Moonrise Kingdom Analysis

We wanted to replicate and take inspiration from Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom (2012) for Daniel’s Kite, using its cinematography techniques and visual style to enhance our films themes. Wes Anderson is renowned for his use of extreme wide’s, whip pans, dolly tracks and stylised costume and set design to draw the audience into the fantasy worlds that his films are set in. We want to use some of these techniques to the same effect so our audience can view Daniel’s Kite through the eyes of Daniel and immerse themselves in the narrative.

The wides in Moonrise Kingdom are predominantly used to establish the location of the scene and the characters within it, whilst also allowing the audience to absorb the Mise en scene.

This is so the audience gets the full view of the scene and can understand the characters emotions and reactions within it.

The wides are always symmetrical in some way, either with the main focus of the shot being centre frame or, if there’s more than one focus, both in symmetrical positions in the frame.

Focus centre frame

Symmetry between man and lighthouse (2 focuses of frame)

Not only does this make the images very visually aesthetic, but it also encourages the audience to look at the important character or object first and then allows them to take in the rest of the shot.

We have a number of extreme wides in Daniels’s Kite for similar reasons, mainly to establish new locations that build on the themes within the scene. For example the opening wide used in the gym sequence is used to set Daniel in a new location as well as to introduce the theme of isolation and not fitting in connoted through the lack of anything stimulating imagery contained in the shot.

We hoped that using this framing would allow the audience to see the scene through the eyes of a child by making the gym seem abnormally large and empty, the way Daniel sees it, which would help them empathise with him, ultimately encouraging them to be immersed in the narrative more.

The set design is another huge factor in creating the fantasy world of the narrative, as it is the key component that allows the audience to believe the film they’re seeing is real. Moonrise Kingdom’s set and costume design has a very quirky and childlike theme to it, as well as all being from the same era. This makes the story more believable and easier to engage with because as the film progresses, it becomes less noticeable and more acceptable to push the boundaries of reality without the audience disengaging.

 We have attempted to replicate this in our film to reproduce the same emotions within our audience and so the narrative isn’t jarring in places we don’t want it to be.

Wes’s use of dolly tracks are also a very stylised part of the cinematography of his films, which usually feature when following a character or object through a scene.

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They tend to be quite fast paced which help build up suspense and adds tension to the narrative, whilst also making it flow more smoothly instead of cutting from one static shot to the next. This essentially draws the audience’s attention away from the editing and cuts within a scene, allowing them to, once again, immerse themselves in the narrative.

We’ve occasionally mimicked these types of shot in Daniel’s Kite mainly to help the narrative flow from freely and to keep the fantasy feel to certain scenes. They also make the visuals more interesting by physically showing the audience what we want them to see, instead of making them search for it themselves over a wide.

Finally, Moonrise Kingdom uses a fair few whip pans to add to its broad range of cinematography techniques. Wes makes the camera act as the audience’s eye as if they were in the scene by panning on sound cues to reveal gags or narrative points. (4 seconds in here)

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Originally, we had storyboarded whip pans into Daniels Kite to be used mainly as humorous and quirky ways to reveal gags. However, due to lack of experience and time we couldn’t execute them effectively so we had to work around it by either cheating physical space, to continue the theme of seeing the film through a child’s eye, or by just cutting them all together.