tactile sensations in the beholder. Heinrich Wölfflin (1864–1945), a Swiss art historian, agreed with Riegl that different “shot-scales” exist in painting and that they represent different perceptual modes, but he attributed slightly different
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Gal Raz, Giancarlo Valente, Michele Svanera, Sergio Benini, and András Bálint Kovács
András Bálint Kovács
According to directors and directors of photography choosing the appropriate shot scale for a scene is primarily an issue of narrative function. However, especially in the practice of art cinema preference of specific shot scales may be an important indicator of a particular style. In some cases statistical analysis of overall shot scale distribution in films reveals consistent and recurrent patterns of shot scale distribution in an author's work. Such a consistency is surprising, because it cannot be the result of conscious decision. No filmmaker plans the proportion of each shot scale in a film. This article investigates a systematic variation of shot scale distribution (SSD) patterns disclosed in the films of Michelangelo Antonioni, and Ingmar Bergman, which raises a number of questions regarding the possible aesthetic and cognitive sources of such a regularity.
Gradation of Emphasis in the CinemaScope Westerns of Anthony Mann
A Style Analysis
Sam Roggen
general assumptions that have been made with regard to CinemaScope’s alteration of cutting rates and shot scale, two stylistic parameters that play a vital role in the creation of gradation of emphasis, with fresh empirical data. Building on Barry Salt
Ted Nannicelli
Kovács, also explores the effects fostered by a specific formal device of cinema—in this case, shot-scale. And again, distinct research methods are put to complementary use. Raz and colleagues’ starting point is a desire to empirically test a hypothesis
Jaakko Seppälä
Aki Kaurismäki's feature-length fictional films are often discussed as a stylistically homogenous group. Because critics have looked for similarities, they have neglected differences among the films. This article tests prevailing arguments about the cinematographic style of Kaurismäki's films in a quantitative analysis of shot lengths, camera movements, reverse angles, point of view shots, and shot scales. The analysis indicates significant similarities and changes among the films and differentiates between notable stylistic trends. The results of the study complicate existing claims about Kaurismäki's style. Mismatches between impression and fact are explained by analyzing the parts of Kaurismäki's style that “stand out” and the reasons why they do so.
James E. Cutting and Ayse Candan
This article investigates historical trends of mean shot durations in 9,400 English-language and 1,550 non-English-language movies released between 1912 and 2013. For the sound-era movies of both sets there is little evidence indicating anything other than a linear decline plotted on a logarithmic scale, with the English-language set providing stronger results. In a subsample of 24 English-language movies from 1940 to 2010 the decline in shot duration is uniform across 15 shot classes, a result that supports a broad “evolutionary” account of film change. The article also explores the proportions of these shot classes across years and genres, with the results showing that 25 percent of the decline in shot duration is due to a shift away from shot classes with longer-than-average shot durations towards those with shorter-than-average durations, and 8 percent of the decline is due to the increased use of shot scales in which characters appear larger.
Stephen Prince
and shot scales that Mann and his cinematographers employed and compares these with all other films that Mann directed in the 1950s. Roggen also compares Mann’s work with a sample of thirty-one CinemaScope films made in this period in order to place
Gary Bettinson
point-of-view (POV) shots entirely. He minimizes most of the techniques of “intensified continuity” 13 —despite copious depth staging, he avails himself of rack focusing but once; his shot scales favor gradations of long and medium shot framings; and he
How Many Emotions Does Film Studies Need?
A Phenomenological Proposal
Julian Hanich
analytical categories—just think of genres, shot scales, or types of lighting—but we are much less well-equipped with regard to our emotional experiences. This is astonishing not least because “affective gratifications” are a key motivational factor for
“This Ticking Noise in My Head”
How Sound Design, Dialogue, Event Structure, and Viewer Working Memory Interact in the Comprehension of Touch of Evil (1958)
John P. Hutson, Joseph P. Magliano, Tim J. Smith, and Lester C. Loschky
generalize beyond it. Specifically, the use of shot scale, dialogue, and sound editing to constrain inference processes are not unique to this scene ( Magliano et al. 1996 ). We see this study as illustrating the promise of collaborations between filmmakers