Short Cuts and the Battle for Attention

HowdyDoo

HowdyDoo

Well-known member
With each passing year, the average shot length used in broadcast television goes down. It's crazy when you watch a music video or a commercial and the average shot is less than 2 seconds.

Does anyone find this disturbing? That essentially music videos are boder-line strobe lights now? That text can no longer stand still on the screen? Is there a limit to human cognition?

I think creativity and imagination isn't employed enough these days, and instead is replaced by flashy, A.D.D. fueled editing. Heck, MTV only plays songs to the midway point before cutting to a new song. They only play half songs!? What's going on here?

I'm only 28 but I can already tell that I'm gonna be a crazy old man, sitting on my porch, cursing the billboards flying down the street flashing 60 different ads a second.
 
Last edited:
I have to say I agree. I was just watching a couple of features and it seems as if the creativity is gone. I mean what happened to dramatic suspense and long drawn out shots? The epic shots? I mean even the long establishing shots of locations last at best 10 seconds. I cant even remember a shot from the top of my head that lasts over 30 seconds in any movie recently.


Fxguy,
Tim C
 
Yeah, I will have to agree on the small duration in cuts lately, though the phenomenon is mostly found in the music video and the advertising world, it's also there in the movies too. However I wil have to say that it can be sometimes something you use as a "tool" in telling your story, but using too much and all the time, is for me unaccepted, the audience just doesn't have time to digest and filter what he/she is watching so I consider it primarily unfair and disturbing. Advertisers use that weapon to pass the messages they want in the subconscious and is something that has been the subject of many scientific experiments worldwide.

A really fine movie that I watched lately, that had long durations in between cuts and without any camera movement also was : Caché by Michael Haneke you can check it out here:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387898/

The film was awarded in the Cannes Film Festival.
 
jazzx said:
A really fine movie that I watched lately, that had long durations in between cuts and without any camera movement also was : Caché by Michael Haneke you can check it out here:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387898/

The film was awarded in the Cannes Film Festival.
Click to expand...

One of the best 10-15 movies of the last year in my opinion... I suggest also another Haneke's movie, full of long take and really really frightening: Funny Games
 
There's one music video that has long durations between shot and that's "Weapon of choice" by Spike Jonze.

A very nice shoot music video.
 
Couple of other movies that have a number of long takes, and it's very effective:

Sling Blade - this movie is striking not only for long takes, but for long sections of uninterrupted dialogue.

The Apostle- Robert Duvall. The climax is essentially a half-hour sermon, but it's riveting.

Secrets & Lies; Vera Drake - two films by British director Mike Leigh. Some amazingly long takes where the camera just observes.

Those are some that come immediately to mind.

Keith
 
why don't we speak about Alfred Hitchock's Rope? the whole movie is made with just a (fake) long take...

The beginning sequence of Orson Welles' Touch of Evil is another famous example of long take shot, or again the beginning sequence of DePalma's Snake Eyes (an amazing 15 minutes long take)
 
you guys won't know the level of artistry that can be accomplished with a "long take" until you've seen a Béla Tarr film. check out his masterpiece, Werckmeister Harmonies or the epic 7 1/2 hour Satantango.
 
I had a chans too see "Satantango" was it called? In a theater.

The only thing I know about it was it was 7 1/2 hours and that was what scared me I didn't know if I could see a 7 hour film then. Now I know that I could after my Star wars, Godfather and Lord of the rings marathons.
 
I recently watched the Sixth Sense again. It had some really beautiful long takes and some really slow dolly work. I am a big fan of the longer take. I think if done correctly and with the right story it helps you enter the character's world and head more effectively. Fast cutting and shorter shot length is the single thing I hate most about fight scenes in most action movies. In Batman Begins I thought the fight on the subway car was terribly shot (or so it seems) and terribly edited.

I can't wait to storyboard/write a shot list for my Herofest short. There will definitely not be fast cuts. Of course the length of the shot will be determined by the action and story.
 
One of my favorite fight scenes is the one in LA confidential where Russell Crowe beats up the guy beating his wife. Just a few cuts, nothing flashy. Just direct and realistic.
 
Alex DePew said:
Fast cutting and shorter shot length is the single thing I hate most about fight scenes in most action movies. In Batman Begins I thought the fight on the subway car was terribly shot (or so it seems) and terribly edited.
Click to expand...

Totally agree that the Batman Begins fight scenes were badly shot. Although I did like the more grounded dark feel of the film overall.

Not sure about the editing, because I think the real reason they were bad were the scarcity of periodic wider geography establishing shots, damage establishing midshots, and emotional reaction establishing close-ups. If the director didn't shoot anything but action closeups, then the editor is rather restricted!

Being mostly in very tight closeup, means there is confusion over who we were looking at in any one moment, not helped by the similarity in dark colouration of the combatants. This is rather crucial as we are then confused as to who is winning or losing during the fight.

I believe this is a misguided attempt to try and emulate the "chaos confusion" of battle. It may be more "realistic", but a confused audience very quickly becomes a switched off audience. If you can't tell who's doing better in the ebb and flow of the fight, you lose a huge part of what makes fights fascinating. If it goes on like this for too long, you also stop rooting for the hero.

