“Stanford University, California”

Stanford University is one of the top colleges in the nation, well-known for it’s extremely selective nature. Though I knew that the university has been in existence for a while, I was shocked to see that one of the many films by Edison was on the university.

Rated a 3.6 on imdb.com, the video only lasts for thirty seconds, and shows a group of students, presumably, walking to class, and a couple students riding their bikes. Focusing on the denotation of the video, the students are all male, seem to be somewhat wealthy, look to be about 20 years, and are dressed fancily by today’s standards. The connotation of the picture, however, reveals a lot more. The students travel in huge groups, showing that they are comfortable with each other and that they are more than just classmates. The tuxedos and hats that are worn by everyone demonstrates the opulence of the students, but could also represent how highly school was thought of that time. In general, all the boys are extremely unified, and could be seen as one entity rather than fifty different boys.

Mise-en-scene:

• Decor: the background includes a beautiful arch, with some sort of flora growing on top of it. In the far back there seems to be vague shapes that look like trees. The combination of both the natural aspects of the background with the simplistic, yet beautiful, architecture creates an aura that looks rich. Interesting fact: the arch in the background falls down in an 1906 earthquake.

This image, though not from the video, shows the arch. In the film we see the other side of the arch. As mentioned the natural aspects, and the simplistic, Roman style adds a opulent mood.

• Lighting: the lighting used seems to be natural lighting. The effects of lighting are not clear due to the quality of the video, but considering the technology, or lack thereof, can lead to the assumption that natural lighting was used.
• Space: deep space seems to be used in the video, since the viewer is not focused on one single person or part of the background. The use of deep space, whether it was intentional or not, adds to the unity of all the boys. If the viewer was only focused on a certain section of boys the effect of highlighting the sameness would be lost, resulting in a completely different video.
• Costume: as mentioned numerous times above, the boys all seem to have similar outfits on: a white, or light color, dress shirt, a blazer, dress pants, and some sort of hat. The cultural norms of the time is directly reflectd by the clothing that the young men were wearing.
• Acting: this footage is completely natural, so the men are not actually acting.

The most interesting aspect of this video, for me, was the fact that so much has changed since these boys went to Stanford in 1897. Now, Stanford has close to a 50/50 ratio of men to women, which would have baffled the all-male Stanford students in 19th century. Additionally, it’s interesting to realize that these boys would be headfirst in a World War only fifteen years later, and they don’t even realize it. It shows how everything is so unpredictable. The students in the video are probably thinking about the test they have in the next hour, but fifteen years later they would have a family and a war to be afraid of.