Get Out of the Water---JAWS

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…I decide to discuss JAWS. In the movie JAWS there are many innovative and memorable shots used. I already talked about these shots a little bit in my first post. However, I plan on going much deeper into detail into details in this post.


I will start with one shot that is very interesting. There is a part of the movie where Hooper goes in a cage and into the water. If you notice this portion of the movie there is a real shark, not the animatronic shark. The way they captured this portion of the movie was they went to an area where there was actual Great White sharks and they lowered a cage into the water. The sharks would not attack the cage like they wanted, but by luck a large Great White became entangled in to rope holding the cage. The shark began to panic because it was caught in the rope. The shark began to trash about eventually bringing the entire cage down, and creating an exciting shot.

The next shot I want to discuss is the opening scene where the girl swimming is killed. The girl is swimming and is grabbed by the shark and is shaken back and forth. The way the did it was a pulley system with ropes. They created a type of harness where they could connect ropes to the actress and then all the way to the beach. When they wanted the actress to be pulled the guys on the beach simply ran back and forth to create the jerking effect. This shot is effective because it demonstrates the power of the shark without actually showing its size. I guess I am trying to say to get a sense of the size of the shark and a fear for its power without ever actually seeing him.


Now for the beach scene there is a lot going on here so try and follow me. First off Chief Brody is sitting on the beach nervously watching the swimmers and to show his nervousness the director constantly has bathers with different colored swimsuits walking in front of the camera in different directions. After each bather “wipes” the shot the camera will be zoomed in or out already. This works well to create a nervous atmosphere and tension. The next shot, which I alluded to in an earlier post, has to be one of the all time greatest shots. As soon as Chief Brody sees the Kittner boy being eaten the camera zooms in on him, but not normally. The set the camera up on a type of track so the camera physically moved closer to Brody, but the camera was panning out. This creates a great effect of the actor not moving at all, but the scene around him is being distorted. Hitchcock used the same technique in his films.


The great thing about the movie is that you do not see the shark until half way through the movie and when you finally see it, it is stunning. The thing about the reveal that is great though is it is preceded by a joke Brody is doing a chum line and he tells Quint, “Why don’t you come down here and chum some of this shit.” At that point the shark pops out of the water, which works great in the movie. First the audience is relaxed by the joke and then stunned by the reveal of the shark, which makes it very memorable. The scene where the shark is first seen is followed by the most famous line from the movie, “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.”