American Comedy-Drama Film Up in the Air - Essay Example

The film has won several awards in screenplays and nominations. This analysis looks at ‘Up in the Air' film with particular reference to its music, sound, continuity, and editing among other aspects of movie analysis.

Music and soundtrack
‘Up in the Air’ film features different music including songs by; The Black Keys, (Black Keys member gone solo), Elliot Smith, Dan Auerbach’s ‘which is quite good stuff between’ and Crosby. Other artists that the film features include Sad Brad Smith, Stills & Nash, and Sharon Jones & the Dap among others. In an actual analysis of the music in this film, most of the songs featured can make up a 12-track soundtrack CD (Schuker, & Lauren, 2009). Furthermore, the film also includes Kevin Renick’s titular song ‘Up in the Air’. This is the song that plays in the closing credits of the film and is about uncertainty, loneliness, and disconnection where career transition is eluded. ‘Up in the Air’ is a melancholy song that also narrates about where one expects his or her life to go. ‘Angel in the Snow’ song by Elliot Smith is also included in the soundtrack of the movie. Analysts reveal that the application of this song is one of the best uses of music within a film (French, 2010).

Continuity
In any filmmaking process, continuity is always an important threshold worth meeting, whereby a series of shots and casts are required to be physically continuous such that the cinema appears only to change angles during a single event. Technically speaking, it is the responsibility of the film director in this case Jason Reitman, and the script supervisor who is responsible for keeping continuity in the film. ‘Up in the Air’ presents different dates of casting which also took place in different cities (Abramowitz, 2009). This calls for professional editing to enhance the continuity of the film at the best-recommended levels. For instance, the film was mostly cast in the St. Louis area, although other cities like Omaha, Missouri, and Detroit are also featured. The filming of ‘Up in the Air’ commenced in March 2009 continuing to the end of April, including more than 80 locations and featuring heavy product placement with American Airlines, Hilton Hotels, Hertz, and even Chrysler (Schuker, & Lauren, 2009). Therefore, with all these details and the complexity of issues to be included, it can be deduced that ‘Up in the Air’ Film achieved some great milestones as far as its continuity is concerned.

Editing
It will be realized that ‘Up in the Air’s’ post-production schedule was much shorter in comparison to the previous films done by Jason Reitman. The editing of this film lasted between 16 to 17 weeks as opposed to the usual editing period which is normally between 22 to 26 weeks (Abramowitz, 2009). This is attributed to the fact that Reitman was heavily involved in the post-production of the movie during the shooting. Moreover, the entire shooting of the film took place on location. Scenes would be sent to the film chief editor every day as soon as they were ready from the source (Schuker, & Lauren, 2009). Editing of the film was quite essential in determining how the nonverbal moments shaped the cast characters i.e. Alex and Ryan’s meeting who then became lovers. Such a scene presents some sort of playfulness as editors in this case Dana E. Glauberman would put it. The film editor even reveals that the characters gave each other very few looks forcing the editor to stay even much longer just to point out the little sparkle in the faces of Ryan and Alex (Schuker, & Lauren, 2009). This can be seen when the screen plays a lot of playfulness from the characters in the quick cut forth and back when the two are teasing each other. In other scenarios, Vera tends to give a little eyebrow, or George does the same thing. All these are editorial efforts as the tiny nuances become helpful in showing what traits of the characters and what they are after.

Conclusion
It can be deduced that ‘Up in the Air’ is categorized as one of the state of the art films that have earned it several accolades from various nominations and awards that range from the film direction, screenplay, and editing to the superb performance of the film three main actors namely Vera Farmiga, George Clooney and Anna Kendrick who received different nominations as the film itself bagged up to six Academy Awards. Read More