I, Robot Cheat Sheet

Want a robot that does everything for you. Do you want to be able to relax in the sun while a robot does all your household chores for you? Well scientists are closer than ever to creating AI (artificial life), this seemed a distant dream for Isaac Asimov in 1950 when he wrote I, robot. But now it seems within our reach. In I, robot Dell Spooner is a detective in 2035 with robots doing all of humanities jobs, while it sits on its fat butt. Slowly ‘gaining weight’ till it is unable to cope without the robots. I, robot was made into a movie in 2004. There were many effects and techniques used to convey the emotion or feeling of each scene.

The ECU or extreme close up, is used to get a good look at a characters facial expressions or to show that they speaking telepathically or thinking.

The LS or long shot is used to thrust handfuls of red-hot action, lots of people or just a big view of some important place, down the viewers’ throat.

This is used a lot in Sci-Fi movies as they are meant to show what could happen to the human race if technology goes too far, and what better way than to just let them see it all in one. An example of this in I, robot is when Sunny the robot in standing on top of the sand dune and next to the busted-up bridge. The camera zooms out for an ECU to a LS to emphasise how many robots there are there about to be stored. Just to show how many superfluous robots the human race are going to create.

There is also the 2S or two shot, which is used to have two people comfortably on-screen. Usually the two people are either having a conversation or have some sort of emotional bond.

I, robot uses many techniques throughout. But the most common used are the track, zoom, tilt and pan. A track is used in the car chase when heaps of the evil robots are diving onto Spooner’s car like crazy people. A track is when the camera is moving with the action not just staying still or watching it from a distance.

Usually a small track is made and a small vehicle moves along it smoothly to avoid excess noise on film.

A tilt is when the camera angle changes. Like when you look up or down, that’s a tilt.

A zoom is either when the film camera lens moves closer or when the cameraman physically moves closer to the thing they are filming.

This is used in I, robot right near the beginning, when Spooner comes to investigate Dr Lanning death. After the hologram is finished it zooms in on the ground then tilts and zooms on Dr Lanning’s body. It absolutely stunning, NOT!. It is a gruesome sight, they use an ECU to give the viewer a good view of how much damage how been done to his face from his fall. There is a pool of blood from his head (YUK!), and he looks like he has been beaten up, really bad!

A pan is a tilt to the side. It is the same as looking left or right. It is used in I, robot in the same scene to show that it is a hologram, by panning around it to show it is 2-D.

All this techniques are used in I, robot to give you a better view of what could happen when we succeed in creating artificial intelligence, and in my opinion, we should just continue to use our own intelligence instead of replacing it with robot stupidity!

Diagetic sound is sound that the characters can hear, and non-diagetic means that the people in the movie can’t hear it. So a voice over, would be diagetic. Have you ever had music that plays over your everyday life, no? Then it is non-diagetic.

Music is incredibly important to movies, almost as important as clothes are to woman. Music is used to convey emotion and what the scene is about. Many Sci-Fi movies, like I, robot, are thrillers or action movies. So most of the music would have a fast-tempo, and hard-hitting notes.

Also it makes a large difference if the notes are major or minor.  Major chords make it sound more lively and happy, whereas minor chords are more disjointed and incoherent, so they are better for Sci-Fi as it is often spooky, so it needs eerie music.

The main plot features of I, robot is the attempted destruction of the human race, which the core aspect of most Sci-Fi movies. The robots start out helping the humans, but then VIKI (Virtual Interactive Kinetic Intelligence), who controls all power and pretty much everything that runs on electricity. Takes them over, so they can take over, all the humans. As with most Sci-Fi movies the bad guys (in this case the robots) are much stronger, faster and generally better at all athletics than the good guys (humans).

This makes killing them much harder, as they could outrun you at every turn, and beat you in every fight (ouch!).

There is a motif of robots being better than humans, although they are actually not as good, as they are incapable of human emotion. Another motif is that the robots are the best thing that ever happened to the human race. Another untrue idea, as robots just make humans lazy and fat, as they no longer have to do anything.

You make the decision! When does it get too far?

Did this help you, if it did you should look at my other tutorials.

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http://quazen.com/games/five-fun-pen-and-paper-games/ 

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http://writinghood.com/writing/writing-the-perfect-story/

Thanks,

Mr wonkynobby