Top Gun Movie Review

                                        Review of five Camera angles in the Movie

                                                              Top Gun (1986)  

                                         Producer: Don Simpson Jerry Bruckheimer         

         There are several different reason why I chose to use Top Gun to analyze five camera angles. One simple reason is the fact of how much action is in this movie, aside from the action there are also scenes of suspense and drama. Bringing in these factors of difference in tone and emotion in various scenes, gives a great selection of camera angles to chose from. 

          As the movie opens through credits and scenes of airplanes take off, we get an Establishing shot of an aircraft career with an F-14 Tomcat is landing. According to "Use of Long Shots in Film" Establishing shots are used to show the audience the setting of the upcoming scene. In the beginning of Top Gun, as said before we open on an aircraft Carrier in the Indian Ocean, this shows the exact surroundings giving the audience an Idea of where the scene is taking place. 

 

    

                     In this next scene we are presented with a choker scene. In this scene we see the Pilot, call-sign Cougar, freaking out, after he was missile locked and almost killed by a Soviet pilot in an MIG 28. This scene is a close up of Cougars face showing the deep emotion of the character after the dramatic experience. 

             

                      This scene is called a Head on shot, the context of this shot shows two fighter jets flying towards the camera. The head on shot shows the tension as these two pilot dog fight towards the camera. 

            

              In this scene we see the main character, Maverick talk to his instructor, Viper about Mavericks father. In this scene the directors chose to use medium shot in order to see the characters mood in the shot. You can see how they are conversating and their body language and how they feel. 

                

         

                 In this shot, this is when Cougar is in the after math of the dogfight. The director decides to do a super close up shot of Cougars eyes. As we look at it, we can tell that he is sweating a large amount, we can also see the gaze he has like he is not mentally present in the situation. These super close up shots show the extreme feelings of the character almost like we can assume.