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Quicker, Faster, Darker: Changes in Hollywood Film over 75 Years:

Quicker, Faster, Darker: Changes in Hollywood Film over 75 Years: We measured 160 English-language films released from 1935 to 2010 and found four changes. First, shot lengths have gotten shorter, a trend also reported by others. Second, contemporary films have more motion and movement than earlier films. Third, in contemporary films shorter shots also have proportionately more motion than longer shots, whereas there is no such relation in older films. And finally films have gotten darker. That is, the mean luminance value of frames across the length of a film has decreased over time. We discuss psychological effects associated with these four changes and suggest that all four linear trends have a single cause: Filmmakers have incrementally tried to exercise more control over the attention of filmgoers. We suggest these changes are signatures of the evolution of popular film; they do not reflect changes in film style. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png i-Perception SAGE

Quicker, Faster, Darker: Changes in Hollywood Film over 75 Years:

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SAGE
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 by SAGE Publications Ltd unless otherwise noted. Manuscript content on this site is licensed under Creative Commons Licenses
ISSN
2041-6695
eISSN
2041-6695
DOI
10.1068/i0441aap
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Abstract

We measured 160 English-language films released from 1935 to 2010 and found four changes. First, shot lengths have gotten shorter, a trend also reported by others. Second, contemporary films have more motion and movement than earlier films. Third, in contemporary films shorter shots also have proportionately more motion than longer shots, whereas there is no such relation in older films. And finally films have gotten darker. That is, the mean luminance value of frames across the length of a film has decreased over time. We discuss psychological effects associated with these four changes and suggest that all four linear trends have a single cause: Filmmakers have incrementally tried to exercise more control over the attention of filmgoers. We suggest these changes are signatures of the evolution of popular film; they do not reflect changes in film style.

Journal

i-Perception – SAGE

Published: Jan 1, 2011

Keywords: film,motion,luminance,shot lengths

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