Forrest Gump Film Analysis

In the film industry they use something called elements to explain what is going on in the storyline, and in the movie Forrest Gump, the way they used different film elements helps in the explanation of the plot and assists in moving the storyline along. The different elements that I will be talking about are Effects, Costumes, and Camera movement/transitions.

In Forrest Gump they used many different effects to emphasize and explain exactly what is happening. One way that they describe what is happening in the film is by using effects to create things like a napalm bombing. For those of you who do not know what napalm is, it is a super hot fire bomb used in war to decimate any and all enemies in the range of where the fire is started. Another example is when Lieutenant Dan’s leg is blown off. Obviously they didn’t actually take his legs off, so they had to use a green screen wrap on his legs to make it look like he has no legs anymore. One last example of effects used in Forrest Gump is the storm that destroyed all the shrimping ships except Forrests’ ship. So here we see that in many films including Forrest Gump
The tracking pan movement to show movement, like when Gump’s squad in the Vietnam war got attacked by the Vietnamese and the camera panned across the blow zone where the soldiers took cover. Then there's the low angle shot is used to make someone look powerful or showing how much taller something is than you or another subject, such as when Gump meets up with Lieutenant Dan and the camera is down at Dan’s level looking up at Gump. Or when they use the dutch tilt when Gump is going with Dan to a bar, this shows uneasiness and maybe even sketchiness. See that camera movements really help showing either enough detail in a film to understand it better or to add drama in a minor yet major