And finally, a fight is a scene. And like any good scene, it should serve to illuminate character or plot as well as being visually interesting - preferably all 3 at the same time. The fight scenes in Batman Begins only ever get one of the 3 at most. Chris Nolan is obviously a good director, but needs to work on his action skills.

"Is Batman winning?"
" Can't tell."
"... How about now?"
" Still can't tell."
" Is he hurt?"
" Not sure."
" Hell, don't care anymore! Can we just get to the end of this fight and get on with the story!"
 
Last edited:
ericyoung said:
Totally agree that the Batman Begins fight scenes were badly shot. Although I did like the more grounded dark feel of the film overall.

Not sure about the editing, because I think the real reason they were bad were the scarcity of periodic wider geography establishing shots, damage establishing midshots, and emotional reaction establishing close-ups. If the director didn't shoot anything but action closeups, then the editor is rather restricted!

Being mostly in very tight closeup, means there is confusion over who we were looking at in any one moment, not helped by the similarity in dark colouration of the combatants. This is rather crucial as we are then confused as to who is winning or losing during the fight.

I believe this is a misguided attempt to try and emulate the "chaos confusion" of battle. It may be more "realistic", but a confused audience very quickly becomes a switched off audience. If you can't tell who's doing better in the ebb and flow of the fight, you lose a huge part of what makes fights fascinating. If it goes on like this for too long, you also stop rooting for the hero.

And finally, a fight is a scene. And like any good scene, it should serve to illuminate character or plot as well as being visually interesting - preferably all 3 at the same time. The fight scenes in Batman Begins only ever get one of the 3 at most. Chris Nolan is obviously a good director, but needs to work on his action skills.

"Is Batman winning?"
" Can't tell."
"... How about now?"
" Still can't tell."
" Is he hurt?"
" Not sure."
" Hell, don't care anymore! Can we just get to the end of this fight and get on with the story!"
Click to expand...

Nice synopsis of why they were so bad. I think you nailed it on the head. And I definitely feel for the editor. But the reason I think the editor may be at fault is that I don't know what footage he had to pick from. But the dark colors and close ups were definitely the director/choreographer's fault.
 
One thing of note in Lord of the Rings, was how originally Peter was going for a very tight chaos feel in the battle, but they realized that the battle sequences were so long, they had to avoid combat fatique.

He did this by sticking with the hero at all times, and showing in great detail how the Hero was handling the fight. He did it very well a few times, and the rest of the time, the chaos was used to save on time and money.
 
M. Night is the modern master of long takes. Most of the scenes in Unbreakable are shot from a single setup. He's a Hitchcock devotee in many ways.

Personally, I find a very clear divide between the two techniques, most of the time. Fast cutting has immediately more kinetic power and energy, and inherently has a "cool" factor (that most of the time is squandered). Long takes, on the other hand, are the only way you really get to dive into a performance and eek real emotion out of a piece. From my own stuff, the work I am most pleased with at the end of the day is the stuff that takes its time and resonates a bit.
 
Alex DePew said:
Nice synopsis of why they were so bad. I think you nailed it on the head. And I definitely feel for the editor. But the reason I think the editor may be at fault is that I don't know what footage he had to pick from. But the dark colors and close ups were definitely the director/choreographer's fault.
Click to expand...

Thanks Alex. We can't know what happened in the edit room, but normally the director signs off on the edit, unless there's studio interference, and so carries the final responsibility.

Fast cut fight scenes can be perfectly "readable" - eg. any fight in the first Bourne Identity, fights in Crouching Tiger, the Blade films, etc.
 
Back to the thread topic - fast cutting isn't inherently a bad thing. It's just another technique. Like most techniques, it can be overused or abused.

It's fairly obvious that modern audiences are able to take in information far quicker than in cinema's infancy. We're all soaked in the developing language of cinema.

My biggest problem with fast cutting is that if it's used almost exclusively, it becomes monotonous, and also starts drawing attention to itself. It's also a bit lazy - the long take takes more effort and planning from everybody involved.

Also, without cuts, it has a certain "verite" feel that choppy editing lacks. Another tool in the director's armoury which should be used more!
 
Alex DePew said:
I recently watched the Sixth Sense again. It had some really beautiful long takes and some really slow dolly work. I am a big fan of the longer take. I think if done correctly and with the right story it helps you enter the character's world and head more effectively. Fast cutting and shorter shot length is the single thing I hate most about fight scenes in most action movies. In Batman Begins I thought the fight on the subway car was terribly shot (or so it seems) and terribly edited.

I can't wait to storyboard/write a shot list for my Herofest short. There will definitely not be fast cuts. Of course the length of the shot will be determined by the action and story.
Click to expand...

I think (THINK) you should keep in mind how difficult it is to get the perfect lengthy shot. You probably don't have a lot of money to make the best actors, and that means you'll have to do take after take of that very long shot just to get the perfect one-- That's where short cuts come in.

You'll be able to mold a scene that moves the story along out of all of those bad takes, picking out the great pieces.

I'm not advocating the short cuts, because, I am just not a fan of the machine gun cult. The quick cutting doesn't do it for me, as a director/visionary.

Which actually brings me to another topic that I'd discussed with my Producer/LP ... the lack of wide shots in cinema lately. But that's totally subjective, as well as this topic.

Eric said/typed it well -- use your weapons appropriately, boys and girls.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top