Okay, so to be honest, I’m BEYOND pissed right now because I can’t find the notes that I wrote while watching

The assignment this week was to play this clip 3 times; First with video, no volume. Second with audio, no video. Lastly put them together and catch anything you didn’t notice the first time.

Since I lost my notes, you’re going to need to bear with me….(If I find my notes, I will make a whole new post the way I originally wanted it.)

First watch – I noticed in the beginning that the camera angles changed fast and focused on different things during the action sequence. As the video progressed, I noticed that the camera angle showed that Ethan Hawke had a POV looking down on Denzel Washington and vice-versa. This showed the dominance of one character over the other.

Second watch(err listen) – I noticed background music and a lot of effects going on during the first action sequence. The music got faster and then slower as Denzel was thrown on the ground. After there were pauses at many points. During the dispute, you could hear Denzel’s character becoming angry/desperate. When this happened, the tone changed and voice was sped up.

Third watch – I think the most significant thing I heard was the presence of birds chirping in the background…but the scene suggests that it was occurring at night. Most birds sleep, right? And shortly after, I noticed that the chirping was completely absent. The only explanation is the gun-firing, but I still think the birds were a spoof. A significant thing I saw was how the camera kept going back and forth between the two characters during their “standoff”. Sure you can tell just by watching them yell/taunt/threaten at each other and not much movement, but the switching of camera angles adds emphasis.