看電影也有大學(xué)問

Robert Siegel （Host）： Let’s say you’re in a movie theater. You’re watching an action movie—let’s say “Iron Man 2”.

（Soundbite of Film “Iron Man 2”）

Robert： There’s a racecar flying through the air， its tires are off and 1）bouncing free， crowds of fans are taking all this in. It’s the Monaco Grand Prix， and the 2）onlookers are on 3）grandstands and 4）balconies of seaside 5）condos. What do you actually see？ Where do you look？ Well， Tim Smith set out to answer that question scientifically. He’s a vision scientist at Birkbeck University of London and he took part in a recent conference organized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He joins us from London. Welcome to the program.

Tim Simith： Hi. Thank you， Robert.

Robert： And first tell us—how did you set about answering those very questions？

Tim： Well， it’s a tricky question because when we see the world， we have the impression that we take in a lot of information. But I know as a vision scientist that actually， our impression of the world is very limited. It’s limited to what lands directly at the center of our eyes. And so a way to record people’s impressions of a scene is to use a device called an 6）eye-tracker， which is a high-speed camera system which can monitor where your eyes are pointing in any particular scene. And also which part of the scene it isn’t focused on. And that gives us an idea of which bits are likely to make it into their awareness and make it into their long-term memory.

Robert： So you had a sample audience—about how big？

Tim： About 75 people.

Robert： And the result of this was kind of a 7）heat map showing what all of these eyeballs had been focused on， 8）superimposed on the actual scene from “Iron Man 2”. And you discussed this with， among others， Jon Favreau， who directed the movie. I mean， did you discover anything different from what Jon Favreau had seen in his own movie？ Tim： It was really nice because we did it as a live experiment， which is always very risky because it could have gone 9）disastrously wrong on the night. And I asked him to describe the sequence before. And he told me some details about the production which I was completely unaware of， which is that actual scene was filmed on a parking lot in America. He’d never been to Monaco and probably about 70% of the image was 10）CG， or post-effects. So a lot of it had been made up artificially. And some of the decisions he’d made， such as how detailed to render the audience in the background， were based on his assumption about where the viewers would look because he thought that any particular moment， the audience were looking at the main characters， at their faces， at the explosions or the action which is at the center of the frame.

Robert： And your experiment pretty much 11）vindicated that， didn’t it？

Tim： Absolutely. So when I showed it to Jon， he was really surprised because he’s sitting with two hats on—both as the director but also as a producer—thinking， I’m going to spend less budget on the special effects in the background because people aren’t going to notice. And the heat map exactly vindicates that because it shows that， you get this effect called attentional 12）synchrony， when most of the viewers are looking in the same place at the same time and if you have less detail in the 13）periphery， they’re not going to be able to 14）attend to it. So they’re not going to see it， at least on the first viewing.

Robert： So this is a strong argument for not gonna Monaco to shoot anything there； it’s expensive. You can do computer 15）graphics around the periphery and nobody will notice the difference.

Tim： Yeah， at least on the first viewing of a scene. It depends on what you’re trying to show and who your audiences are. For instance， I’ve talked to a few animators； the likes of DreamWorks and Pixar and they invest a lot of time and money in details like costumes and backgrounds because they know that their audiences are going to watch their films over and over again. And the more you watch a film， the more likely you are to look at all the parts of the image.

Robert： Now， I have had one viewing experience that runs counter to what you found. And that is watching baseball games on high definition， as opposed to standard definition television. One big difference for me—and I love watching baseball games—is that on high definition， I actually see the faces of the fans who are sitting behind home plate， many rows deep—they’re real people to me. And somehow， it’s a more realistic and fun experience， I find， to see that， even though I could follow the action just as well at standard resolution.

Tim： Yeah. We’re in an interesting technological era right now and it’s one of the reasons why the Academy of Motion Pictures wanted to hold this event about the 16）neuroscience and the psychology of film because they realized that there are so many technological options like high-def， standard-def， high frame rate， 3-D， CG， that they need to understand what’s the impact on the viewer’s experience. And exactly what you described is something which comes about by just making a simple decision—do I use a high-def camera， or do I use a standard-definition camera？ But， you could look at more details； you could see it in a different way. And so these are things we need to really understand， by understanding how the 17）visual and 18）auditory brain works and how the audiences are going to respond to those films and TV 19）clips.

