BLK Homework 4 - Analysis of Film Clip

Our task this week was to pick a film clip and then analyse is use of continuity editing within this clip. The clip I have chosen to analyse is a clip from the 2010 movie "The Social Network" which is about the creator of Facebook. In this clip Mark is being questioned in a court case involving a similar website which he was involved in.


The narrative in this clip takes place across a large table, however despite this, the 180 degree rule is followed constantly. Between the time codes of 0:22 and 0:40 the camera continuously cuts back and forth between the two characters, during which time the 180 degree rule is not broken. Through the rest of the clip the camera cuts away from the conversation a few time and onto the reaction of the people in the room among other things, however the camera always cuts back to a setup which the audience is familiar with, allowing for the audience to see reactions while leaving them thoroughly involved in the conversation. Similarly  when the camera follows Mark Zuckerburg's eyes at the start of the clip, it cuts straight back to the previous shot, allowing for the conversation to continue flowing.

 In the first 4 seconds of this clip the layer raises a piece of paper, this paper makes a noise while being raised, despite being out of shot at the time, and when the camera cuts to the piece of paper being held up, the paper is at a position in time that it seems like the sound in the previous shot has been matched on perfectly to the video in this one. This makes the raise of the piece of paper seem natural and makes it flow.

Similarly between time codes 0:09 and 0:011 Mark Zuckerburg turns his head, the cut is a perfect match on action as he continues to turn his head, this makes it seem natural, and flowing, allowing for this pause in the fast paced narrative to be just enough to indicate the characters displeasure at being in the room but not long enough to stop the narrative entirely. If the match had been to quick, it would have seemed that Mark was turning his head quickly as if there was no pause at all, this would have broken in the narrative because the next 30 seconds which is a key part of the movie are devoted to digging into the significance of this pause. However if the cut was mismatched in the other way this head turn would have seemed to be the character almost shaking the head as he would have been seemed to have been doing this action twice.