The director of the film hotel Rwanda uses a large variety of different techniques to add to the affect of the film. I’m going to be looking at filters and how the director uses them to portray a certain affect in the film, which is to take away unwanted attention from a certain object or thing for a certain amount of time.

An example of when the director has used filters is in the river road scene is when, they are driving along a road and there is fog everywhere. They cannot see anything as the fog obscures the immediate surroundings, and it is only partly revealed when Paul falls out of the car and sees as the fog begins to clear devastation begins to reveal itself.

The director also uses music to add to the affect of different scenarios, for example if there’s action and Adrenalin in a scene the music will be fast and loud, but if its a tense or scary scene the music would be slow and quiet. An example of this is when Paul and Gregoire are on the river road and Paul falls out of the car the music all of a sudden stops and then when the dead bodies are revealed it plays a slow and sad song to display Paul’s emotion in the situation. Music really adds to the effect of the scene because it makes the scene more intense and that’s one of the ways you could make a film more engaging.

Another cinematographic technique that the director uses is camera angles. Camera angles really add to the tension of the film because he you uses several different angles. Different camera angles are used so that you can feel like your in the film and you feel all the emotion and the get the feel of it. Also you can see how the actors view it, so from the actors POV you can see what its like in that situation. We may not realise it but the camera is always changing angle so it can get the best out of the film. An example is when Paul has realised where he is and has seen all the dead bodies and stands up and the camera changes angle and films over the shoulder so when you see it, it feels like you are the actor seeing the devastation.

The director uses focus in Paul’s epiphany scene. Focus is used quite a lot in this scene mostly because the director wants the true horror of what is on the river road disguised while it is focusing on another subject. For example in the river road scene when Paul has fallen out of the car and is now stood up, the camera focuses on all the dead bodies ahead of Paul and blurs Paul out in the shot, even though you can see him he isn’t the main object you see because there’s a certain object for the camera to be focused on.

One of the most imperative effects is camera movement. Mostly because you can not shoot everything from only one perspective. We may not notice it but the camera moves and switches around 30 times in one scene this adds to the way you see the scene and makes it look more realistic and makes you feel like your actually in the scene. The camera moves to all different angles and points so that it can get the best out of the shot. An example of an effective camera movement is when Paul falls out of the car onto the floor the camera stays focused on the car door where Paul fell out of and then moved down to the floor once we had captured the moment of Paul falling out of the car, so falling out of the shot made it more effective.