Film Analysis. (I couldn't see the sequence so I went from memory)

The film Juno is a film directed by Jason Reitman. He is known for directing edgy unique films such as 'Men Woman and Children' and 'Sex and The City'.

Juno is a film, about a quirky teenage girl who becomes pregnant. Juno then decides to give the unborn child to adoptive parents. Complications begin when Mark (the prospective father) begins to see his relationship with Juno as more than just the mother of his future child, putting his marriage in jeopardy in the process.

Directors use a selection of camera shots, angles and proximities to show different things. Camera shots are used to show a perspective on a situation, whether the audience should see from an omnipresent view or a point of view shot. Camera shots is key in Juno because quite a lot of emotion portrayed in the film is none verbal, and to avoid using the same shots that won’t make the film interesting to look at. Close ups are used to limit what the audience an see so they focus of a specific area, this is to add the importance of the thing they are looking at, while proximities are used to show the relationship between two or more characters, this shot is mostly used in two shots. It is used in Juno a lot, where Rietman merges a mid-shot in with it so the audience can view the separation, or the closeness of the characters. For example where Juno tells her parents she is pregnant – she is close to her friend but distanced from her parents. Rietman uses interesting camera shots to communicate emotion, and even build up a décor on certain characters.  

The sequence begins with a close up shot of Juno’s face musing out of the car. Showing the reflection of the outside on the window. In shooting this shot like this it doesn’t just show the emotion and the scepticism on Juno’s face but it shows what Juno is actually thinking. Reitman chose to shoot this shot in this was to show Juno daydreaming, then to show what she’s daydreaming at – when then audience realises she isn’t looking at anything, but a street whizzing by, it builds on how confused and nervous she is of meeting the potential adoptive parents.

This scene then cuts to a series of 7 long shots of houses, but the first 3 houses are repeated with the final house being the actual destination. Rietman chooses to repeat the houses to emphasize on how confused Juno and her father are. Also illustrate the verisimilitude of the situation because in reality if something like that was to happen it wouldn’t be out of the expected (getting lost). Looking closer on this section of scene, the selection of shot used for the houses were almost used as establishing shots, to give the audience of the location they are in -  that there area is quite wealthy.

I think this sequence is very interesting, because we see the introduction to the Loring’s and how they are as people. I think the scene where Reitman chose to do close ups of Vanessa’s hands illustrated what type of person she is, to the audience they could have interpreted this to be a perfectionist hands o type of person, and that is what Vanessa turns out to be.