This video essay “deformed” the film Mr. Bean’s Holiday by using clips from the film to compose a brief rhythmic piece. Deformation, described by Mittell in Deformin’ in the Rain is the process of breaking down a film to its component parts and reassembling them into something entirely new. This process can reveal aspects of the film that may otherwise go unnoticed, like subtle aesthetic choices or in this case, sound. The goal of this video was to highlight the prominent role that sound plays in a “silent” film like Mr. Bean’s Holiday, and to build on previous loop-based deformations. I noticed many of these videos tended to lose their own sense of rhythm as they progressed, so mine was very intentionally percussive.

I did this video as a study of dialogue in Mr. Bean’s Holiday in preparation for my final video essay. While I ended up going a different direction and discussed framing, this process helped me realize just how much the film is able to convey with the main character being functionally mute. Mr. Bean travels to a new country, searches for a lost boy’s father (who admittedly, Bean himself separated from his son), befriends an actress, and reunites a family. While the film is of course hilarious and ridiculous, it still tells a moving story about family, language, and relationships. All this with only two minutes minutes of dialogue spoken by the main character (and most of this time is spent uttering “oui,” “no,” and, of course, “gracias”).

This video uses the “multiscreen” technique to combine clips from two films – Mr. Bean’s Holiday and Jojo Rabbit. I chose these films to showcase successful satirization of Nazis. It’s hard to pull off making fun of the Hitler’s Germany, but both films do it well. While picking the section from Holiday was easy, I spent a long time looking through Jojo to find a scene that would sync up well. I am happy with how the two pieces sit together, especially the moment when Jojo and Hitler say “Shit!” with Atkinson doing a german heil at the same time.

This video, a response to What you don’t see in Mr. Bean, examines the use of framing in Mr. Bean’s Holiday. The original video discusses the “seen” and “unseen” in film, using the camera frame as a boundary between these two worlds. But while this was discussed in the context of older Mr. Bean clips, I chose to apply the same analysis to Holiday. More specifically, I examine how the film’s use of framing allows it to tell and enhance jokes. I also argue that Rowan Atkinson should be regarded with the same admiration as Keaton, Lloyd, and Tati, citing his use of framing to create humor like the greats before him. My target audience is other Americans, as it seems people already seem to acknowledge Atkinson’s genius outside the US.

My final video essay takes on a pretty large topic – how we communicate about video games. The central idea is that people speak past one another when trying to evaluate games because they don’t explicitly state their preferences and criteria. This video introduces the Narrative-Gameplay graph as a tool for evaluating games. Imagine a graph of every video game that’s ever existed, with “strength of narrative” on the x axis and “strength of gameplay” on the y axis. Now, you could “place” any game you like and be able to clearly communicate your impression of its strengths for these two metrics. This allows one to discuss the story-based and mechanics-based value of a game separately, and to add specificity and clarity to game reviews. It also introduces the idea of distinct types of gamers: those who mainly value gameplay, narrative, or both. These categories are of course preliminary, as this is a new tool, but I found it useful in trying to understand differing opinions on a game’s merits. Hopefully, you will also find this useful.