Dirty Dancing Continuation

Dirty Dancing Continuation

Most of today’s cinematic techniques originated form as used in classic films such as dirty dancing. All 106 scenes from the film, have utilized cinematic language to contribute to the mood and message of the film. However, the opening scene, as well as the closing scene, are the most spectacular in its usage. The two scenes utilize techniques such as sound design, editing within a scene, camera movement, shot composition, and lighting design.

The Opening Scene

Sound Design

The entire dirty dancing is a perfect example of why sound theory matters. In particular, the opening scene starts in slow motion with black and white footage of people dancing the song ‘Be my Baby’ which gives Frances the nickname Baby. An opening voiceover sets the plot; then, it becomes the essential concept that comes into play in differentiating the diegetic and non-diegetic sounds of the film. The diegetic sound comes from the car’s radio while the commentary of the story comes from the unseen narrator. This disparities in the sound form the relationship between the audience and actions of the movie. With the design, the viewers reinforce their separation fo the past from the present by looking back at their love lives as wiser individuals.

Camera Movement

The concept of camera movement is a powerful cinematic technique used in the film. The three most potent camera movements used in this scene include the zoom, the tracking shot, and the tilt. As Johnny and Baby dance, the camera zooms at their faces. The camera increases its focal length to magnify the faces of Baby and Johnny so that the audience can see their facial expressions that show they are in love with each other. The scene’s tracking shot involves the camera moving backward, forward, and right or left in real space. Thus, the movement covers controlled distances of the characters’ dance moves. This steady camera movement following baby and Johnny as they dance move shows their intimacy which is significant for the movie’s title. With the tilt, the camera moves up and down to introduce the other charters in the film. However, the audience sees mostly the other women’s breasts and not their faces as a representation of the film’s emphasis on felinity.

Editing Within A Scene

The scene utilizes a J cut editing technique. When this type of cut is used, the audience hears the audio before seeing the video. In this scene, the audience is looking at the clip where people are dancing while still hearing a sound from the film’s narrator. The J cut is utilized in a manner that keeps the flow of the edit, moving compellingly. Thus, the J cut gives the audience additional visual information to gain a better understanding of the environment in which Johnny and Baby exist. However, since J cuts can only convey a voice with no emotional queues, the film’s editor utilizes the character of Baby to give us the emotions of the scene as the movie cuts back and forth on Baby’s who expresses her awakens in search of love.

The Final Scene

Sound Design

The film’s sound design creates an audio environment that engages the viewers and supports onscreen actions. For instance, in the final scene, the design choreographs the dance to the song “The Time of My Life”.  Johnny dances with Baby before jumps off the stage into the audience and the movie shifts into slow motion. However, the music still progresses at the average non-diegetic speed to underline the breakdown of boundaries. Therefore, the leap acts a natural transition of the broken barriers between the patron and performers, good girls and bad boys, upper-middle-class and the working class, and fiction and reality. At the end of the scene, the dancing fades slowly, but the music is left playing, implying that Johnny and baby’s love story is over, but the viewers’ continues.

Shot Composition

Concerning shot composition, the film strays from the rule of the thirds principle. As a result, it creates a static structure. Hence, instead of having two horizontal lines and two vertical lines that creating three sections of the same size and dimension, the scene has the majority of the lines being horizontal. Therefore, the frame appears to have several equal vertical parts. Also, the framework of the film is blurred by two layers of arches at the back of the stage that make Jonny and Baby appear more visible concerning the distance between the stage and the people in the show. This symmetry of the lines communicates perfection in the dance. It intensifies the situation as though Johnny and Baby are a perfect couple even though they had come across a lot of challenges in the course of their relationship.

Lighting Design

The film’s production remarkably produced interior effects in a variety of lighting techniques. LEDs have been utilized to lit the movie and enhance the scene through automated changes in the visuals from pinks, hot reds to oranges. These changes in colors are used to manipulate the emotions of the audience on both the conscious and subconscious levels. The soft pinks are associated with childhood romance involving teenagers and also represents baby’s innocence and purity. The meaning accompanying red signifies feelings of passion and love between Baby and Johnny and evoke such feelings in the audience. When used in a film, orange registers a sense of transformation. The society in this film is about to undergo some changes that involve breaking of norms that had prevented the various groups of people in the movie from interacting freely with each other.