'Elephant' Cinematography

The film 'Elephant' is based on a true story about a day in the lives of a group of average teenage high school students. The film follows every character and shows their daily routines. However two of the students, (Eric and Alex) two close friends and students in a suburb of Portland, calmly plan and perform a mass execution of their classmates and school administrators in the course of a day. This film is heavily influenced by the Alan Clarke TV drama from 1989 of the same name (Elephant - 1989). Both films chronicle senseless killings and contain many long an wandering takes of its main characters.
The opening shot of this film is of the sky, which looks dull and gloomy. It is quite a long shot, showing time passing as it changes from day to night. This shot is shown a few times throughout the film, to pass the time meaning only the important parts are shown. The second time this happens, we hear thunder, suggesting something bad is going to happen.
This film if full of tracking shots, following each of the characters to show what they do in their daily routine. Tracking shots allow the audience to follow the characters lives, and also makes them feel part of the scene. It also helps us to learn more about the characters, so we feel more sorry for them when they're killed at the end, for example, the geeky girl in the red top, she appears to get bullied when she's done nothing wrong. They help build suspense, as we want it to hurry up and show us whats going to happen.
At the beginning of the film there is a pan following the drunk dads car as he swerves down the road. This allows us to see where he is going, makes us feel part of the scene. There is also another pan when the students are sat in their classroom. The camera pans each of the characters faces, we are able to clearly see their facial expressions, and see what they're doing. In the scene where the boy is in his bedroom, the camera pans around it showing us whats in his room. This lets us learn more about the character and tells us what he's like.
There is one scene in 'Elephant' that is repeated three times, but each time it follows a different characters actions. The photographer guy stops to talk to the blonde guy in the corridoor and takes a photo of him, then the girl in the red top runs past. The first time this is shown, we follow what the blonde guy does, then the second time its shown we follow the photographer, and the third time we see where the girl in the red is running to. She appears to be in a hurry. It allows us to see what happens to each of the characters.
When Alex and Eric are in the bedroom, they are playing a video game where they are shooting bad guys. There is a point of view shot as we see the screen as if we were playing the game. It allows us to feel part of the scene, the same as at the end when the boys begin their massacre and we see one of them shoot someone. Again it is a point of view shot, so we can see it from the caracters perspective.
The non-diegtic music in most of the film is calm and sounds classical, but occassionally we hear a sinister change, for example when we are following the lifeguard at the beginning, its calm, but then a bit of it sounds like a knife being sharpened. The film ends on a cliffhanger, we dont see if he kills the couple in the freezer. We want to know if they live, so we want to watch on.
Overall I wouldn't say this is one of my favourites, but it was definately a great film to write about as there are many techniques used.