SHOCKER: Hollywood Movies Are Formulaic
by MICHAEL TUNISON / MATHLETES / MOVIES
Brace yourselves, because I don’t want you keeling over and dying on your keyboard on account of me, but the editing in Hollywood movies follows a precise formula so as to be attuned to the viewers’ attention span. What? You mean math and cold calculations are being used to aid artistic expression? Oh heavens, does this spell doom for the idea of the caprice of inspiration? Are people thinking of the children>
“Psychologist Professor James Cutting and his team from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, analyzed 150 high-grossing Hollywood films released from 1935 to 2005 and discovered the shot lengths in the more recent movies followed the same mathematical pattern that describes the human attention span.” … “Cutting made his discovery by measuring the length of every shot in 150 comedy, drama and action films, and then converted the measurements into waves for every movie. He found that the more recent the films were, the more likely they were to obey the 1/f fluctuation, and this did not just apply to fast action movies. Cutting said the significant thing is that shots of similar lengths recur in a regular pattern through the film.”
Of course, while this pattern is consistent through successful movies, it’s also prevalent in poor performing ones as well. So while the movies are properly geared to keep you focused, they aren’t always as adept as keeping you entertained.
— January 20‚ 2009 —
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