Donnie Darko Analysis - Editing

Donnie Darko is a American science fiction drama film which was released in 2001, the film was written and directed by Richard Kelly and starred Jake Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore, Patrick Swayze, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Noah Wyle, Jena Malone and Mary McDonnell. The film depicts the adventures of the title character as he seeks the meaning and significance behind his troubling Doomsday-related visions.

The scene includes a large variety of different editing and camera techniques, the film starts looking at the back door of the school bus from a 90 degree angle, this already suggests to us that the film is going to be out of the ordinary, once rotated fully the camera begins to zoom out giving us a full view of the school entrance, this helps introduce the school to us all and infers to us that there are a lot of people because of how big the school is, in addition because of the camera zooming out it helps show us that there are flowers out the school suggesting to us that it is quite posh and modern for the times it is set in.

As the 3 boys enter the school the camera begins to track them, this can help the audience because it acts as a short introduction for the characters, as they continue to walk down the hallway a man begins to intimidate one of the 3 boys and from this he "steals" the camera as it begins to then track him. The tracking and how the camera is only focused on specific characters help us notice there facial expressions and because of this we can interoperate a rough idea on the role these characters will play within the film. As the scene goes on the camera begins to track certain characters that we can suggest will be the main characters within the film, the camera uses a mid shot so it helps us take notice of the facial expressions and body language of the specific character that is being followed. Whilst tracking the different people the camera begins to zoom in on a man who is sniffing something (probably suppose to be cocaine). The camera zooming in on this emphasises on the importance of this little action and because of this the audience can suggest that the school may be corrupt, or just that certain individuals in the school may be involved within drugs. As the camera than leaves the hallway there is a flash to suggest this little clip/scene of the hallway tracking has finished.

It than begins again showing us the face of a statue which may have some significance within the film due to it begin zoomed in upon, the camera tracks down and focuses on a girl reading a book(this again suggesting she could be of some importance within the film), but than begins to zoom in on 3 older people, 1 shaking hands with the other. The shot includes all 3 of them suggesting they are all important and just by what they're wearing we can suggest that they are a more authoritative role than the others. The camera tracks these 3 people as they walk towards 2 other people, the camera shot includes all of the 5 people together and shows us that they are friends by including there body language. As the original group of 3 begin to walk away the camera stays on the 2 and tracks them which helps introduce them to the audience. The tracking technique helps introduce to us every character within the film we can also take notice of there certain facial expressions and body language to emphasise on the characters.