I chose a scene from the Movie “The Butterfly Effect” starring Ashton Kutcher. The scene I chose was, in my opinion, powerful and efficient in demonstrating to the audience, both a feeling and a visual. The movie takes the main character on journeys of what if’s and how comes. In fact, the movie consists of cuts into a new life depending on slight changes in his past that he changes in a desperate attempt to modify his future. Flashbacks are vital to the story and the scene I chose has one of my favorite flashbacks. The section I chose takes place in four settings and the directors make the transitions between each crystal clear.
We start the scene with the main character in his room attempting to go back into his childhood traumatic experience to once again try to alter his life and make things right. So when we transition from his room to his past, the narrator's voice slurs, the image blurs and we appear in a scene from his childhood.The scene goes from a darkly lit room with scarce light to a brightly lit day with intentional over exposure created by changing the color schemes through the editing process. To get from the present to the past, the camera runs a 360 view of the main character slowly zooming into the main character until we reach a close up of his face and the face distorts and we appear in this scene of his past. That scene ends with an explosion and quickly cuts to a dim lit close up of the main character in his bed emphasizing he is back in the present. This is the longest scene and the camera alters between him and the couple in the bed next to him. The next transition is his new memories of his two friends were we see their relationship and his childhood memories with them. Those memory lapses are done purposely with an lsd type background and has a very short but quick message. While he is spazzing he is seeing the happy couple and it’s further messing with his mind. This lsd type scene is split into two parts to keep us bay by taking us back to reality and his spasms back to the past. From there we transition to the final scene which stays in present day and it is him being rolled away in the wheelchair through the halls.
All the transitions are clear, strong and compliment the story. Every time he changes his past his story is different so it is important for the audience to capture as much as possible in each new altered life. This sequence executes it well and allows the audience to follow the story through the exact way the shots and scenes are placed.
