Editing: Blog task

For this task I have chosen a scene from 'The good the bad and ugly' as it seems to be a well edited scene that runs for quite a long time and holds many expectations for the audience and fulfils this by building up the scene with various shots and scenes and the sound also contributes towards this. There is definitely a reason that the characters become involved in civil war beyond being able to include a brilliant battle scene. If there is a message to the film i believe it is: How a person acts in war is a true test of how good or bad a person they are. In this version of the west every character is greedy and has shady motives but war highlights their true level of morality.

As this scene begins we are shown the three characters who are in middle of a cemetery which is shown twice and the first shots is a medium close up of one of the characters looking around and their position is reestablished. Their bodies are shown with medium close ups with eye line matches with each other which help to communicate relationship between the characters. Then we see three over the shoulder shots which reestablishes the scenes spacial relationship as the characters look a each other in specific order. Then we see their weapons in close ups and all these shots are all conveyed through different order of the characters. Then once again we get medium close ups of the three characters and then close ups again i various different orders.

The shots the directer uses next are to give us a foreshadow of what the characters are thinking and what will be happening as the scene proceeds  and this expresses the  mental relationship between them. This is done through their facial expressions that are given to us in various ways by conveying the shots of characters in numerous ways by repeating this. One of the characters is given a special set of shots and this depicts that we know what he is doing and he will be in control during majority of this scene. However one of the other characters eyes are shifting back and fourth which illustrates to us he doesn't know what to do and he is confused or scared. This character gets the same amount of shots as the other character portraying they are equal. These characters are Good and ugly. furthermore the character bad is depicted as if he is facing a crisis as more shots are portrayed and seems to be that he is holding responsibility. However editing in this specific moment is used significantly as the good and ugly are linked together through these shots. As the close up ugly's face follows a close up of Good's.

The pairings of these shots are significant because of the way the director has chosen them to be like that as the eye line matches  of their faces and eyes meet and they build up gradually depicting their relation isn't that good and the way of communication between good and ugly. However this reinforces the nervousness for bad as he is looking back and fourth each time nervously not having anyone to support him in this case.As the pace picks up it becomes faster and this brings out more tension amongst the scene and the gun from the Good's hand and this was expected as the pace picks up. Therefore a juxtaposition is created as all the character shots follow each other which hint to the audience that violence will take place during this scene.

Also the Mise en scene aspect of this particular scene is quite significant as the use of costume props and lighting is highly noticeable as the use of the high key lighting, in the long shots in the close ups,combine to highlight the expansiveness, desolation of the location while at the same time heightening the dramatic impact of the scene. 
As the shooting begins we see that the character ugly doesn't really know what he is doing which agrees with the audiences expectations as the continuity of the characters shots portrayed this very well as he remains confused and quite nervous till this point of the scene.