Money Heist camera angle overview

I decided to comment over several angles used to film the 2017 Spanish TV show "Casa de Papel". I chose this TV show, because it consist of my two favorite genres crime and thriller. It fits into these two categories, because the crime being committed is the robbery of the Royal Mint of Spain. It is thriller because it is always a mystery as to what is going to happen to the robbers and whether or not they will get away with the crime being committed.

This scene shows the character Denver mourning over his father, Moscow, after he got shot by the police for opening the doors to the Mint to let Tokyo in. The camera angle depicted in this scene is a choker. This is a choker shot because it is a “tight close-up, usually only showing a subjects face”. Here the majority of Denver’s face occupies the screen. Due to how close the camera is to his face we are clearly able to see his face and the emotions that are being expressed by him. The choker shot invokes a feeling of mourning, pain, and loss. This is because we see his pain in losing his father and feel empathy for him.

The following picture is from the scene in where they hold what would be a burial ceremony for Moscow. Here we can see both Moscow’s and Oslo’s coffin. Standing behind the coffins you can see all of the remaining robbers standing in a line mourning the loss of their friends and work companion. This shot can be seen as a full body shot, because “it captures the subject’s entire body head to toe”. From this shot one can see the body language being portrayed by the characters. They are all standing with their heads bowed down, arms either crossed or dangling by their side. This gives us the full effect of how they are feeling about the death of both Oslo and Moscow, since we are able to read their body language.

The shot shown here is a close-up (CU) of a small candle that was placed on the top of Moscow’s coffin. This is a close-up shot because its “an isolated part of the subject or object, such as the head or hand”. All though there is no character or action occurring in this shot it still gives off a powerful emotion and feeling. This shot emphasizes the simplicity of the ceremony as well as, signifying that there is no coming back. Both Moscow and Oslo cannot come back, they are gone forever. However, the candle can also signify that there is light at the end of the tunnel for the rest of the characters.

The last picture is from the scene in which the characters had already successfully executed the heist on the Spanish National Mint and are no in process of executing their second heist on the National Spanish Bank. This is a low-angle shot because it’s “a shot filmed down low, often looking up at the subjects. Here one can see civilians looking up at the white blimp with the symbolic red mask painted on it. This shot really emphasizes how high the blimp is flying, since the characters although appearing big are still deemed small by the immense skyscrapers in the background. This shot makes the viewer disoriented, because of the strange angle in which it is being filmed.