Week 12 Reading Questions

What were the average shot lengths (ASLs) for the following periods?

 

The 1920s was a period of fast cutting, averaging four to six seconds per shot, but sound changed everything.  Between 1930 and 1960, most feature films averaged shot lengths of 8 to 11 seconds and contained between three hundred and seven hundred shots.  Things started speeding up in the mid-1960s.  The average shot length was between 6 and 8 seconds.  About ¾ of the films had an ASL of between 5 to 8 seconds.  The 1968 film Head had an amazing ASL of 2.7 seconds.  Mainstream films of the 1980s average shot lengths between 5 to 7 seconds.  By the century’s end the ASL of a typical mainstream film in any genre would average between 3 to 6 seconds.

 

 

How has faster editing in Hollywood affected the other elements of film style?

 

Films are cut at places where it was considered taboo to do before.  Today’s filmmakers feel no hesitation to cut in the middle of a camera movement.  Pans and tracks are usually interrupted by cuts today.  Whiplash pans and jerky reframing are in sometimes used in the editing process.  Rack focusing can shift a shot’s composition as crisply as a cut can.  Filmmakers are making cuts throughout the film to keep it fresh and full of energy.

 

 

 

Why are establishing shots less necessary in intensified continuity?

 

Cuts during dialogue scenes are more common to reinforce the 180-degree rule.  Spatial relations have to be tightened if cutting back and forth in dialogue scenes take place.  The shorter the shot length the more exact the angles have to be.  By keeping the shots shorter, including less or shorter establishing shots, the editor has to play by the rules of classical Hollywood to ensure a tight film.

 

How were wide angle (short) lenses used after 1970?

 

 

Wide angel lenses were used for characteristic distorting effects like bulging on the frame edges, exaggerating distances between foreground and background.  Filmmakers using wide-screen formats commonly resorted to the wide-angle lens to provide looming close-ups, expansive establishing shots, views inside cramped quarters, and medium shots with strong foreground-background interplay.  In the 1980s and 1990s, action film directors used the lens with packed compositions and tight camera movements.  Some directors use short lens for caricatural comedy.  Often used in T.V.

 

 

How were telephoto (long) lenses used after 1970?

 

 

Long Lenses magnifies distant action.  Typically for shooting ecterior scenes, telephoto lenses can be used for interior scenes to save time.  Multiple-camera shooting became more popular in the 1970s with T.V., directors used long lenses to keep cameras out of each other’s range.  The long lens create a documentary immediacy or a stylized flattening, making characters appear to walk or run in place.  Dr. Berliner used Mike Nichols The Graduate for his example, Dustin Hoffman is running down the street and it feels like he is going nowhere.  The long-focus lens became an all-purpose took, available to frame close-ups, medium shots, over-the-shoulder shot, and even establishing shots.  Milos Forman and Robert Altman were likely to use the telephoto lenses for nearly every setup.