Wes Anderson's Visual Direction of a Movie Fantastic Mr. Fox

Wes Anderson’s film “Fantastic Mr. Fox” is based on Roald Dahl’s best-selling children’s novel. Wes Anderson presents the film to his audience with one of his old-school stop-motion animation with the use of 3-D digital; it’s beautifully portrayed with the charm and humor, the film was appealed to not just children, but also older adults. The examination of the film defines the symbolism behind the shots and angles that impact the meaning in scenes, including lighting that impacts the meaning towards the film and the colors used in the movie to depict human and animal characters.

There have been approximately 56, 000 shots used to create the film, each shot Wes Anderson used in the film was shown differently and in a unique way. Looking over to one of Anderson’s shots, the reverse shot was seen used, when one character is shown looking at another character and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character. Since the characters are shown facing in opposite directions, the viewer assumes that they are looking at each other. This type of shot used when Mr. Fox and his wife were having a conversation when they dug a hole under the tree and were hiding from the farmers. The reverse angle was seen used in this scene, taken from over the shoulder of the opposite character. Furthermore, Anderson keeps the audience’s focus on the interaction between the two characters. He uses a traditional set up of over-the-shoulder shots, while occasionally turning to a medium two-shot.

Wes Anderson follows a common artistic “guideline” in defining themes that examine the symbolism of the colors that were used to depict the human and animals in the film. The use of autumn colors within the film enabled the appearance of a golden tone over the fields and in the sky; his choice of orangery autumn colors splashed with yellow and black leading towards a particular autumn feeling. According to Anderson, the color concepts relied primarily on local colors (i. e. colors shown within the shots) as opposed to specific forms of lighting as well as to describe the human and animal characters. An example of this would be in a scene during the beginning of the film when Mr. and Mrs. Fox is discussing their plan to steal the chickens. We see that Mrs. Fox starts to glow while trying to tell him that she's pregnant; she was shown blushing, but instead of her cheeks getting red, she glows in a bright yellow color. Another similar scene to this would be during ending scene when Mr. and Mrs. Fox, Kylie, and the young foxes are in a grocery store, Mrs. Fox announces that she's pregnant again, both Mr. and Mrs. Fox start to glow in the same bright yellow color. As well as, the changing colors of the sky, were most likely depended on the moods of the character's in the film, an example of this would be scenes from the film that showed characters calm mood this tone was used when Kristofferson fox was seen meditating in the scene, the sky was seen with different shades of orange.

Furthermore, the sky seen with a mix of red and gray shades of color, this tone was shown when the farmer (Michael Gambon), a Cockney who shoots off Mr. Fox’s tail and wears it as a necktie, is introduced in the film showing his angry mood. Moreover, Wes Anderson used the colors in the film to symbolize the meaning behind humans and animals depending on the mood of the characters.

Lighting has been a big aspect of this movie. Anderson is seen using different kinds of lighting throughout the entire film. With turning from different lighting's, such as day and night. Throughout the film is distinguishable and has a very “normal” feel to it. In one of the scenes, when the entire fox family has moved to their new tree house, you see they have natural lighting coming out of their windows during the day. The lights from the windows come in and cast sunlight on the ground and throughout the whole house. Furthermore, you can see the difference from when the family gets settled into the new house and has the lamps in the house. In a scene, Ash turns off the main light in the room and the room turns black with it. A second later he clicks on a mini reading light that only lights his book and the room slightly. The scene is quite interesting to watch because you can see how the director uses the different brightness of the room for the two different lights and lighting. Although there is another scene in the movie where the lighting is a little off (low key lighting) when Kylie and Mr. Fox sneak back inside the tree house, (lights are turned off. ), in this scene, you can only see a glimpse of their faces, High Key lighting was seen used in the same scene, when Mrs. Fox turns on the lights and finds Kylie and Mr. Fox wearing bandits and holding a sack, in this scene there no shadows to be seen. In brief, both types of lightings (High Key and Low key) were seen used in one scene of the movie. All in all, “Fantastic Mr. Fox” is my all-time favorite because of Wes Anderson flawless filming style and beautifully shot films.

In conclusion, the colors used in the movie have played a big part in the whole film. The contrast between the color schemes applied in the shots and angles of the scenes used warm autumn colors with more of an extreme orange color concept to it with the rest (red, yellow, and brown) to give an autumn feel to its viewers. Wes Anderson has made “Fantastic Mr. Fox” very obvious, his film, has visually, impacted the shots, angles, and lighting used to speak to his ability as an auteur.