i'm writing this essay on the London of Ealing Studios

and i decided to try Jose's shot-by-shot analysis (which essentially means looking at the film frame by frame - and noting all the cuts and edits) for every exterior scene of London in 'The Blue Lamp' (1950). the film starts with a car chase and plenty of voiceovers (a narrator talking over the action that you see on screen) and i spent 15 mins writing down all that happens, shot-by-shot, in the first minute and a half. which involves watching-rewinding-watching-writing-rewinding-watching-writing-rewinding... and the annoying thing is that my VCR doesn't have a 'Pause' button so whenever an intertitle comes up over the image i have to write as fast as i can whatever i can speed-remember and rewind and rewatch it so that i can continue copying it down.

in the past 2 hrs, i have completed 12 mins of the film. of an 84 min film.

i suspect that at some point i am going to abandon this shot-by-shot thing. :|