Why don’t our brains explode at movie cuts?
aeon.co
aeon.co
Edit: another video https://vimeo.com/channels/everyframeapainting/113439313
Just FYI, Kurasawa's favorite filmmaker was Ozu Yasujiro, whose visual style is vastly simpler (using almost no pans or zooms, etc). Wim Wenders 1985 documentary Tokyo-Ga is an excellent introduction (first six minutes is here):
if you don't take care to replace the focus object with something else in the same area in the cut scene the viewer will notice.
the author seems to spout on about an interesting subject which he didn't investigate very deeply -- that is, film-making.
(note, i didn't read the entire article -- maybe he recovered toward the end, i just didn't find it very thoughtful by the time I got to the middle)
The photographer and the editor take particular pains to ensure that. E.g. if you "cross the line" between two actors, you'll see a "jump" because the actors will swap positions. If you cut in a movement, the next shot will have to show something continuing the movement, or the cut is done when the object stops or is hidden behind something.
That makes the cuts a fluid motion even if the whole scene changes. If you break the rules, even if the scene is the same, you'll feel a "jump" between the shots and it will feel unnatural
( For the interested, here is a very detailed description of the common "idioms": http://www.amazon.com/Grammar-Film-Language-Daniel-Arijon/dp... )
And luckily we are intelligent enough to both understand that a series of pictures displayed on a screen is a representation of a real-life scene and also intelligent enough to understand that we don't have to be moving for it to make sense. Unfortunately, understanding those things still takes quite of bit of subconscious brain power anyway, which is why some movies can be exhausting to watch.
I also sometimes take still pictures of my computer monitor because there's no good way to take a screenshot of a PC and send it in a picture message to someone without uploading to Imgur or Dropbox or something, which takes time compared to just snapping a pic.
What I would fully support is having TVs with good enough screens that you can't tell the difference between recording them and recording a real-life scene.
It's not the look of the screen that bugs me, it's the inability of the person to hold the phone still and stop talking. I suspect that what's supposed to be happening in this scene is that Ace Ventura has swept all the pieces off the chessboard in an excess of accusatory zeal, but I can't tell if there's any sound of chess pieces hitting the floor because the guy keeps talking and waving the phone around.
Just throw a blanket over your head, or close your eyes and turn around and open them.
We evolved long ago to process new imagery and quickly react to it.
We put things together almost instantaneously without even understanding how we fill in the gaps. The same mechanism occurs when one jumps to conclusions, or understands how one line of a mathematical proof implies that the next line can now be read. It's all absurd and has the potential to be brain exploding when you really sit and try to think about what makes you think that gap is totally filled, but it's also not, because memories and feelings like 'obvious', and also because it's a big part of science to question those gaps.
Brains are weird though, even with all the explanation and science and repetition and predictability in scientific knowledge, it is still 'awe' invoking.
I'm probably just getting old...
At least, that's what I tell myself. Perhaps we're both just getting old.
e.g. Citizen Kane had an ASL of 12 seconds. Transformers: Dark side of the moon? 3.4seconds! http://www.cinemetrics.lv/database.php Average ASL in 2006 was actually 2.9s.
Die Hard 4.5
Die Hard 2 3.1
Die Hard 3 1.8
Armageddon 2.2 -- at least he's ben consistently on the quick side
Total Recall 3.7 -- original, 1990
Robocop 3.7 -- original
Haywire 6But then I searched for Alfred Hitchcock and got some interesting results. This database has many duplicate entries and some wildly different values. The Skin Game had 3 entries at about the same time (17.1, 17.3, 17.4). However, Rear Window has an entry at 3.7 and another at 8.8, and several at 10.5. I suppose I need to read about their methodology to understand why there's so much variance.
There's so much data in movies that is really hard to get automatically. We should really be digitizing and cataloging old films if we're able. It's hard to find films in the public domain but this is what we should be doing with them: 4k scanning and digitizing. Perform a rough automatic restoration on all frames and audio then put it all online, every frame in 4k, and accept pull requests. During this process all shots and scenes should be accounted for. They are timed with actors and locations marked. Subtitles should have crucial metadata such as the actor speaking the lines. Music and musicians should be identified.
Watching a fight with only one or two takes, however, is fantastic. If I recall, the Soderbergh movie "Haywire" was good about this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1PCtIaM_GQ
In particular, at 5:26, they show how Jackie edits hits to appear twice across cuts to aid in viewability.
Compare with, say, Terminator 2. I can't quite derive the exact layout of the factory in the final act, but generally speaking I know who's who, where they are, how close they are to each other, etc., all the basics I really ought to know if I'm to be shown tension instead of cinematically simply told there is tension.
Though the Marvel movies have generally been sensible, if fast-paced, in my opinion, so who knows.
Look for action movies where the actors are able to do their own stunts, particularly when they are famed for it or are even athletes. Those movies tend to cut less, unless the director decides to introduce lots of cuts for stylistic reasons.
Ostensibly, this is a reflexive design element, though these things can have sublte connotative/implied ideas. Sometimes the prelab audio matches both pre- and post-cut scenes, and help you to think about the content in a different way. Or, it may just be an interesting way to cut your content. :-)
Source: anecdotal evidence from friends/relatives who observed childrens' reactions when first exposed to TV/movies when they were relatively old.
Throughout history, you'd never be in a position where there would be two people having a confidential conversation in which you weren't an active part. How does the monkey brain react to that? The closest thing might be e.g. two village elders discussing your fate in front of you, such that you know you can't participate.
But then, if that's how your brain frames it, why would you enjoy that at all? It would throw off all the indicators of you being low status.
It's literally how you learned to speak.
But the author still has an interesting perspective, as obviously to an extent we immerse ourselves in what is shown on screen, even though we always know we're outside of it. (It's on a screen at a fixed length from us.) That is something evolution never made us do.
Commercials exploit this all the time. Next time you watch TV, squint and/or turn off the sound to break your connection to the semantic content of the advert, and try to just look at it as a series of random shapes and colors. Frequently, the most dynamic shot in the commercial is followed by a relatively static shot of the product, with the product situated at wherever the greatest movement in the frame was (typically lower left or right third in live action).
This is especially true for detergent and personal care products that need to be picked out from crowded shelves at the supermarket. It's also why locally produced commercials look cheap - there's usually no sense of movement within the frame, just a series of images that don't connect up visually and so leave only a random fragmentary impression in the mind.
Startup owners, this is often also a problem for you: it's really easy to make a video these days and everyone wants to tap into the feel of those Apple commercials, but it requires a lot more than a cute acoustic guitar track and footage of people looking happy! When you opt for a video presentation rather than text copy on your landing page, you're asking the visitor to process a lot more information a lot more rapidly. If you don't have a cohesive visual as well as semantic narrative, then your video can end up making the same bad impression as the stereotypical 'geocities' web page does for static presentation. Put another way, if your shots don't link up or your sound isn't good, then you will never make it past people's visual cortex.
Your semantic context rides into people's brains on the back of the visual and audible context you create for it. You can watch your product video endlessly and feel good about it, because it's an expression of your semantic map. People who don't have that semantic map already in place (ie everyone else) won't be able to put it together if you just give them the pieces in video form but don't show how they cohere. You find it illuminating to test your product video by playing it on a large TV to small children or even pets. Animals will watch TV if it seems like something is happening; if you can't hold the attention of a dog or cat, then I guarantee you that whatever it is you're trying to explain to your human viewers isn't getting through to most of them.