this successfully. I quite enjoyed watching the scene, and it made me want to continue on watching the film after the scene had finished.