An Attentional Theory of Continuity Editing

writingacrossmediaspring2015

Eric Martin Pryor

Tue, 14 Apr 2015 03:39:26 GMT

The key take away of this reading is basically that the viewer of a film can perceive a continuous narrative that is made out of separate, discontinuous shots. In order to make discontinuous shots appear to be continuous, filmmakers employ a variety of techniques. One of the most common of these techniques is editing in "Continuity Style" which is also referred to as "Hollywood Style". Continuity style is used heavily in most films today and in the past. As the name suggests, the goal of Continuity style is to create a sense continuity out of disconnected shots. Continuity is essential to telling a coherent story, the chain of a characters actions must be illustrated in a non distracting way otherwise the viewer will be made aware of and distracted by the disconnected nature of the separate shots in a film. While a viewer is watching a film, they are an active participating, absorbing information and using that information to formulate expectations about what will happen next. The continuity style takes advantage of this activity of the viewer in order to create a sense of continuity. For example, a character may point to something of screen, causing the viewer to expect the camera to cut to what they are pointing at. If a sound occurs off screen, the viewer will expect to be shown the source of the sounds. If the viewer expects the camera angle to change, they will not be distracted when it does. In order to occasionally remind the viewer of the space in which the scene is taking place, film makers use re-establishing shots that zoom back out and show where exactly the actors are in space. If there is a good "flow", viewers may not even notice the re-establishing shot occur.

mnmendo2

Tue, 14 Apr 2015 04:57:23 GMT

I think you summarized the reading very well. That's pretty much exactly what I got from Tim Smith also. One thing I really like was the way he explained how viewers can make assumptions about part of a film even if it is not directly shown. This is similar to what we talked about in class the other day. How even though the robbery in The Dark Knight wasn't narrated, viewers were still able to understand what was going on due to the continuous editing for the film. I also really how he explains viewers make safe assumptions about sounds even if the screen is black. As the Continuity Style is a very current trend or style, I wonder how much is going to change in the next few years. It's interesting what makes movies "good movies" and how editors are able to make films "good" even if they use an unusual style of editing. I think Tim Smith does a good job of explaining this to those who may not be exactly fully aware of editing.

Alicia Lee

Tue, 14 Apr 2015 14:14:53 GMT

This text says that continuity "is an illusion created in the mind of a viewer and not an inherent feature of the stimulus itself, i.e. the film. As such, a theory of cinematic continuity must focus on the relationship between the film and the viewer" (10). This means that it is not just the elements of the editing that makes it continuous, but it is how the person perceives those things that makes it continuous. The main takeaway from this text is the Attentional Theory of Cinematic Continuity (AToCC). Tim J. Smith explains that this theory says that the audience does not and should not "construct a detailed spatiotemporal representation of the depicted scenes," but should "shift their attention to the audiovisual details currently relevant to them and the narrative" (15). This means that the for continuity to work, the emphasis must not be on how the space/ time is created on film, but it must be focused on the attention of the viewer and shifting the attention of the viewer smoothly from one feature to the next. It is about fulfilling their expectation that they ha ve about the future form. Continuity editing takes this theory to its advantage and uses natural attentional cues to take the attention of the viewer seamlessly into the next scene. Instead of having the viewer focus on the cut, there are cues such as "off-screen sounds, conversational turns, onsets of motion, gaze cues, pointing gestures, departures from our field of view" that take the attention of the viewer away from the cut, but to a new a part of the scene so that they won't notice the cut.

Sylvie Xiaowei Zhuang

Tue, 14 Apr 2015 14:31:12 GMT

I think you explain the reading pretty well about what is continuity style. When I do the reading, I think it is very interesting that the author explains editing and shooting from both a artful and scientific perspectives, such as attentional theory, visual cognition and hollywood film style in the reading. Continuity in the film can make audience feel the editing is invisible and everything seems very natural. To achieve this goal, Tim Smith explains how editing style fits the way human eyes view the world. Sometimes it can shows the perspective that human eye can not achieve to make the film more vivid and detailed, which differentiate the reality and art creation. The main point in the reading is that the construction of visual elements in the film should focus on directing human eye's attention and shifting their attention more naturally. There are also several questions occur to me when I do the reading, for example,does continuity suits all types of films? What are some advantages and disadvantages of continuity filmmaking compared to Montage filmmaking? What kind of different effects will it bring to the audience?

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