In this essay I will answer the question : How does the director of the film Hotel Rwanda uses cinematographic techniques to increase the impact of the selected “Riverside” scene . 

The Director uses a combination of different shots,sounds,techniques and settings to make up the scene.

All through the movie we see Paul’s face for a reaction before anything else . Like when Paul saw all the dead bodies on the road before we saw that their was a close up on Paul’s face . The director does this to show us Paul’s reaction ,it shows us the seriousness of what he’s seeing and by looking at his face we see some emotions like Guilt,Sadness,Despair and anger . Paul feels guilty because he ignored the situation in the early stages and acted like it was nothing. Paul will feel sad because he’s seeing all these dead people . Paul will feel despair because he cant help and feels as if all is lost . Paul is also a little bit angry because all his people are being killed by each other over nonsense and all of this is all over his face . 

Doing the close up on Paul is one of the many shots the director has made to make up the movie . He uses a combination of shots and angles to give off a certain feel . When Paul fell out of car the director purposely let him fall out of the shot this is to make it more realistic and to hide what’s on the floor . When they were driving their was heavy fog covering the car and they couldn’t see anything and director use a number of shots to explain this to you . Shots from the back of the car , shots of the car and the fog surrounding it and over the shoulder shots from Paul so you could see that they could not  see because Paul sees everything before us the director uses certain shots to hide the dead bodies so we cant see them. So when Paul fell out of the shot and the story is about him it makes it look a lot more realistic . The director use different angles to change the feel of it . When Paul fell out of the car their was a close up of his face horrified . and the a shot of a dead girl and then the fog clears off showing us what they were driving on . The director make it look like they were face to face by how she shot them both close ups and both sideways .

When Paul is looking at the dead girl you head a sound of a machete which is not in the scene (non dietetic) . The director uses alot of non dietetic sounds to give a feel to some scenes , he uses sounds like mournful African music  for a feel of sadness and fear and he uses the machete sound for shock . These different sounds gives the scenes a certain scary , sad feel .