Video Joke Criticism

Comparing the two videos. I’ll basically talk about the lines and movement.

LINES

     As you can see in the first video (Tea time out), there are actual lines everywhere like the edge of wall, table, sofa and floor. The quality of these actual lines contains both linear and curvilinear. For example, the sofa is curvilinear and wall is linear. Almost all the directions are included, the line of table is vertical, the line of floor is horizontal, and the eye contacts are diagonal. Same as the second video (Trouble in the kitchen), almost every object you can see in the frame is actual line, even tiny things like a soup also has curvilinear actual line.

     There are also virtual lines you could tell. For instance, eye contacts between Megan, Barbie and teapot construct a triangle; In the second video, when mother’s talking to the two relatives, there also appears a virtual line (triangle) too. When relatives exchanging a surprise look, that’s also a virtual line between the two. The quality for those virtual lines is mostly linear, and the direction is usually diagonal. However in the second video, viewers can tell that there includes much more virtual lines than in the first video.

MOVEMENT

     The movement type of the two is the same—complex moves. Camera stays still, it is basically object movement. We also developed a point of interest in both videos via rules of thirds, color and eyes. For example, in the first video, viewer’s eyes focus on Megan and Barbie’s talking head. Megan’s wearing a red color costume so that’s easy to attract viewer’s eye focus.

     And in the second video, our point of interest is the toy train played by the kid. The train moves a lot, and I think people are easily attracted by those moving objects. When other things keep still in the background, the moving object becomes the center of focus. In this video we actually use a lot of rules of thirds, which you can see through the relationship between camera positions and character movements. The movement speed in Tea Time Out is medium, but the second video is faster than this one.

     We are making the two video using Contract and Affinity as well as Objective and Subjective from the six binaries in week one.

CONTRAST and AFFINITY

     We are aiming to make two different types of video from the same joke. We changed the characters and representing in different genres. The first video is normal, we recorded it and did a voice over. The second we decided to represent in silent comedy—black and white scenes with funny music. I like the second video better. So there are definitely contrast and affinity.

OBJECTIVE and SUBJECTIVE

     I’ll say the first one is more subjective than the second one. In the first video, Megan is the only human character and other characters are all toys, she’s talking to them by her own. However in the second video, we added in some reactions between the two relatives and mom’s yelling at the kid. So personally I think the second one is more objective.