TV scene analysis
I chose the beginning scene from an episode of NBC’s The Office. The scene shows Jim, the office prankster, and his fault-finding, self-important, socially awkward co-worker Dwight, sitting at their desks, which abut one another. Throughout the series, Jim perpetually goads Dwight, who is incapable of resisting Jim’s provocations. In this particular scene, Jim claims he is having computer problems and restarts his computer, which makes a certain chiming noise, then he innocuously offers Dwight an Altoid mint. Then the scene cuts to an interview with Jim in the conference room, supposedly being conducted by a documentary film crew who films the day-to-day happenings of the office. In this interview, Jim admits he is playing a joke on Dwight based on a science experiment he learned about in high school, in which dogs are conditioned to respond to the sound of a bell (i.e. Pavlov’s dogs). He confesses he has been feigning computer problems for a couple of weeks, each time setting off the computer sound, then offering a mint. The scene cuts back to Jim and Dwight at their desks and shows several occasions on different days when Jim sets off the restart chime and offers a mint. Finally, Jim once again sets off the computer, which prompts Dwight to involuntarily thrust out his hand for a mint. When Jim asks Dwight what he is doing, he looks confused, then starts smacking his lips and saying that he has a bad taste in his mouth. The last part of the scene is a close up shot of Jim with a smiling, satisfied look.
The camera work, sound, and lighting in The Office are particularly interesting because the entire series is a mockumentary. It is a scripted series posited as documentary, wherein the characters are aware of the cameras—they are built into the series and acknowledged by the characters. This is in contrast to other scripted shows where the cameras function to capture the action but the characters are not addressing the cameras directly.
In the scene I chose, the lighting, sound, and camera work are all very subdued and the pace of the scene is slow, reflecting the tedium of office work. All but one of the camera shots are medium close ups, close ups, and big close ups, and all but one of the shots uses a normal angle (not high or low). While camera angle is frequently used to depict status or insignificance, I do not think a normal angle is used to convey status, even though it is true that Jim and Dwight are peers—one does not have a higher position than the other. My feeling is that the normal angle shots are used to give a neutral effect, as though the action of the office is benignly being observed through the eyes of the viewer, rather than through the lens of the camera. There is one shot that uses a slightly high camera angle and a medium shot, which conveys to the viewer that the “documentary filmmaker� is watching one exchange between Jim and Dwight inconspicuously from afar. Very important in this scene are the big close-ups of both Jim and Dwight because of the emotion conveyed. When Dwight thrusts out his hand involuntarily, the camera angle and shot are such that his face and hand are both in the screen. When Jim asks Dwight what he is doing, the camera zooms in on Dwight’s face, revealing a quizzical, confused, bewildered expression, then a gnashing of his tongue and a comment that Dwight has a bad taste in his mouth. The final shot, a big close-up of Jim, reveals a very pleased, satisfied, almost gleeful prankster, though he also appears a little surprised that his experiment worked.
The use of lighting gives a very bland impression. Because of the mockumentary nature of the show, the lighting in the scene is supposed to appear as plain old overhead fluorescent lights. There are no highlights, lowlights, or backlights. Again, the absence of dramatic lighting serves to point out the everyday ordinary-ness of the office. The sound is slightly different, in that each little sound between Dwight and Jim is very clear and picked up on camera. There are few, if any background noises, which would be expected in a normal office. Instead, the lack of clacking keys and ringing phones serves to focus the audience on the interactions between Dwight and Jim—the chime of the computer restarting, the crinkle of the paper in the Altoid tin, Dwight fanning some papers in annoyance when interrupted by Jim’s offer of another Altoid. The final sound in the scene is that of Dwight gnashing his tongue in his mouth because of a perceived bad taste.
The entire scene perpetuates the on-going bickering and banter between Jim and Dwight. The neutral camera angle may hint that for as much as Jim picks on Dwight, and for as unbearable as Dwight can be, they are still peers and nobody is getting ahead of anyone else. There is no race or contest between Jim and Dwight to be won, but rather an ongoing series of petty skirmishes that cannot be won by any amount of wit on Jim’s part or pompousness on Dwight’s part.