All I wanted to do was a quick analysis of one little scene. And it got blocked. Immediately. Maybe I should experiment a bit to see what adjustments I need to make to get it through. But it wouldn’t surprise me if they’re extra aggressive with some content. I’ve also heard that they reject some appeals out-of-hand. This is an example of fair use, of course. It’s critical analysis, for an educational purpose, using a very short segment. I don’t profit from it, and they don’t lose any audience because of it. Vimeo was more cooperative, but it may get blocked there too.
I was inspired by How Does an Editor Think and Feel? to look at editing and acting. I did a screen recording of the scene, then watched it through and made notes – what I thought about how the scene was handled, and noting the timing of each cut. I recorded my part in Audacity, and made an MP3 that I imported into iMovie. What I had to say about it ended up being about twice as long as the whole scene, so I used the freeze frame function quite a bit. I also dropped the volume of the clip, and used the title tool to mark each cut.
I’m sure it would have been better with more planning and better script editing, but it came out okay. It is fun to do that kind of close reading (which mostly no one ever does) because you end up seeing more and understanding more about the story, and the storytelling in particular. Normally, when normal people watch movies, they watch for the story and give little attention to how it is told. People involved in filmmaking probably see more at first glance because they know how the medium works. But the rest of us can find value in repeated viewings.
