Side Note: Depending on when you looked at my blog, you might have seen that I analyzed a different movie. I’ve since then removed the post from my blog because as I did further research into the movie, I found it to be very inappropriate and I so I made the decision to start all over again.

This time, I’m going with the movie- The Pursuit of Happyness.

I watched the clip “Protect your Dreams” on Youtube in three different ways. First I watched without any audio, then I listened only to the audio w/out looking at the screen and lastly I watched the clip with audio combined.

When I first watched the video without audio, this is what I saw:

• The 180 rule was used
• Still shots of the dad and son
• The camera would zoom in on the characters as they spoke, but panned out to both of them at certain points as well.
• Camera follows the little boy across the basketball court
• Low angles are used and show tilt towards the dad, to make it look like the little kid is looking at the dad
• High angles with a tilt down are used to show that the dad is looking at the son.

Then listening to the audio by itself, I noticed:

• Sounds of the ball bouncing across the court
• The cage fencing rattling
• sirens
• Dialogue between the dad and son
• Instrumental music playing and then audio overlapping

Together, I picked up on:

• the depth of interaction between the dad and son.
• their facial expressions and body language

Roger Ebert suggests that characters who stand on the right during a shot portray a more dominant role and that characters on the left are not dominant. Throughout the clip, both the dad and son switch how they are standing. I think this shows that both the dad and son are learning from one another and that neither of them is dominant over the other. The dad and son are a “team” and they are having to fight for their lives. However, I think that when the boy stands on the right, this could play into Ebert’s thoughts on the right signifies the future. The little boy will be the future, one day. When the dad and son are on the basketball court, it is very gloomy and cloudy outside. I think this pays into the emotions of the scene. They are both in a very “gloomy” part of life right now.