Kill Bill Volume 1 Camera Movement Analysis

In the scene sequence from "Kill Bill Volume One" the director Quentin Tarintino uses panoramic travelling to establish where the scene setting is which is a Japanese club. The panoramic travelling and the scene setting also help to create a pace for the scene, which is initially at a moderate pace to ease the audience into the scene.

The tracking is then focused on Uma Thurman (The Bride), the use of this tracking shows that she has a definite sense of directionality. The close up angle helps set the mood of this character as she has a look of determination on her face, giving the audience one perspective of this scene. The smooth movement helps reinforce that she is on a designated mission.

The horizontal tracking view smoothly manoeuvres to a birds eye view to show more than one focus in this scene. Tracking shows the journey of the one character whereas the birds eye view shot showed not only the journey but the goings on in the rest of the building, such as the illegal drug lab parallel to the corridor. This shows that the innocent club is just a false cover-up to what actually goes on in that building. This helps the audience to understand the scene.

The use of subjective camera shows other characters movements. This is good for establishing the overall environment and emotions of particular characters. This is used in this scene to follow the landlady's movements. This also sets a faster pace, and as the camera angle is mid shot the audience can clearly see the facial expressions and hand gestures from a particular character. The use of backwards tracking limits the view of the audience to just the landlady and her male companions mid shot. This is tension building as we cant see whats going on around these two characters.

Panning and tracking is used to link two different characters movements. It is used to pass the focus of the scene from the landlady to the companion of Lucy Liu (O-Ren Ishii) This is also shows the setting again to remind the audience where they are after the viewing of the drug lab and the heightened tension created by the landlady. Again the changing of camera movement resets the pace yet again, the pace is slower and following this character over the shoulder in contrast to the fast paced backwards tracking of the landlady.

The tracking on this character builds tension as the focus on this new character allows the audience to view this scenario as an omniscient viewer.

The smooth manoevers between camera movements and angles are effective as it shows the audience different perspectives of the same scene. Also the angles help the audience understand the scene by showing the emotions of each o the characters. Another benefit of smooth camera movement is that it helps to show the linear sequence of events.