OT- interesting study on editing

Evidently, too many cuts reduces what people remember. They showed people footage from a basketball game with footage from a still camera, a moving camera, and 2 cameras. People were more likely to remember what happened if there were no cuts, and even more if there was no movement either.

This is interesting, especially after reading Walter Murch's "In the Blink of an Eye."

[scienceblogs.com]

----
www.JamesNWeber.com - Socially Aware Media

and introducing-
www.FCPTutorials.com - One source for all Final Cut Tutorials

Nice find James. Thanks. Think I'll send this link to Walter

Michael Horton
-------------------

> People were more likely to remember what happened if there were no cuts, and even more if
> there was no movement either.

True. Although there's more to narrative editing than remembering what happened -- there's also excitement, rhythm, the need to see details (eg. faces, expressions, eyes) and visual variety.

However, the concept is a good one for editors to remember. I remember watching Bulletproof Monk and, despite being a big Chow Yun-fat fan, I turned it off after about 30 minutes because the cuts were so fast and badly done that in the subway-station scene, I couldn't even tell where a character was at any given point, let alone what was happening.

This might be a controversial point to make, but There Will Be Blood is the opposite example. The sequence shots lasted so long that the whole film felt flat, overlong, and smug. Character development was shallow and abbreviated. No rhythmic variety. If it weren't for that brilliant score and Daniel Day-Lewis, the film wouldn't have worked.


www.derekmok.com

> > People were more likely to remember what
> happened if there were no cuts, and even more if
> > there was no movement either.
>

Think that's one of the reasons we hold on a shot a tad longer to emphasize a point. But yea, without a cut, or the presentation of new and fresh detail or information, viewers are likely to switch off their focus...

Quote
derekmok
brilliant score

They was robbed, Oscar-wise. Johnny Greenwood's a freakin' genius.

I liked the film, but I know that PTA gets Derek's response response on all his films.

ak
Sleeplings, AWAKE!

> They was robbed, Oscar-wise. Johnny Greenwood's a freakin' genius.

He wasn't nominated!? Highway robbery! This score was like Bernard Herrmann with a modern twist.


www.derekmok.com

Robbery indeed...

[www.slashfilm.com]

ak
Sleeplings, AWAKE!

Those awards committees make no sense sometimes. So what if the score contains some pre-existing music? You can also say that you're nominating the newly composed material.

I remember in 1991 when frickin' "Unforgettable" won the Grammys for Record of the Year and Song of the Year. The thing was written in 1951. It had been recorded by a dozen artists before Natalie Cole's 1991 version. When there's an old f**t that the aged establishment likes enough, they bend the rules. Oh yeah, and the Oscars are still giving the Best Song category to Alan Menken every chance they get. Three nominations? Come on.


www.derekmok.com

Heay that aged establishment nominated "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" in 2005. Gotta love that.



Michael Horton
-------------------

> Heay that aged establishment nominated "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" in 2005. Gotta love
> that.

Yes, true...and Eminem's "Lose Yourself" won in 2002. I just wish they'd stop their Alan Menken/Disney cutesy song fixation.


www.derekmok.com

Pulling for Falling Slowly on my end. God, I loved that movie. Damn near perfect. But in fairness, Happy Working Song was brilliant. Well, the choregraphy was brilliant. Didnt listen to the lyrics.

Michael Horton
-------------------

I was pretty happy to find out that one of my mentors, Jamal Joseph, is nominated in the Best Song category. So I'm biased.


www.derekmok.com

I wonder who the 12 people tested were?

I'm not surprised at the conclusions drawn, however say if you stuck 12 Dereks in front of the same test then I bet you'd not see any marked change in the 3 trials!

In fact he'd complain at the poor quality of the computer generated court and the distinct lack of realism in the game play and what about the subtext!!! Man they totally cut the thing wrong, it was supposed to be about the center and his total disregard for the pain he'd caused the team in accepting an offer from a rival 2D animated test in Michigan State University... Jeez any Burger King employee would have picked that out...

Its like market research - you need to know your audience or your answers are pretty meaningless.

Quote

This decrease in accuracy was almost entirely found at the point in the movie immediately following the cut, suggesting quite strongly that the cut itself momentarily disoriented viewers.

Sounds like a bad edit to me...



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

> In fact he'd complain at the poor quality of the computer generated court and the distinct lack of
> realism in the game play and what about the subtext!!!

Man, those basketball players are bad actors. They need to take acting classes. Yada yada yada.

The "bad cut" seems similar to Walter's "beehive" theory, ie. cuts between shots that aren't different enough -- if I read the angles correctly, the two court angles seem to fall into this category -- are disorienting.


www.derekmok.com

I wonder if part of the reasoning is more to do with the way we are trained to view things. When we look at a photograph, we stop and study a single image. Like we would if we were intently focussed on something in the real world, like .. say .. waiting for someone to emerge from a building. So our focus is pulled.

