I chose the battle scene from Anchorman to analyze 3 different ways.  Before even watching the clip, I had to read over what 3 ways I would be analyzing it:

1. Analyze the camera work: Before watching the first time, slide the volume on the clip (or on your computer) all the way down. Take notes on the visual aspects of the clip. Look for camera angles, cuts, how many times the camera switches view, the quality of light. Look for the ways the camera tells/guides the story.

2. Analyze the audio track: Now turn the volume up, but play it without looking at the screen; just tune into the audio. Take notes on the pacing of the dialogue, the spaces in the the audio, the use of music or sound effects (think back to our work earlier on listening to audio).

3. Put it all together: Finally, watch the scene as normal. Pay attention to something you may have missed the first time or how the elements you saw in the first two steps work together.

So, off I went! I muted my computer and watched the scene for the 1st time.  The camera changed views approximately 93 times.  I may have missed one when I blinked so I say “approximately”.  For the most part, when a character was talking, the camera angle was looking up at their face instead of straight on.  Also, when more than 1 person was shown in a frame, the view was from the knees up.  When the action started, the camera showed the full field of everyone fighting and there were lots of camera cuts to show all the action occurring in the scenes.  As for the light quality, either lights were used to mimic the sun or actual sun was used to show midday.  The light was directly overhead for most of the scene, so there were shadows on the actors faces during most of the scene.

When I “watched” the scene a 2nd time (only listening to audio and no visual), I noticed the sound effects and music over the dialogue.  I’m thinking that’s just because that’s what we’ve been conditioned to listen for in ds106.  The character’s spoke much more slowly when insulting each other than when they were simply conversing.  Also, since the movie is a comedy, the dialogue was very over-dramatic.  As for audio spacing, since the news teams are all feuding, some of the dialogue overlapped to show disagreement, such as when they would interrupt each other or just talk over another character.  The music was definitely used as a support feature for this scene.  Lots of brass was used and not as much music was played than you would expect during the fight scene.  There were lots of dramatic jumps and the music would mimic what the characters were doing: such as light and flighty music when the characters ran away.  There were a lot of sound effects used: bike bells, chains, gun, punching sounds, screaming, police sirens, hawk screeches…which all either supported something a character said or supplemented how they felt.

The 3rd time I watched the scene with audio and video, I definitely heard a lot more audio than I did the first time.  It’s like my brain was on overload and I was taking in everything at once!  However, this didn’t allow to me to get drawn into the scene as much,  since I was focusing on all the techniques used.  I also notice the 93 whatever camera cuts!

As far as what Roger Ebert wrote about in his column, “How to read a movie“, about character placement, I only found some similarities in this Anchorman scene.  Ebert says that characters placed on the right in a two-person shot will seem more dominant over the person on the left.  When Ron Burgundy was in a shot with someone else, he was placed on the left, yet he is the more dominant character.  His nemesis however, is shown on the right when placed next to other characters.  Ebert also mentions that camera angles looking up at the characters, enhances them. I think that because it was the leader of each news team who spoke, the director wanted to show them as leaders, so they used this technique.