One of the first assignments of video week is to analyze a video clip in 3 different ways: no volume, listening to audio only, and looking at the video and listening to the audio combined.

In reviewing the video this way, we are to pull out the different parts we get from each viewing and add which of Roger Ebert’s ideas apply to the video.

From my video analyzing I chose the movie trailer of My Best Friend’s Girl 

I’ve never seen the movie before, in fact I’d never heard of it until now.

So in looking at this video without any sounds, this is what I saw:

• camera pans to the left
• The majority (I’d say 95%) of the trailer used the 180 rule. This assisted in setting up the plot because the it sounds that there was tension between all three main characters and that there would be a lot of “going back and forwards” between the two guys and the girl. In other words, drama and relationship stress was inevitably coming.
• When the video was focused on the male (Jason Biggs) and female (Kate Hudson) character, the female was always on the right side and the male was on the left. Kate’s character was an assertive women, whereas Jason’s character was much more subdued and on the shy side. However, when the other main male character enters the picture, Dane Cook, he was almost always on the right of the screen with both Kate and Jason’s character. He was the more dominant person in both relationships.
• As Jason’s character moves, the camera moves with him
• Video was taken from low angles. Dane’s character fell and the video is shot as if Dane is looking up at Kate’s character.

Listening to the Audio only:

• The trailer begins with a music introduction
• The male actor’s voice overlays the music
• A narrator comes in to introduce the characters and to set the stage of the story.
• There is dialogue between the actors
• The trailer includes sounds of crashing and an electric razor towards the end.
• Throughout the entire clip there is music playing.

Listening and watching the video as a whole:

• A variety of facial expressions that showed how the characters were feeling at a given time. By focusing on the audio and seeing the facial expressions, the depth of the trailer grows and more of the story comes alive. 
• I couple of sound effects that I missed when listening to the audio portion: a slap on the face and of someone falling.
• From the video and audio, I think that this is a predictable movie/storyline. But I do think that the trailer does leave some room for suspense on which guy Kate’s character will pick.

When I watched the video the first time through I focused manly on what the camera was doing and missed parts of the character’s interactions. When I listened to the audio alone, some sounds were so subtle that I was unable to really hear them until I saw the clip that corresponded to a sound.In doing this assignment by looking at the film three ways, we can hone into key parts of the video. But in the end, looking at the overall products gives us a sense of the entire story, versus specific parts of it. I feel that it is beneficial to analyze the video in this manner, because some parts I would have normally missed if I had not watched/listened to it the way I did.