Try to think of a few memorable movie scenes. Are there any that you can clearly picture in your mind? If you can, imagine how they were filmed, how the cameras were used and they way they were edited.
Cognitive Daily has an interesting post on peer-reviewed research about how different cuts in movies can impact our memory.
The research focuses on how well we recall scenes shot with a static (still) camera, dynamic (moving) camera, or using “jump cuts” (when the camera position jumps instantly from one location to another).
I don’t know about you, but I haven’t always been very conscious of the editing in movies. It was only when I started messing around with video editing on my computer that I became acutely aware of how the slightest variations in the timing of cuts can have a huge impact on the overall effectiveness of a scene.
As a result, I often end up agonizing over whether a cut should be placed at 1 minute, 03 seconds and 21 frames, or 1 minute, 03 seconds and 23 frames. It doesn’t sound like much, but it can make a big difference.
Reading the post on CogDaily, I tried to picture movies with scenes using lots of jump cuts versus scenes using still shots, or long shots without any cuts.
In doing so, I was reminded of why I hate Michael Bay (Transformers) who uses a dizzying amount of short jump cuts in close succession resulting in a chaotic and nearly incomprehensible visual style. For a brief synopsis of Bay criticism and some truly awesome pop-culture references to the man, check out the Criticism section on Bay’s Wikipedia page (Team America: World Police is a masterpiece).
But I also had a few more pleasant recollections of scenes which used very long shots to great success. I’m thinking about the legendary steadicam shot through the Copacabana club in Goodfellas, or some of the scenes in Children of Men such as the car-motorcycle chase, or the 5 1/2-minute beach shot in Atonement.
These types of scenes may fall on the extreme end of the spectrum and may not be what the CogDaily post is talking about, but I still find them very memorable. That may be largely due to their technical achievement, but perhaps not entirely so. I can certainly remember more details about these shots than I can about a fight sequence in a Bourne movie, for example.
Do you have any memorable scenes of your own? If so, I’d love to hear ‘em.
Been listening to this one a lot, pretty much the whole way through.
This novel was published after the Chilean-Mexican author's death, and I'm not even sure if it was entirely finished or not. It is broken up into five parts which, while connected, stand pretty much on there own. I have not yet made it to the grim part about the murders of hundreds of women in Mexico, so I have so far found it enjoyable and even funny despite some dark underpinnings. It's had a ton of critical praise, and I like it much more than my last foray into the violent novel genre: Blood Meridian.
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Grammar police! It should be “cuts affect” rather than “cuts effects”.
In other bloggish news, how’s it lookin’ on the POM front? I’ve voted probably 20 times, and my boss is out of town this week so I’ll have even more mess-around-online time for such endeavors Kickass.
That’s embarrassing. Thanks for correcting me, though. I have changed the title.
As far as the contest, thanks for voting. I don’t know how we are doing in the vote but I have a pretty good feeling we are in the top three: our video is one of three that POM has said it wants to show in movie theaters.
That’s exciting, but we seem to be well behind the “Find Your Inner POM” video in number of views on YouTube. I don’t know how that translates to number of votes or outcome of the contest, but it has me a little worried.
So keep voting and get other people to vote! I will soon be sending out another combination of mass email/facebook message for one final push.
how did you find out that you were 1 of 3 for the theater? do you know the other 2?
I asked the person who emailed me if all the finalist got that email. She said they only sent it to three people. But I don’t know who the other two are.