I chose this photo #7 in this array of pictures for LA Confidential. This is a medium shot, because you can see the characters until below their waste. The room is well illuminated, including the entire family, with shadows only creeping in around the fancy china behind the wife. This shot includes the entire family within the boundaries of the frame as well. This image is the stereotypical 1950’s happy family and all of the family members are appropriately dressed up, with clean clothes and perfectly combed hair. The mother, just finishing cooking the dinner, the father, gazing down at the delicious food. Then there are the kids, a boy and a girl, acting very polite with their hands crossed over their laps and are all dressed up. This photo is the director trying to show the contrasts between the perfect LA family stereotype with the misery and violence that actually surrounds the city.
I chose shot #2 from double Indemnity. This is a low angle shot, because the camera was positioned at the bottom of the staircase. This shot could be argued as a point of view shot, but we are not certain that she is looking directly at the camera. The camera is also at a medium to long shot, because we can see the majority of Phyllis body, who is in the center of the frame. This shot is very similar to the shot we saw in LA, because both are in actuality, completely deceiving. These two photos also contrast each other, because the LA photo is what we expect from 1950’s culture, but in double Indemnity, we see the risky move the director made to have Phyllis with little clothes on. We see Phyllis figure, just after she went tanning. Her lack of clothing also alludes to her deception. The low angle of the camera looks up upon her as some sort of innocent beautiful god, further illustrated by the sunlight giving her a very clear back light. But in reality, she is a selfish, backstabbing, evil person, who openly admitted that she uses other people for her own gain.
