Blog Post 3:Relationships Between Shots

Harry Potter is easily one of my favorite film and book series’ to ever be made, so it only seemed fit to me that I choose to analyze one of the scenes from one of the movies. The famous scene where Harry goes to choose his wand at Olivanders was my choice. This scene starts with a long shot establishing that they are in Diagon Alley, as Harry enters the shop we see him from a very high angle above him inside the store.  It then cuts to being almost eye level with Harry on the other side of the desk slowly zooming in on him as he calls out to the shop owner almost as if the camera is just as curious as he is. Then we cut to Olivander appearing in a close up shot so we can see how surprised and almost happy he is to finally see Harry in his shop.  The shot sizes and angles vary through the scene despite the size of the tiny shop all to help create a mood or simply see what they want the viewer to see. Like when we cut to a medium shot after every flick of Harry’s wand to see the destruction it causes in the shop. But once he finally gets the right one the camera angle is below Harry and moves upward and closer to him almost establishing some sort of power position for him (since he’s the boy who lived and all that jazz). As more sensitive information about what is interesting about Harry’s wand is revealed the camera begins to zoom in very slowly. This created a more secretive almost claustrophobic feeling since what they were talking about did seem to make Olivander and Harry uncomfortable, but for different reasons, but the camera work helps to reflect that.