Monday, December 12, 2011

Blog Response- Article- Intensified Continuity

According to David Bordell, explain how and why continuity has intensified in Hollywood cinema. Also consider whether anything has been lost with this change.

David Bordell explains that Hollywood Cinema has intensified over the years. Film makers have deterred themselves slowly from the use of wide angle shots and transferred over to a more fast pace cutting. Also, film makers now a days now use narrow lenses rather than the standard wide lens.

"Between 1930 and 1960, most Hollywood feature films, of whatever length, contained between 300 and 700 shots, so the average shot length hovered around eight to eleven seconds." This shows that each shot was usually a long length shot that stood still. In the mid 1960's many filmmakers began to experiment with faster cutting. Filmmakers began to edit their films more faster to make the film seem more interesting rather than showing one long continuous shot. In the 1980's, the tempo had continue to pick up, however, average shot lengths began to vanish. ASL's in movies began to now reach an average of four to five seconds. This shows how filmmakers began to go away from ASL's, and move toward more faster shots. 

Faster cutting of shots had become a 'must' for films. Shot lengths went to the extreme of lasting 1.5 seconds per shot. "No film is one long sequence." This shows that films have gone away from the traditional ASL, and now have become more fast pace. 

"From the 1930's well into the 1960's, directors often played out stretches of scenes in a plan americain, which cut off actors at the knee or mid-thigh level." In recent decades, filmmakers have been inclined to build scenes largely out of singles. These singles allow the director to vary the scene's pace in editing. When widescreen process were introduced, filmmakers often felt obliged to rely on long shots and medium shots. This shows that throughout the years, the style of shots had continually changed and filmmakers emphasis on it increased.

"Today's camera movements are ostentatious extensions of the camera mobility generalized during the 1930's."  This means that camera movements are now used to attract the audience's attention rather than focus on the main meaning of the shot. Today's camera use the "push in" to show the emotion displayed in a person's face. Push in's underscore a moment of realization and build continuous tension. Today's camera work has further pushed itself from the classical Hollywood styles of film, creating a new era of film making.







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