Robert： Well， Tim Smith， thanks for talking with us about your research and your conference with the film directors.

Tim： Well， thanks a lot. Thanks for having me.

羅伯特·西格爾（主持人）：設(shè)想你在一家電影院正看著動(dòng)作片——《鋼鐵俠2》。

（電影《鋼鐵俠2》原聲片段）

羅伯特：（電影的一幕）一輛賽車在空中飛過，它的輪胎都松動(dòng)了，在地上彈來彈去，一眾粉絲把這一幕深深地印在腦海里。這是摩納哥大獎(jiǎng)賽，觀眾們都站在看臺(tái)和海邊公寓的陽臺(tái)上。事實(shí)上你看到了什么？你會(huì)關(guān)注哪里？好吧，蒂姆·史密斯著手用科學(xué)的角度來回答這個(gè)問題。他是倫敦伯克貝克大學(xué)的視覺科學(xué)家，他參加了近期由美國電影藝術(shù)與科學(xué)學(xué)院舉辦的一個(gè)會(huì)議。他從倫敦來到我們這，歡迎你來到我們的節(jié)目。

蒂姆：嗨。謝謝你，羅伯特。

羅伯特：首先告訴我們，你是怎樣著手回答這些問題的？

蒂姆：好吧，這是個(gè)非常棘手的問題，因?yàn)楫?dāng)我們觀察這個(gè)世界的時(shí)候，我們認(rèn)為自己接收了很多信息。但是作為一個(gè)視覺科學(xué)家，我知道事實(shí)上我們對(duì)世界的印象是很有限的，只局限于出現(xiàn)在我們視覺中心的影像。因此，記錄人們對(duì)場景印象的一個(gè)方法就是使用一種叫眼動(dòng)監(jiān)控儀的設(shè)備，它是一個(gè)高速的攝像系統(tǒng)，能夠監(jiān)控你的視線停留在哪一個(gè)特定的場景，同時(shí)也能夠發(fā)現(xiàn)場景的哪部分沒受到關(guān)注。這樣我們就能知道哪些部分有可能被人們所認(rèn)知進(jìn)而變成長期記憶。羅伯特：那么你有多少用于做實(shí)驗(yàn)的觀眾？

蒂姆：75人左右。

羅伯特：（實(shí)驗(yàn)的）結(jié)果就是一種能夠顯示所有這些目光關(guān)注所在的熱圖與《鋼鐵俠2》實(shí)際情景的疊加。除了別人以外，你還曾就這和執(zhí)導(dǎo)這部電影的喬恩·費(fèi)儒一起討論了這個(gè)問題。我的意思是，與喬恩·費(fèi)儒對(duì)自己電影的認(rèn)知相比，你發(fā)現(xiàn)了什么不同的東西嗎？

蒂姆：這個(gè)實(shí)驗(yàn)做得真的非常好，因?yàn)槲覀冏龅氖乾F(xiàn)場實(shí)驗(yàn)，現(xiàn)場實(shí)驗(yàn)很有挑戰(zhàn)性，因?yàn)椋▽?shí)驗(yàn)結(jié)果）很容易在晚上出現(xiàn)較大的差錯(cuò)。我讓他先給我介紹續(xù)集的內(nèi)容，然后他告訴我一些我從來沒有意識(shí)到的電影制作細(xì)節(jié)，那就是那個(gè)場景是在美國的一個(gè)停車場拍攝的。他從來沒有去過摩納哥，大概70%的場景都是計(jì)算機(jī)的繪圖，或者后期加工的效果。所以很多場景都是人工制作的。他作的一些決定，例如如何通過細(xì)節(jié)來引起觀眾的注意，都是取決于他對(duì)觀眾會(huì)看哪些場景的一些推斷。因?yàn)樗J(rèn)為任何特定的時(shí)候，觀眾們都會(huì)關(guān)注主角，關(guān)注他們的面部表情、爆炸的場景或者動(dòng)作，而這些都會(huì)出現(xiàn)在屏幕中央。羅伯特：而你的實(shí)驗(yàn)充分地證明了他的觀點(diǎn)，對(duì)嗎？

