This week in Storytelling in the Cinema class, we did a visual experiment. We were shown a video, about 30 seconds, in which 6 people were fairly crowded on screen. 3 wore white shirts, 3 wore black shirts, and each team had a basketball. We were suppose to watch the white team and count how many times they passed the ball, and how many of those passes were a bounce pass.

The class participated whole-heartedly, and at the end of the experiment, we pretty much agreed: there were 14 passes, 2 of which were bounce passes.

We waited for the trick question, like how many did the black team throw, or that we had gotten the wrong number, or something.

Instead, the teacher said, "I don't care. Did anyone see the man in the gorilla walk into the middle of the screen, beat his chest, then walk off?"

All 9 of us honestly hadn't.

We watched it again, and sure enough, the gorilla walks right into the middle of the crowd of people passing basketballs, beats his chest, and walks off screen.

I mean, how could we all not see that?!?