Full Metal Jacket - Cinematography

The first scene uses closes up of the young recruits getting their hair shaved and this gives meaning because it shows them moving from an individual to part of the group and they're losing their identity.

 Throughout the training scenes, they hardly use close ups again and this makes the first scene more important and memorable. The meaning of close ups is to see the emotion on the characters faces because then it gives a reaction to the audience watching. The next close up used is on Pyles and it uses a camera movement of zoom to get closer and during this you can see the built up and frustration in his face.

 When the sergeant is getting to know the characters lots of low angle shots are used to present him as a powerful person with a lot of authority. There are also various long shots used to show the audience around the setting; this creates meaning to the narrative because it shows the location and it gives a shocking feeling to the audience because of the extreme lengths that the soldiers have to go through. When Joker makes a joke at the beginning,  the drill sergeant shouts at him and Joker is located in the left hand side of the scene which shows the he is out of place and this is important because it shows that this character does not belong here at the moment.

 Similarly in the scene where Joker moves squads, he is reporting of deaths covered in lime and afterwards the sergeant is shouting at him and again Joker is placed to the left of the screen to show he is out of place, that he doesn't belong there and to the audience this could show that he should not be in the army. In combat that always use long shots because it presents the entire setting and how it looks. Also in combat there is someone filming them after a long day and there is tracking movement following them down the line. When running in combat there is handheld eye level shots and this creates effect because it feels as if you're actually in the movie and following them into combat.

 The difference between the training scenes and the combat is that there is hardly any close ups in the training because they hardly portray emotions, the only emotions they show is their anger and anger is shown alot in combat therefore there was a lot of close ups of them. There is a difference between situations because at training they're all grouped together with similar looks and in combat they've managed to expand and become their own person again.