The director of Hotel Rwanda uses cinematographic techniques to develop tension in Paul’s ‘Epiphany’ Scene in many ways. The reason why they would like to create tension in that scene and in Hotel Rwanda in general is because the director wants you to put you self in their shoes and discover what its like for them because in the world its not always perfect as it seems just because we live in a more comfortable place where we can relax and enjoy ourselves and know that we are protected, but in Hotel Rwanda that is not the case because there is a civil war there people getting brutally murdered in cold blood because they are not in the same group as you and this is why they would like to create the atmosphere,image and devastation in your heads.

In the Paul’s ‘Epiphany’ scene there is a lot of cinematographic techniques.First of all Paul is getting confronted by George while Gregoire is watching. George says that he will kill all the Tutsi’s and he wanted help from Paul, he also said to Paul if he helped him then he would let him take 1 or 2 ‘Cockroaches’ (Tutsi’s) of his own. Paul didn’t know what to say and he replied it is almost sun rise and he had to get going before anyone noticed he was gone. George that he should take the path down the river because it was clear. Let alone did he know the clear was not what he seemed it was. Once they arrived on the river road it was bumpy and Paul thought Gregoire was going off the road into the river and Paul kept shouting “Stop the car!” Gregoire did what he was told and then Paul tried to get out of the car and he fell out. When he finally looked around he saw a dead body right away and he was terrified and he agitating up you could see in his face he was disgusted and he looked like he was going to puke. Once he saw all the dead bodies around him he had to escape quickly from the nightmare so he got in the car and he told Gregoire to Dive!!

The director uses Sounds/Music in Paul’s ‘Epiphany’ scene to make the audience understand the mood in the scene because when you listen to the music in the background it gives you the atmosphere in the scene. The music in the scene is a dramatic and sad sound effect, this sound effect only happens when Paul fell onto the ground and saw the dead body in front of him. This shows how scary and how sad it was for him and it makes you understand how it feels to be there. It also made the sound of the machete hitting the ground which made really good sense because they got killed by machetes and other weapons this is why this was a good sound effect for the scene. This is a way to develop tension in the scene.

Another way the Director uses Paul’s Epiphany scene to create tension was by using the camera movement and camera angles. The director moves the camera a lot because it helps move the scene in many ways some of the ways he uses the camera is by moving the camera at a point of a level angle and a mid shot the first time he used it in the scene was when George was at the car window sill over powering Paul in to submission. He wants to trap Paul into making him kill the Tutsi’s. He also says that he will let him keep some, which allows him to think deeper into the situation. This allows tension to rise because we do not know what he is going to do.Another camera movement and angle was the close up were it should Paul’s face in disgust. At that point we did not know what he was disgusted at because we could not see the view he was seeing but only his reaction, Straight after Another camera movement and angle was used it was the over the shoulder shot where the director placed the camera over the shoulder of Paul so we could see what he was disgusted at and the view we saw was exactly how Paul’s face seemed it would be like. We could see dead bodies scattered everywhere. This is how camera movement and camera angles create tension because sometimes we don’t know what will happen and we are in suspense until it finally shows us what the character in the scene was looking at and disgusted at.

Another way the director uses Paul’s Epiphany scene to create tension is by simply changing the focus of things to make one thing stand out compared to the others in the scene. In the middle of the scene when Paul falls down on the ground and saw the dead body he got up and at that point the focus was all on him and the background was blurry. The reason why he did that is because he wanted everyone to be focused on him and nothing else because at that point you could see the expression on his face and that is what the director wanted us to see because it shows the feelings he gets inside and it creates the tension we are looking for because we will now be waiting on what will happen next and why he was looking so disgusted. This is why focus helps create tension in the scene.

Another way the director uses Paul ‘Epiphany’ scene to create tension is by using special effects. The director uses special effect in the scene the types of special effects he uses is things like adding mist,fog,rain and more the reason he uses that is to describe the atmosphere and feeling there which is called pathetic fallacy this when the emotion of the characters is set in the weather in the scene, so when Paul was in the path of the dead bodies they used mist to make it more mysterious and creepy and it described Paul’s feelings as well. This is a way to create tension in the scene.