The Opening scene of “Reservoir Dogs” analysis.

This is Ryan Cross, Ryan Carman and Joe Claxton deconstruction and analysis of the opening diner scene of the Quentin Tarantino film “Reservoir Dogs”. The reason we are looking into a Quentin Tarantino film is because he is a well known director in the crime genre who made a name for himself for his unique use of modern culture with film conventions and when considering his camera work, he uses significantly less cuts and edits because his shots last longer and are more in-depth. A perfect example of this is the first scene of his film Reservoir dogs in which he uses panning shots around the table of a diner where the main characters are sitting and talking.

The Panning shots are much longer then most films and this is unconventional for a crime film as they are fast paced and quick cut films, the reason they last longer as shots is to keep a slower pace to the film and to keep emphasis on the modern culture dialogue.
The panning shots go round the table last for two minutes, occasionally changing points around the table and most shots going round the same direction. After the panning shots, the camera goes to over shoulder shots. During the panning shots the camera rarely shows the person talking but rather shows other character’s reactions, this is different with the over shoulder shots which changes to explicitly showing the person who is talking only. This could be connected to the fact that the panning are shots are unconventional for a dialogue themed scene as is also the fact that the camera not showing who is talking, whereas the over-shoulder shots are more conventional and the camera showing the person talking is as well. This could be Tarantino’s way of comparing the conventional and unconventional methods.