Critique of a scene - Glee The Break Up

Glee is an American musical comedy drama television series which is written by Ryan Murphy, Ian Brennan and Brad Falchuk. In all of the scenes in Glee they use single camera techniques this is because of the location of their shoots. This scene is called the break up scene. In this scene Rachel played by Lea Michele breaks up with Finn who was played by Cory Monteith. Rachel breaks up with Finn after he is drafted into the army and goes missing for four months. In this scene they have an argument about Rachel living in New York and following her dreams of being on Broadway while Finn says that his life has no direction and is stuck living in Ohio. The reason for this is because he had been kicked out of the army and doesn't have a college to go to. Also in this scene they talk about how Rachel has a new boyfriend who is a Broadway star and is the complete opposite to Finn. This is one of my favourite scenes because of how intense it is, there is a lot of emotions in this scene and I think that the two actors do well in capturing them.

In this scene there isn't a lot of different camera angles this is because they are mostly close ups. But the camera does change it now and again to get a point of view shot this is so that we can see how that character feels in that particular moment. There is also an over the shoulder shot this just shows the back of Finn's back while Rachel is still talking to him, this is used as a way of showing his body language. There is an extreme wide angle this is used to show the positioning of the characters, this angle is used to show their body language which shows how mad each of the characters are. In this wide angle you see that they are in the dark auditorium. The colour that they are wearing matches with the scenery as everything in the scene is back, this suggests that this is going to be quite an emotional scene. The wide angle also shows Rachel walking closer to Finn. There is a panning shot where Rachel runs towards Finn and the camera, this shot is used along with her talking and body language it just shows how mad she is. It ends with an extreme close up of Rachel's face, then an extreme wide angle of them together. The wide angle is used to show how intimate the scene is and finally an over the shoulder shot where Rachel is walking off. 

Images from the scene

The sequence of this shot is very important because the camera switches between both of the characters, this is done to show how each of them is feeling, the camera focuses a lot more on Rachel than it does on Finn because she is doing most of the talking. It focuses on Finn when he is talking or Rachel is asking him a rhetorical question and is making him feel guilty. The sequence is important because at the start the shots are a lot faster because of the intensity of it but after they get into the scene and the argument calms down the shots are a lot slower this is to reflect the mood of the characters. 

The music in the scene is really soft and gentle this is because the voices are intense and there is a lot of screaming. Unless you listen carefully you will miss the sound of the music because of the calmness of it compared to the voices. The main focus in this scene is the dialogue this is because it is the most important part of this scene. The music stops in places when the conversation gets louder as the music would be too overpowering but when there is no talking the music gets louder, this is so that the actors don't have to speak throughout the scene. At the end the music gets louder as they stop talking, there is no special effects. 

Compared to the other scenes where the editing started off as slow in this scene the editing starts off as fast this is because of the emotion in this scene. In this scene there is mostly cut shots where they go straight back to the other actor to see their facial expressions. Although there is an L cut show at the end to cut back after they kiss, this is used to show everything behind them. 

This scene was incredibly hard for both of the actors to shoot because of how emotionally draining it was because of the amount of crying and screaming in the scene. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avk_MZ2Fi1Y - 13th October

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glee_(TV_series) -13th October

http://realitytvmagazine.sheknows.com/2012/10/22/lea-michele-dishes-on-rachel-finn-breakup/ - 13th October