America 1987

Chapter 130 Visual Sensibility

"What are you doing?"

"Analyzing the film."

David, who was sitting at the coffee table in the living room working, said.

They've already gone home, and after finishing filming Catherine's scenes, David spent a few weeks pretty much finishing the rest of the L.A. Confidential storyline.

"Film analysis?"

"Yes, it means studying film storyboards."

David forgot the limitations of his time and could only explain the word.

This professional term originated from the teaching practice of domestic film and television professional colleges such as Beijing Film Academy. It is an industry term that gradually formed in the film and television education system and is directly related to the popularization of professional textbooks such as Su Mu's "Honor" and Yang Jian's "Film Analysis".

However, a teaching method similar to "film shot-by-shot analysis" already existed in the early 20th century in film studies. It was then called "studying its scene-by-scene shots" and is highly similar in core to the current film analysis method.

"But it seems to me you've only translated the movie into a novel."

After glancing at David's notes for a while, Catherine asked curiously, "Is this what you call studying movie shots? Don't you need to draw tables?"

"Need not,"

David looked up and said, "That's too formalistic. It's easy to fall into the trap of analyzing films for the sake of analyzing films."

"But simply transcribing the film's plot into words without delving into the audiovisual language and narrative logic, isn't that just superficial film analysis?"

No, how could that be considered a superficial film analysis? Simply retelling the plot in words, if it makes the reader feel like they are watching a movie, then that is a very, very deep and successful film analysis.

It is commonly known as writing that evokes vivid imagery.

"Visual imagery? How do you guarantee that your writing will evoke vivid imagery?"

Catherine glanced at the still-playing movie. "Every frame of a movie conveys a wealth of information; you can't possibly write it all down, can you?"

"Practice slowly —"

This is indeed a skill that cannot be mastered overnight. Many authors cannot write with a sense of imagery at first, but by watching some very good movies, feeling the sequence of shots arranged by the director during filming, and watching and thinking more, they can gradually master the "sense of imagery".

From point to surface, then back to point, and then back to surface —

After reading it many times, you can roughly figure out the order in your mind, so that when you write, your mind won't be a mess, and you won't not know how to write it, or which to write first or which to write later.

"So, how's your training going?"

"It seems to have been somewhat effective."

David didn't mince words, saying, "Within the first five minutes of this movie, I could almost picture the scenes in my head just by reading what I had written down."

"Project A sequel?"

"right."

"Is it possible that you've watched the movie so many times that you can visualize the scenes in your mind when you read the text?"

"What you said makes sense," David said, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "Then come over here and let me take a look and give you my opinion."

"I won't comment further, lest you accuse me of being subjective."

Catherine changed her perspective. "Since you said it's already had some results, you must have some insights and experiences to share. Why don't you tell me about them? I'd like to hear them."

"Hmm, let me organize my thoughts," David replied after a moment's thought, "The first is logic—"

When creating a scene or image, the first thing an author must grasp is the correctness of the logic.

"For example, in the opening of this movie, the sound appears first, followed by the characters, so the writing must follow that order."

The technique of "hearing the voice but not seeing the person" is very common in film and television production. In addition to quickly creating suspense, which most people know, it also has another important function: optimizing the audiovisual transition experience.

One counterintuitive point is that humans are far more sensitive to sound than to sight, even though sound travels at only 340 meters per second in the air, far less than the speed of light.

This is because the human ear can detect extremely weak sound waves with an amplitude of only the size of a proton, and can distinguish sound intensity differences of 10 orders of magnitude, while the dynamic range of visual perception of light is much smaller than that of hearing, and its ability to capture subtle stimuli is much weaker.

Of course, the most important thing is that the auditory nerve responds faster. The auditory signal is transmitted from the ear to the brain in only about 0.1 seconds, which is much faster than the processing time of the visual signal. It can detect changes in the environment before the visual system can react.

Therefore, the sound effects of the next scene should be introduced 0.3-0.5 seconds earlier, and the visuals should follow slightly later. By taking advantage of the perception advantage of hearing before sight, the abruptness of scene transition can be eliminated, and a smooth transition between audiovisual elements can be achieved.

While ensuring a smooth transition, it also enhances the audience's sense of immersion during the viewing experience. For example, Bay often uses surround sound technology to reproduce the sound field details of a real space.

In war films, the sound of explosions from different directions is precisely matched with the space, relying on the omnidirectional perception advantage of hearing, so that the audience can construct a complete scene space without relying on the visuals.

"Hmm, aren't you going to write about these rocks on the shore?"

"I wrote it."

"where?"

"Here," David pointed to her, "at night, near a beach on Hong Kong Island."

"Is this all you need?"

"Of course it counts. Do you expect me to go out of my way to describe the appearance and shape of these rocks? When translating a film into text, the most important thing is to distinguish between the primary and secondary elements."

A scene has primary and secondary information. The primary information should be described in detail, while the secondary information should be described briefly.

"You have to understand that in any complex movie scene, there are a lot of props, but in the moment the plot unfolds, what you will always notice is the key information. When the author turns it into words, they can provide detailed or concise descriptions and reorganize this key information."

Is the key information in this scene the phrase "Come quickly and help!"?

"Yes, that's right," David said happily, finally being understood. "The only purpose of these rocks here is to tell the audience that this is a beach, so that's what I wrote in the translation."

The reason I added "night" in front of it was just something I did on a whim.

After all, we learned in elementary school that the six elements of a narrative are time, place, characters, cause, process, and result.

"Here," Catherine pointed to the character appearing below, "is it because he doesn't have a name in the movie that you call him 'bald'?"

"Well, even if he has a name in the movie, I will only refer to him as 'bald' until the audience knows it."

To make a written description of a character vivid, the simplest and most efficient way is to capture their most distinctive features and details.

In fact, this applies not only to novels but also to movies.

When there are many main characters in a film, actors with high recognizability can help the audience quickly identify the characters in a short period of time.

The similar appearance of the actors will not cause confusion in the relationships between the characters, and the audience will not have to shift their attention from the plot to "recognizing the characters", which greatly reduces the understanding threshold of the multi-line narrative.

When casting the 19 mainland web series "The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber", many of the young actresses had highly similar appearances, with all having the same big eyes, pointed chins, and Korean-style flat eyebrows, which made it difficult for viewers to distinguish them.

Objectively speaking, if you look closely, you can still distinguish between the characters Zhao Min (played by Chen Yuqi), Zhou Zhiruo (played by Zhu Xudan), Zhu'er (played by Cao Xiyue), and Yin Susu (played by Chen Xinyu).

However, the resemblance is indeed quite absurd. The male lead, Zeng Shunxi, is said to resemble Wu Lei, Zhu Xudan resembles Song Yi, and Xu Yating, who plays Xiao Zhao, resembles Yang Chaoyue, to the point that the whole drama has been jokingly called a "resemblance contest".

The 22 film version directed by Wong Jing was even more outrageous, and was even mistaken by some as "one person playing three roles".

"Even if I make up a name for him, I can't just write his name directly. When a character first appears, you have to give a brief introduction to his physical characteristics. He happens to be the one with the least amount of hair among the group, so calling him Bald is the most appropriate."

"The character has the least amount of hair, so does that mean this character still has hair?"

"Yes, otherwise why would he cut off his hair to show his resolve later?"