In the movie Jaws, Steven Spielberg made it a point to use various techniques during the movie to create suspension and fear. Throughout the movie, you hear many different types of music ranging from slow and peaceful to fast paced and suspenseful. There are also many different camera angles used throughout the movie to help intrigue the audience to that specific scene. Spielberg uses music and different camera angles to build up tension and scare the audience.

The music that Spielberg uses in Jaws makes it so the audience is able to tell that there is a shark around the area or that there will be a shark attack sometime during that scene. Spielberg uses a crescendo gradually and has it slowly get louder as the shark nears to attack, to create tension among the audience. In the 4th of July scene, the audience was aware that there had already been shark attacks in the sea. Spielberg used that to his advantage and used music to create uneasiness among the audience and trick them into believing that there would be another shark attack. There was a shark attack; the audience just didn’t expect one to happen in the pond.

Spielberg uses more of an eye-level camera angle during the 4th of July scene when everybody was out swimming and there was a shark attack. In order to show the view of the people in the water as well as the sharks view from underwater, Spielberg had the camera at water level. Since the audience was seeing everything happening through the sharks’ eyes, he created tension by allowing the audience to hear everything above the water, but having the sound cut out when the shark went back underwater. By doing this, the audience was able to figure out that there was going to be a shark attack, but they were unsure of who the shark was going to attack.

During the 4th of July scene, Spielberg shows Brody relaxing on the beach with his wife. There are families and children everywhere as well as many children out swimming. Spielberg has calm music in the background while Brody is talking to his wife but all of a sudden, the camera switches to above and underwater shots, showing the sharks’ point of view. Instantly the music switches to the Jaws theme and the shark attacks the kid. The camera view quickly changes and focuses on Brody, zooming in on him, making it appear he realizes what just happened.

Spielberg uses many different types of camera angles and music throughout this movie to create tension and scare the audience. I feel that he did a successful job by using many different camera angles and many different types of music to create different moods and to create tension throughout the movie.