Jaws Movie

       "Jaws" the movie was actually quite similar to the novel by Peter Benchley. Understandably, the movie producers could not incorporate every aspect of the novel due to the limited amount of screen time for a movie, but I felt that the movie grasped the main points of the novel. There was the major absence in the movie though. The affair between Hooper and Chief Brody's wife was left out. It took up a major chunk of the book but in the movie, Hooper actually managed to befriend Brody. The movie "Jaws" was created 1975. This limited the amount of realism that could be put in the movie. Computer effects were not yet advance enough to create a 3D model of a shark. So they created a life size mechanical model. I was amazed at the realism of the shark and I felt it played a major role in the film's conveying of fear. Three other elements also played a crucial role in the conveying of fear in the movie. Those elements are the music, irony, and contrast. The music created suspense in the movie, the famous sound of the shark is famous for creating suspense. I am quite familiar with musical elements so I decided to see what factors contributed to why the music was so suspenseful. The first part of the music is a slow thumping, as the music progresses it gets faster and faster. This gradual increase in tempo is a direct comparison to one's heart. The thumping creates fear and builds of suspense in speed until a certain event happens. This sound was key in the production of terror in a film that lacked visual realism. Irony also played a major role. For example, in the beach festival scene, it is bright and happy, but a terrible shark attack happened. That is ironic because you would not expect such a scary event to happen in a joy filled place. It fills the viewer with fear because it is an unexpected event. Contrast was probably the most key of the factors that made the film scary. There were constant switching in lighting, from the dark blue of the deadly sea, to the warm beach in the sunlight. Contrast happened in the music as well. There were slow music and fast music. The instruments also varied from base to high treble instruments. The sudden switch in these elements enhanced the effect of the scarier elements because you were jumping from a extremely happy scene to a darker one without warning. This gap in the element was important because it multiplied the scariness factor.