Castaway The film Castaway was directed by Robert Zemeckis. The film is about a Express systems analyst who ‘lives and dies by the clock’. He is very obsessed with his job and time even he has put his relationship in the second place but when his plane crashes in the Pacific Ocean he finds himself stranded in a small island, he has all the time to figure out how to survive. In the film, we can see the use of oral/visual techniques in showing changes of the main character. Camera-shots are used to demonstrate different aspect of character. A wide shot is used after the plane crushes when chuck was struggling on the yellow life-raft floating alone in the ocean and at that time the weather was bad, heavily raining. This shows us how small and how powerless he is. The director also uses a wide shot when chuck first arrives on the island to show us a empty place with no life, no ship and no technology so this means he has to find water, food shelter and a way to prevent himself from being destroyed by loneliness. Another camera shot that the director uses is close up shots. The close up shots are focusing on his hand and his face when he was making a fire to show us that it is huge progress for him because we can see he bites his lip, grits his teeth and there are some sweat on his face. He is concentrating very hard but in the first time, the wood is not getting lit yet and he got a blood on his hand. There are others close up shots on his hand when he used his fingers to draw a face on the volleyball and give it a name ’Wilson’. This is significant as the volleyball is to become his companion because he shares his frustration with it. The most important close up shots are focused on the pocket watch. The director wants to represent to us that the pocket watch is a symbol of time even though is broken but it still important for chuck because it has Kelly’s photo inside.;; Sound is an important oral technique of the film including sound effects, dialogue and music. At we can hear the sound effects of the storm, planes motor and flame very loudly, when the plane explodes. It makes us feel like we were there with chuck. And the director has used nature sounds such as the sound of the sea, waves, wind and heavy rain to show chuck arriving on the island. The purpose that the director did not use music to build the atmosphere on the island is because he wants us to feel isolated and lonely as chuck. The only dialogue is when chuck was talking to Wilson in the night before he leave Island ‘You still awake? Me too. You scared? Me too. I’m so sorry Wilson’ it shows us how lonely he is. The music that the director used is by Elvis songs, he used only at the beginning and nearly the ending until Chuck escapes the island. At the beginning, the music is used to show us how busy Chuck’s life is and nearly the ending when Chuck is on the raft. It used to increase the emotional intensity of Chuck’s departure from the island, his home for 4 years.

Acting production is the one of the most difficult visual techniques because the director has to make the main character, Tom Hank, like a man who had been living on the isolated island for four years. Tom Hank had a year to lose weight, to become muscular and grew a beard such as he live life on the fish, crabs, coconuts and water. This visual technique, the director used to show us that it has been four year later. As we see Chuck has changed into a tanned, muscular man who is attained to his environment. He has learnt important survival skills such as ..food and water, making shelter and a fire to cook. He is now a very different man from the busy workaholic at the beginning. All of oral/visual techniques are used to show us that the main character was totally changes after he had been stay on the isolated island for four years. As we can see in the beginning, Chuck is time obsessed. He talks very fast,he don’t have time to go to dentist. The most important for his life is his job. He also had the power over his life and his life has direction and structure. But in the ending, Chuck becomes calmer, more skillful and not obsessed in time anymore because when he is on the island, time is doesn’t matter for him. He has learnt to be patient, learnt how to survival and take time to think and plan carefully. He has now realised how important his relationship means to him. These oral/visual techniques have created strong and positive change of Chuck’s personality.