Visual Semiotic Analysis, second edition.

I've been watching basketball games on television my whole life. I've analyzed the players and their moves, the coaches and their schemes, and, yes, even the officials and their calls. But last night, I analyzed part of a basketball game that I had never really even thought of before: the camera angles. This was primarily in an attempt to reconcile my inability to restrain from watching the Arizona-California basketball game (I'm from Arizona, and sadly, we lost) with my need to blog, blog, blog to give my grade a little bit more justice than I did in prior to midterms ;)

The most standard camera shot used is the wide shot. This is primarily out of the necessity of allowing viewers to see everything that's going on (typically the camera pans back and forth, showing whichever half in which the ball is being handled). But some of the other angles clearly have a more specific subject position. This is evidenced most unmistakeably during free-throw attempts. On occasion, the camera shows a view from behind the shooter, using a low angle that looks up slightly towards the hoop. This gives a similar perspective to what the shooter is seeing - most notably the crazy fans wildly thumping thundersticks in an effort to distract the shooter.

Also during free-throw attempts, the camera crew take advantage of the stop in the action to get a close-up of the player shooting the free-throw. Close-ups are also used frequently when showing the coach's expression. During time-outs, a medium shot is sometimes used to show the coach and the players circled around him. While transitioning into or out of commercial breaks, the camera usually uses an extra-wide shot (for lack of a better term) to show the entire court and bleachers, and sometimes even gives an outside view of the arena or city. I think this is effective in positioning the viewer - in a way, showing the city, arena, and court before settling into the primary view gives almost the same effect as driving to the arena, finding a seat, and watching the game live. When leaving for a commercial break, the reverse has a similar effect, easing the viewer out of the setting before getting bombarded with advertisements.

It was a strange feeling to watch a basketball broadcast in this manner, but it was intriguing. I've watched literally hundreds of games, but had never given much thought to the choice of camera angles - much less analyzed them!