A young and very emotionally damaged teenager named Marcus is one of the main characters in the film Short Term 12 and as we learn during the film that he has been apart of the program for a while now. He is portrait as a very lonely kid that seems to block everyone out. In one of the scenes, he is sitting in his room when Marcus walks in and wants to hear the rap lyrics he's been working on. We get a unique close up camera shot focusing on Marcus while Mason is in the background, almost seeming irrelevant to the scene. Marcus begins to rap and his lyrics show his troubles in the past and how he really feels. Mason is in shock and has no words to express his sorrow towards him but as he talks, the camera is still focused on Marcus, waiting for a response from Mason. Another great example of the excellent camera angles in this film is when Grace and Mason are shaving Marcus's hair for his birthday. After they are done and tell Marcus to check out his hair, he just hangs his head low and refuses to look into the mirror. We get an interesting angle from the back of Marcus, only being able to see his face through the mirror he is sitting in front of. This angle really gives us a good feel about what Marcus is going through, as he is too ashamed or scared to even look to see his own reflection knowing it will only remind him of his dark past.
I thought that this was an incredible movie all the way around regarding cinematic aspects, but there was one scene where I felt that they lacked with the camera angles. In the very last scene of the movie when Mason is telling the rest of the staff about the very heart warming story about Marcus after he got out of their program, I felt that the camera shots weren't very productive for a scene that I felt was extremely important because it showed the impact they had on these poor kids lives and helped them be able to have a future.
Throughout this film, the director uses many close up scenes to really capture the emotion of the characters. As being a viewer, I really felt through these close up shots that I knew these kids and could really feel their pain. This is a very impactful movie and allows us viewers to peak behind some of the dark curtains that kids in real life have to go through. I was honestly really affected by this film and the close up shots helped me a lot to be able to jump into the movie.
While this movie did an excellent job with their camera angles, especially the close up shots, I think that A Place Beyond the Pines was another good example of this cinematic aspect. These movies have very different plots and overall settings as well, but both have the same emotional level. And this is achieved with the very good camera angles. Bradley Cooper and Ryan Gosling were the main characters in this film having Cooper playing the role as a cop and Gosling playing as a intense biker guy. The most significant scene from that film is when Cooper finally traps Gosling and finally has the chance to arrest him, but ends up wrongfully shooting him, ending his life. This scene really captured the suspense to it with the close up shots on Cooper and Gosling. When Cooper slowly draws his weapon thinking Gosling is as well, but is only expecting his own fate, he is mistakenly killed.
