JCM212/Editing and sound analysis

• Connect to your study group's Google doc

Group 1 Group 2 Group 3

Group 4 Group 5 Group 6

Group 7 Group 8 Group 9

Analysis of The Big Sick: Editing and sound

• Each student must draw their own diagram of the scene's camera positions and blocking--as in the diagram for Grey's Anatomy (below), but without the drawings of frames. Be sure to indicate which shots are done from which camera positions--using the numbers of the shots from your list above.

Draw examples from scene to discuss your answers. That is, refer to specific shot numbers when you answer these questions.

1. How would you describe the sound perspective in the first shot of this scene? How is it an example of a mismatch of sound perspective and image perspective? Explain.
2. This scene does not contain nondiegetic music until the very end. What impact does music have on the scene?
3. This scene does not contain sound from a different diegetic time (earlier or later). Choose one shot from your scene and invent some sound (dialogue or effects) that could be laid over it from another time in the story.
4. How is the scene’s space, the area in which the action takes place, introduced to the viewer? Does an establishing shot occur at the start of the scene (or later in it)?
5. Do this scene's camera angles adhere to the 180° rule? Is screen direction maintained? If not, why is the viewer not disoriented? Or if the space is ambiguous, what narrative purpose does that serve?
6. Does the last shot of the scene bring it to a conclusion or does it raise more narrative questions? Explain.
7. How are match-on-action cuts or eyeline match cuts used? Are there jump cuts?
8. How does the camera relate to the characters' perspectives? Are there point-of-view or subjective shots? If so, how are those shots cued or marked? That is, what tells us that they are subjective or point-of-view shots?
9. How is shot-reverse shot used? Are there re-establishing shots? What narrative impact do shot-reverse shot and re-establishing shots have? That is, how does the choice of alternating shots help to support the development of the story?
10. Do you feel the editing of this scene was effective? Why or why not?

Post-group work free-time activities

• Put on headphones and watch remainder of The Big Sick (on Blackboard)
• Start reading, for 2/28 the keywords:
  • production, copyright, brand, censorship

Individual stylistic analysis

Details here: JCM212/Stylistic Analysis

Bibliography

1. Jeremy G. Butler, Television: Critical Methods and Applications (New York: Routledge, 2011).
2. David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction, 8th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007).

External links

1. The Big Sick excerpt
2. The Big Sick screen shots