The Truman Show is the movie I wanted to watch but hadn’t watched for a long time. This film is about the main character Truman Burbank has always been lived in Seaheaven, a fictive town made by a TV show producer Christof. Since Truman has borned, his whole life is under the control of Christof and cameras; however, Truman never knows. The movie begins with the normal life of Truman and how he starts to find out the abnormalities of his life.

I was amazed by the imagination of this movie script. Although the Truman Show was produced in 1998, its story and shots are still amazing. Since the director wanted to let us know Truman is not only the main character of the movie, but also the main character of the tv show in this movie, he used a lot of shots with vignette mask. At the beginning of the movie, when Truman was looking at the mirror and soliloquizing, the shots was with vignette mask, which created the feeling that Truman is under the eyes of the producers and audience of the show. Similar scene happened at 70’13’’, Truman was also soliloquizing at the mirror; the scene had “on air” above Truman, which showed the staff of this show was monitoring Truman and the camera is not a secret any more. Truman was staring at the mirror for a moment before he soliloquized and left a word “That one’s for free”, indicating he has already knew about the cameras around him and started to fight with the cameras. The director also used some low angles and high angles. During the time Truman’s date with Sylvia was interrupted by a random guy, the low angle was used. We could even see the camera was shaking a little bit indicating the emergency situation during that time.  The high angle was utilized when the twin brothers met Truman on the street. No matter which angle the director used, they all revealed the situation that Truman was being controlled and his life was full of cameras. These cameras were at different places and shot in different angles in order to hide themselves from Truman. Some of the lightning were great for us to pay attention, too. At 12’40’’, Truman was sitting at the beach, feeling sad about his father’s death. The surroundings were dark but we could still see clearly on Truman. It looked like there was a top light on Truman that strengthen the audience’s realization of Truman’s role in this movie--the main character of the tv show.

The filming crew also put a lot of effort on the music. They chose the light piano music when Truman met his true love Sylvia. I think it’s pretty interesting since a lot of movies would use some romantic pieces to strengthen the romantic atmosphere. When Sylvia was taken away from Truman, the piano music changed to a more sad-tone one. These piano music served as the tools to strengthen Truman’s emotions.

Throughout the whole movie, my favorite scene was the last scene. Truman said the words to Christof he used to say every morning to his neighbor and made a bow. I think this was a perfect acting; we can see Truman was smiling when he was saying these words, but we can also feel Truman’s sorrow and loneliness. I would definitely recommend this movie to people since it’s not only a great film for its innovative storylines and adept filming techniques, but also a great film that leads you to think about your own life meaning and encourage you to step out of your comfort zone.