The Day after Tomorrow 

Editing is an invisible art. Editing is what makes the movie what it is. It is the editor that plays with the emotions of the audience and catches their attention. It is the play of shots and sequences that gets the audience emotionally invested in the film. It is the editors role to create the effects and responses, and finding the emotions that catches the eye of the viewers. He is the invisible artist that manipulates the audience to increase the excitement.    An excellent example of such editing and visual skills is the movie The Day After Tomorrow.

‘The Day after Tomorrow’ was based on the novel ‘The Coming Global Super storm’ 1999 by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber. The climate disaster film was directed by Roland Emmerich and edited by David Brenner, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Davis Quaid, and Emmy Rossum.

This movie is a perfect example of the amalgamation of realistic events and fiction. The movie has shown great artistic creativity and manipulation, exaggerating and dramatizing the weather conditions presented, giving the movie a more dangerous and tense atmosphere.

 The disaster movie shows erratic climatic changes leading the world towards unprecedented catastrophic events. Great visual effects have been used to portray the disastrous onset of the New Age Ice Age in the Northern Hemisphere.

Different techniques have been used to show the difficult climate conditions and the tense environment. Lighting and colour techniques have been used to create the perfect atmosphere. Colours like white, grey, and black were used to show the gloomy and dangerous state of the surroundings. The dark colours also created a mood of suspense that kept the audience at the edge of their seats.

The extensive work in the sound editing is also visible. Appropriate sound effects were used to enhance the visual experience, but are not too overpowering that it makes the scene artificial. The sound of the rain and the traffic during the shutdown provides the perfect element giving the scene the chaotic feel it required. Similarly, the sound effects for the final New York storm scene gave the perfect calm but scary mood.

Different camera angles were used to portray the perfect emotions and scenes. Extreme long shots were used to give the full effect of the locations and the destruction, like the scene with the tsunami or the white frozen waters that surrounded New York City. Close-ups were used to show the tense and scared expressions of the people afraid of the coming dangers. The tilting and panoramic camera techniques have also been included to amplify the dramatics of the film.

The juxtaposition of the shots have been done in such a manner that it keeps the audience in suspense. The cuts in film have been made slow to give it a more dramatized effect.

 David Brenner’s editing has given the viewers a complete emotional experience to the viewers. All the shots have been such sequenced that the emotions are on a constant change, from tension to calm to panic, keeping the audience on the edge of their seats right through to the end.