Loud and Clear
Every movie has a message, a key point it is trying to portray. Each aspect of that film is trying to support this message, making it apparent in every scene. The tone, special effects, and actors in any film can drastically change how a message is seen and understood. Global warming is an important world issue, and the film industry is now trying to send the world the message. “The Day After Tomorrow” and “The Inconvenient Truth” use a variety of movie-making techniques to deliver the same message: the absolute and pressing dangers of global warming.
The movie “The Day After Tomorrow” was directed by Roland Emmerich and is an action packed movie based in New York City. When intense weather hits the world, the survivors are trapped, forced to survive on nothing but their basic instincts. They fight for survival and start to truly understand the negative impact global warming has on the world.
“The Inconvenient Truth” is a documentary directed by Davis Guggenhiem and staring Al Gore. This film goes into depth with global warming, explaining the issues and causes of such a major trend. Most of the film is spent at one of Al Gore’s global warming presentations.
Tone is very important when determining how a message will be interpreted. Tone can be formal or informal, serious or funny, upbeat or dark. That tone sets the mood for the entire movie. In “The Day After Tomorrow”, the tone was adventurous and informal. This tone kept the movie interesting and geared towards a larger audience. This tone helped to send a message by keeping the audience intrigued and showing the worst-case scenario. An example of this tone is when the characters talk about the storms. They use a very informal language that describes these gigantic storms. On the other hand, “The Inconvenient Truth” shows a very formal and realistic tone when delivering the message. This tone drives cold hard facts into the minds of the audience. This tone can limit your audience, but can also be more effective. The real life, honest tone in the film is a wake-up call that cannot be misinterpreted. Throughout the film, the character has a very calm and precise tone that states facts rather than ideas, which is an excellent way to deliver a movie message.
Another way a film can choose to deliver a message is through special effects. Special effects can be anything from animation to full blown false scenes. “The Day After Tomorrow” uses high-tech special effects to help the audience visualize the future of global warming. This film heavily relies on special effects to show global warming as they are using an unrealistic and exaggerated view on the subject. For example, a scene of the city is digitally modified to have a huge wave coming towards the main characters. Special effects show the point the movie is trying to make. In contrast, “The Inconvenient Truth” uses very little special effects to enhance the main point of the film. Little special effects leave behind only raw facts. Short animations were used to help the audience understand, but most of the film was the characters recorded presentations on global warming. Without special effects, there is