Sabrina Debrard

Triptych Context Two: Composition and Storytelling in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
In my previous triptych, I discussed how film composition draws from rhetoric and
composition by combining several separately composed elements together to create a single
overall message or display a story within the confines of sensory stimuli and time. In this second
installment, Im going to examine the composition methods and effects used in Mad Max: Fury
Road (directed by George Miller) influence the audience and create meaning, as well as work
together to create context.
Now, because Mad Max: Fury Road is a full two-hour film, Ive chosen to use a
particular scene to display these effects and touch on their relevance in the frame of the entire
film. The scene I have chosen is the sandstorm scene, which you can watch here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr6wdTPGFmI
The scene opens with a wide angle view of the landscape in the very first frame. The
wide view emphasizes the looming storm that takes up nearly half the screen. This storm is
entirely CGI, so the texture and severity of the clouds and the color manipulation of the image
(where the oranges and browns deepen into darker hues around the frame) were all composed,
presumably to portray the destructive force of the storm, the impending danger that our
characters are entering, and the inescapable nature of the storm as the sand billows continue in
all directions.

However, this CGI was just one aspect of this cut. Another composed addition is the
music in the background of the picturedark and looming, reflective of the storms approach.
The music drops off immediately after this image is cut away from, replaced later with a higher
tempo track that matches the harried actions of the characters in their cars as they struggle to
prepare for the oncoming storm in the next few cuts.
A technique used in these cuts that also contributes to the overall composition of the
scene is the framing technique, where the focus in the image on screen is always in the center of
the shot.
Sabrina Debrard

This technique works to orient the audience and clearly show them what is happening in the
quick action-heavy scene, instead of having subjects shot from either side of the frame and
forcing the audience to shift their eyes from one side of the screen to the other with each cut
(which could cause confusion). Composing the scene in this way with the camera technique also
induces a sense of urgency, as everything we as an audience need to see is immediately shown to
us in the center of the screen in quick succession. Through this we feel the events unfolding
rapidly, directly contrasting with the slow panning-out of the camera in the first cut emphasizing
the massive storm.
A bit later in the scene the music changes again, shifting from the first dark and looming
tone to the harried up-tempo beat to the now slower, string orchestra focused valiant backing
track that reflects on not only the sacrifices of the people dying in the sandstorm, but also the
determination of the two main characters in the scenethe drivers of the truck and Nux, the
driver in the car. Both characters are shown here to similarly fight for their own respective fates,
even though they are fighting each other. Nuxs attempts to capture Furiosa (the driver of the
truck) are conflated with the deaths of his comrades, which he looks on with not horror or terror,
Sabrina Debrard

but admiration, and later, in one of the few instances of dialogue in this scene, he screams What
a lovely day!

There are many more instances of composition that I could point out in this scene alone,
but my point is that the separate points of camera movement, sound, dialogue, color
manipulation, CGI, music, and cinematography are all composed to contribute to the overall
feeling or message that the scene is supposed to give off in each of the smaller cuts and
sequences. The tone of the scene changes at least 4 times in less than five minutes, marked by the
changes in the composition techniques and aspects chosen to be used by the director. The
separate composers of each of these aspects are directed by the director to create a piece that will
mesh with every other piece, to form layers of content that in summation create specific
meaning.