Akira Kurosawa used many techniques ahead of his time. In his movie The Hidden Fortress (Kurosawa, 1958, Japan), he uses wipes during transitions between scenes. His use of widescreen shots are also interesting as he allows the audience to see the barren and rocky landscape which isolates the characters.

Kurosawa uses wipes to transition between scenes. The wipe that he uses is usually in the direction of action which helps the audience follow along. The use of wipes in movies can be seen in Star Wars which George Lucas based off of this movie.By wiping in certain directions, we can get an understanding of where places are in relation to each other.

His use of wide shots is also revolutionary. By placing the camera high and back, he can show an entire fight between characters without cutting every second like so many movies do today. His careful choreography allows for his characters to fight each other with the surroundings by placing them in a way that they can be seen by the camera. He allows them to spin and circle each other without moving the camera which is steady and far away.

He also does plenty of landscape shots. For example, he placed the character Princess Yuki (Misa Uehara) on top of a mountain where we could see the barren landscape that she ruled over. With the addition of her tears and the superimposed Akizuki flag over her face, we understand that she is privately crying for her lost country. The broken landscape accurately matches her broken emotions.

Akira Kurosawa was a film genius ahead of his time. His wide sweeping landscapes and his wipes influenced the film industry forevermore. His stories are compelling and he is able to relate to everyone of us with his wide shots that give us a feeling of insignificance.

In the movie Inglorious Basterds, Tarantino makes use of lighting and shadows to suggest towards some characters real intentions. By casting shadows in different ways on the characters’ faces, he can connote certain hidden aspects of the character’s backstory. For example, shadowing the eyes.

Tarantino uses lighting to hide the eyes of Hans Landa(Christoph Waltz) in the opening scene at the dairy farm. By shadowing his eyes, Landa seems mysterious and dangerous. When you consider the lighting compared between the characters of Landa and the dairy farmer, you can tell that the light is focused on the dairy farmer’s forehead, allowing easy viewing of the sweat on his forehead. However, the shadows deepen the lines on Landa’s face, adding intrigue and danger. This is one of the many ways that Tarantino uses lighting and shadows to accentuate gut feelings in the viewer.

The second shadowing technique in the movie is during the lunch scene, in which Shoshanna( Melanie Laurent) meets with Goebbels(Sylvester Groth), the Nazi propanganda master. After the lunch is finished, Landa, who shows up halfway through the scene, questions Shoshanna about her theater. The actions that he takes in this scene suggest that he knows Shoshanna is a jew. Tarantino accentuates this by casting half her face in shadow, showing that she has two faces. One face, the German acceptable Parisian, and the other, Shoshanna, the Jewish runaway who hate the Germans. By showing half her face in the light, he invites the audience to wonder about the hidden side of her. This is a technique used by Tarantino to add duplicity.

The final shadowing technique used by Tarantino is this movie was backlighting. He used this technique in the bar scene in which the British Lieutenant Archie Hicox(Michael Fassbender) is meeting Bridget Von Hammersmark(Diane Kruger), the German mole. By backlighting the characters, he creates a grim scene in which the characters talk to each other in partial darkness. By shadowing them, he adds to the suspense of the scene. 

Tarantino is a master of using shadows in his work. Whether he hides eyes, splits faces, or connotes secrecy while making the scene visible, he always finds a way to express feelings with darkness. Sometimes this darkness is necessary, especially in a war movie such as Inglourious Basterds. If a lighter tone were used, the whole feel of the movie would change. Au Revoir Shoshanna!

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
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• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

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