I compared my group’s video to Andrew Sewell’s video. Both begin with an establishing shot of the building in which they take place. There is an affinity between the two videos, in that both cut to someone sitting at a table or desk. In my video, a little boy plays with a train on the coffee table in his living room. In Andrew’s video, there is a man going through papers at his desk. However, there is a contrast between the emotions of the characters. The kid seems quite relaxed and content to focus on his toy train, while the man is clearly stressed out by the large amount of work surrounding him and being shoved into his face by his coworkers. In both videos, depth cues provide a sense of space. The shot of the wife in the kitchen and the husband sitting at the dining table, as well as the over the shoulder shot of the mother watching the kid in our video, provide visuals to let the audience know where characters are in relation to each other.
While the characters for the most part remain stationary in the videos, the movement of the camera is used both to emphasize dialogue and to tell the story. When the little kid yells that any upset passengers should talk to “the bitch in the kitchen,” the camera cuts to a close up of him pointing. The camera also cuts to a close up of the mother’s feet as she taps them, waiting for her child to get in the car. This helps to reveal how she is feeling and emphasizes her impatience. In Andrew’s video, the camera’s placement hides the fact that his coworkers have been listening to him rant about how awful they all are, until the husband takes off the blindfold and sees them himself.
This also creates tension, as the audience begins to suspect that there might be something the husband is missing. The tension is released when the camera turns to reveal his coworkers. In my video, tension is created when the kid starts playing with the train after coming downstairs. The audience wonders whether he will start swearing again. At first it seems that he might have learned his lesson, however, his dialogue at the end shows that he quite clearly has not.
Good comparison/contrast of the two video. Both were really good and it's cool checking out the work from the different classes. It seems that most of the jokes, or at least the end interpretation in the videos relies on the tension/release stuff. Also worth noting is that the punchline of most of these videos is often the least entertaining aspect of them. It seems instead of beefing up the joke the vast majority of people decided to drown out the terrible jokes with humor scattered throughout the videos.
ReplyDelete