蒂姆：沒錯(cuò)。所以當(dāng)我把實(shí)驗(yàn)結(jié)果展現(xiàn)給喬恩的時(shí)候，他很驚訝，因?yàn)樗袃蓚€(gè)身份——導(dǎo)演兼制片人，他在想，我要把更少的預(yù)算花在背景（刻畫）的特效上，因?yàn)槿藗儾粫?huì)注意到這些。而熱圖清楚地表明，你會(huì)有一種叫注意力同步的效應(yīng)，就是指當(dāng)大部分的觀眾都在看同一個(gè)時(shí)間同一個(gè)地點(diǎn)發(fā)生的場景時(shí)，如果你對(duì)周圍缺少細(xì)節(jié)上的刻畫，那么觀眾就不會(huì)注意到它。所以他們不會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)周圍的場景，至少第一次觀看時(shí)不會(huì)注意到。

羅伯特：所以這就是不必去摩納哥拍攝任何東西的一個(gè)有利論點(diǎn)——費(fèi)用很貴。你可以用計(jì)算機(jī)繪圖來制作周圍的場景，沒有人會(huì)注意到有什么不同。

蒂姆：對(duì)，至少在第一眼觀看一個(gè)場景的時(shí)候會(huì)這樣。這取決于你想展現(xiàn)什么，以及你的觀眾。例如，我跟許多動(dòng)畫師聊過，像是夢工廠（美國影業(yè)公司）和皮克斯（動(dòng)畫工作室）這些動(dòng)畫制作公司會(huì)把很多時(shí)間和金錢都投資在服裝和背景的細(xì)節(jié)上，因?yàn)樗麄冎烙^眾會(huì)一遍一遍地看他們的電影。你看一部電影的次數(shù)越多，就越有可能關(guān)注到全部的場景。

羅伯特：現(xiàn)在，我有一個(gè)觀看經(jīng)歷與你的發(fā)現(xiàn)剛好相反，那就是用高清電視機(jī)觀看棒球賽，與標(biāo)清的電視機(jī)作對(duì)比。我很喜歡看棒球賽，這對(duì)我來說最大的不同就是，用高清電視機(jī)觀看比賽，我能注意到在本壘外很后排的粉絲們的臉——他們對(duì)我來說是實(shí)實(shí)在在的存在。而不知道為什么，這對(duì)于我來說是一個(gè)更真實(shí)和有趣的經(jīng)歷，盡管我也能在標(biāo)清的電視機(jī)里跟進(jìn)賽事。

蒂姆：嗯。我們正處在一個(gè)有趣的科技時(shí)代，這就是為什么美國電影學(xué)院想要舉辦電影的神經(jīng)學(xué)和心理學(xué)的活動(dòng)。因?yàn)樗麄円庾R(shí)到有許多關(guān)于科技的選項(xiàng)：高清、標(biāo)清、高幀頻、三維、計(jì)算機(jī)繪圖，他們需要了解是什么影響觀眾的體驗(yàn)。而你描述的只是一個(gè)簡單的決定就能產(chǎn)生的事——我用高清相機(jī)，還是標(biāo)清相機(jī)？但是你可以關(guān)注更多的細(xì)節(jié)，你可以用不同的角度看待它。所以這是我們真的需要了解的事物，了解大腦的視覺和聽覺部分是如何運(yùn)作的，了解觀眾對(duì)這些電影和電視的剪輯是如何反應(yīng)的。

羅伯特：好的，蒂姆·史密斯，謝謝你與我們分享你的研究以及你和電影導(dǎo)演們開會(huì)的內(nèi)容。

蒂姆：嗯，非常感謝。感謝你的邀請(qǐng)。