But when we look at video, like real life, we let tons of information slide by as unimportant (or we develop mental distress from all the noise, action and information going on at once). In fact film makers often have to completely overemphasise things in order to make sure they get noticed.

So is the cut to blame, or is it a general lack of focus?

I remember that Russian Ark was a whole movie without a cut, but the content? About the same retention level as any other film I've seen, I reckon.

> I wonder if part of the reasoning is more to do with the way we are trained to view things.
> When we look at a photograph, we stop and study a single image.

Sure! If the frame is dead still, there's nothing to watch except the subjects themselves, and since the frame is boring, we might be more inclined to look harder at what might be interesting.

But the study doesn't get into the fact that sometimes not "elaborating" also means some information is lost. For example, if you need to see the names on the players' jerseys.

Moves and cuts are not only often designed to show different things, but sometimes often to hide them. The camera's power isn't just in being able to get closer to things, but also in its ability to isolate details -- by excluding other details. By going to a close-up on one character, you deliberately exclude the other character and focus your message.

That's why I love cutting acting scenes. Just the choice of singles vs. OTSes is an art.


www.derekmok.com

well studies aside...

I'm still creeped out by Andrew's Sith look - I feel all anxious when I scroll down and see Darth Kines looking out from under his hoody!



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

Thats what all Canadian men look like. Thank God all the Canadian women look like Gisele Bundchen

Michael Horton
-------------------

> Thank God all the Canadian women look like Gisele Bundchen

So all Canadian women look like a Brazilian woman?

Must be God's sense of humour.

Actually, Canadian women look like Heidi Klum.


www.derekmok.com

I like it - he looks like he'll fix your computer, edit your program, and then probably hack your WOW password, strip your gear, hunt you down, gank you and camp your corpse for a week. All while stroking a hissing white cat.

>
> The "bad cut" seems similar to Walter's "beehive"
> theory, ie. cuts between shots that aren't
> different enough -- if I read the angles
> correctly, the two court angles seem to fall into
> this category -- are disorienting.

What's the "beehive" theory, btw?

That's also a very good point- the 2 shot sizes are fairly similar. Not to mention, during a cut, new information is presented, and viewers need a bit of time to reorientate themselves to that new shot. To figure out where they are, and what they are seeing on screen. We can't expect viewers to instantly know what the shot is on the exact moment of the cut.

Also, I don't think cuts are used to allow viewers to accurately remember exact spatial positions of people in a scene. In fact, many times we cheat on angles. Next, we also use cuts to create emotional impact to tell a story- would you want to show a constant wideshot of a fight scene where nobody is actually hitting anyone? When we cut between shots, we sometimes create a false sense that something is actually happening- people get hit, some are in pain, etc...

Sometimes, we don't need to know everything that is happening in the scene. Eg. If it was a real basketball game, it would have been impossible to tell straight from the wideshot, some of the finer details like shirt tugging, or how one particular player did the set-up for a dunk. Which also brings to mind Walter Murch's statement that if an editor can't see the expressions in an actor's eyes, he'll cut to a tighter shot. A shot therefore, can be seen as a presentation of information, and cuts/sequencing of shots determine how we choose to omit/insert/emphasize.

> What's the "beehive" theory, btw?

Walter Murch's In the Blink of an Eye relates the cut to an experiment: While a group of bees is out, they moved the beehive. They found that if the hive was moved by a great distance, the bees noticed the change and would find the location of their new home. However, when the hive was moved just a short distance, the bees actually became more confused because the new location was similar enough to the old one for them to think it never moved, but different enough for them to fail to find it. Murch related this to editing -- two shots that are different cut well because you re-interpret the location of everything. Two shots that are very similar but not identical would confuse the audience -- the jump cut.

In the simulation above, the angles they used appeared to be a direct 90-degree shift in perspective, but the size of the court remained the same. I'm pretty sure if this appeared in a film, it'd be a pretty bad jump cut.

Many film students erroneously think that you need to make two shots similar in order for them to cut. It's actually the opposite, and Murch's example is one of the best models I've come across for explaining that.

> Which also brings to mind Walter Murch's statement that if an editor can't see the expressions
> in an actor's eyes, he'll cut to a tighter shot.

But sometimes it's good to keep a distance. Especially in comedies, where detachment and distance can enhance the dryness of the comedy. Many modern comedies are too eager to chop up the scene. As my first editing mentor Evan Lottman said, "Comedy plays in two-shots". American Pie 2's "superglue" scene is a great example of how detached dryness worked wonders for the scene. Ninotchka had a fabulous comedy scene between Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas that lasted about five minutes on the same medium two-shot, no cuts. And then there's the ultimate "no cuts" comedy, Clerks.


www.derekmok.com

Actually, during edits, i tend look out for both similarities and differences and also placement within a frame before making a cut. I found out that cutting between shots that are similar in some ways creates a certain effect.