Visuals in Film

David Clarkson, March 27, 2016, Visuals In Film

When we watched the abundance of films to understand the importance of visual effects in film, I was taken back by the amount of detail and depth that the visual aspects of film were able to portray. The first film we watched was in cartoon form, but the visual and audio effects allowed such a simple story and picture to portray a deep theme. The widow is living a stressed life after the death of her beloved husband. Though we were given no information on how he died, when he died, or how she feels about it, we can infer from her facial expressions, mood and anxiety that she is more than depressed about it. Her pain is further inflicted when a fly is buzzing all around her house as she is trying to bake herself dinner. Despite numerous unsuccessful attempts to purge the fly, the fly proceeds to ruin the dinner she is baking, as it spills her mix everywhere. Infuriated, the widow throws the fly and the dismantled mix into her oven, as she plans to bake the fly to death to suppress her depression and struggle. After a while, the oven begins to shake, and she cautiously moves towards it to see what is going on. She opens the oven and finds something that she had not been searching for, but needed all along. The oven transforms into a portal to what the viewers can safely assume is heaven, where she will be able to be re-united with her long lost lover, and leave the anxieties of the world behind. Sure enough the fly is the one leading her home. The same fly that we were so frustrated with in the beginning is the one who cared most for the widow all along. The simple visual and audio effects of this cartoon effectively attached the viewers to this story line, as it goes from frustration to happiness