The scene I selected was from the Christopher Nolan movie Dunkirk.  The scene starts on one of the camera slowly moving toward a navy officer as the musical score behind him picks up in intensity.  Slowly, he turns toward the camera and his expression communicates that he is looking at something terrible heading his way. There is then a cut to a wide shot, just slightly higher than head level, above a large cluster of British soldiers awaiting rescue from Dunkirk.  The key moment in this shot is when the first soldier looks up towards the noise that began in the last shot and has been slowly growing in intensity. The shot does not move but more and more soldiers looks up as the noise becomes clearly recognizable: bombers.

    There is then a cut to an ultra wide shot from above Dunkirk, overlooking the mole where the soldiers are waiting and the hospital boat that is meant to rescue them.  By now, the sound is at its loudest. There is then a cut back to the soldiers and all of them begin to crouch down in hopes of avoiding the incoming enemy planes. The shot holds on them, musical score communicating a sense of panic, before cutting to a wide shot of three black shapes, just defined enough to be identified as planes coming towards the ship, which itself is only shown to be a smoke stack.  

    The camera shakes as they descend and there is then a cut back to the navy officer, who runs in the opposite direction of the bombers.  There is a quick cut back to the bombers which grow closer and are followed by the camera. Then it's back to the navy officer as the signature whine of bombs dropping drowns out all other sound.  The planes are still heard as bombs impact all across the mole and the camera jumps from the planes and to the soldiers with each impact. The following cuts are chaotic and short. Though they generally hold still, every shot contains at least one explosion or strafing run by the bombers and a brief inclusion of the carnage they leave behind.

    One of the last fast cuts focuses on two of protagonists as they shield their heads from the incoming ordinance, the camera close to their face as they audibly whimper in panic.  The camera then cuts back to the officer who is watching as the ship begin to slowly sink into the English Channel, the camera showing just enough of the boat for you to know it's sinking and enough of the officer to show his reaction.  The dialogue that follows is short.

    "Cut her loose!" the officer orders.

    "What about the wounded?" one of his subordinates ask.

    The camera then cuts to show soldiers scrambling to get off the boat with one brief cut to an unconscious who will certainly die if the ship sinks.  Then it cuts back to the officer who repeats his orders. The cuts are still happening rapidly. The camera moves back to one of the protagonists trying to get off the mole which is then broken up by even more cuts to the bomber attack.  However, now the camera shows the soldiers attempting to swim away from the sinking ship. Keeping the camera close to the water to communicate how easy it would be to drown, the camera holds steady as several soldiers try to make it back to land.  The camera then quickly cuts to a close up of the protagonist, then to a soldier he's attempting to get out of the water, then back to the slowly sinking boat. As the boat gets closer to hitting the mole, the camera pans up as we hear a scream from a soldier who was probably crushed by the boat's hull.  

    The sinking ships makes a number of loud roars as it's metal body strains against the water and mole while the camera cuts back to the protagonist, stills struggling to get the other soldier out of the water.  The camera then rapidly cuts back to soldiers jumping off the boat, then to the officer who the camera tracks as he walks towards the sinking boat. The next shot is powerful. Coming from just over the officer's shoulder, the camera holds steady as we watch from a perspective similar to his as British soldiers desperately jump into the water.  The camera cuts back and forth between the sinking ship and eye level perspectives meant to show what the other Brits would have seen at this moment.

    The focus is then on the protagonist who has finally fished the other soldier out of the water.  Close up on both characters, the camera cuts from the protagonists terrified expression to the gasping soldier who he rescued.  The camera then cuts to a shaky shot from near the protagonist's perspective that shows the other soldiers scrambling toward land.  The camera then returns to the navy officer, looking utterly solemn, before the camera slowly pulls away and we hear the sounds of the ship sinking and soldiers panicking.  Finally, there is one more cut to the ship sinking, from the officer's perspective, and the last of the soldiers swimming away.

    To elements of this scene defined it: the camera positioning and the sound.  The camera moved relatively slowly before the bombers arrived and was either meant to emphasize an individual's reaction to the incoming sound or to highlight how many men were at risk because of the bombers.  Once the bombers arrive, all of the cuts are fast and jumpy, with each one trying to communicate how hectic the situation is. The only time the jump cuts slow down is when the camera focuses on the officer's reactions to the attack.  Meanwhile, the score behind the scene communicates the sense of growing danger in the beginning as the string instruments grow louder and faster. The sounds of explosions, gunfire, and screaming that follow are all at a volume so that they can't be missed, and almost drown out any other noise.  Dialogue, was relatively unimportant during this scene as hardly any lines were exchanged. By placing emphasis on the events that took place during this scene, all that was needed to create a compelling and legitimately stressful series of shots was strategic camera placement and appropriate sound work.