看电影也有大学问

Robert Siegel （Host）： Lets say youre in a movie theater. Youre watching an action movie—lets say “Iron Man 2”.

（Soundbite of Film “Iron Man 2”）

Robert： Theres a racecar flying through the air， its tires are off and bouncing free， crowds of fans are taking all this in. Its the Monaco Grand Prix， and the onlookers are on grandstands and balconies of seaside condos. What do you actually see？ Where do you look？ Well， Tim Smith set out to answer that question scientifically. Hes 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， its 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. Its limited to what lands directly at the center of our eyes. And so a way to record peoples impressions of a scene is to use a device called an 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 isnt 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 heat map showing what all of these eyeballs had been focused on， 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 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. Hed never been to Monaco and probably about 70% of the image was CG， or post-effects. So a lot of it had been made up artificially. And some of the decisions hed 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 vindicated that， didnt it？

Tim： Absolutely. So when I showed it to Jon， he was really surprised because hes sitting with two hats on—both as the director but also as a producer—thinking， Im going to spend less budget on the special effects in the background because people arent going to notice. And the heat map exactly vindicates that because it shows that， you get this effect called attentional synchrony， when most of the viewers are looking in the same place at the same time and if you have less detail in the periphery， theyre not going to be able to attend to it. So theyre 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; its expensive. You can do computer 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 youre trying to show and who your audiences are. For instance， Ive 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—theyre real people to me. And somehow， its 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. Were in an interesting technological era right now and its one of the reasons why the Academy of Motion Pictures wanted to hold this event about the 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 whats the impact on the viewers 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 visual and auditory brain works and how the audiences are going to respond to those films and TV 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.

罗伯特·西格尔（主持人）：设想你在一家电影院正看着动作片——《钢铁侠2》。

（电影《钢铁侠2》原声片段）

罗伯特：（电影的一幕）一辆赛车在空中飞过，它的轮胎都松动了，在地上弹来弹去，一众粉丝把这一幕深深地印在脑海里。这是摩纳哥大奖赛，观众们都站在看台和海边公寓的阳台上。事实上你看到了什么？你会关注哪里？好吧，蒂姆·史密斯着手用科学的角度来回答这个问题。他是伦敦伯克贝克大学的视觉科学家，他参加了近期由美国电影艺术与科学学院举办的一个会议。他从伦敦来到我们这，欢迎你来到我们的节目。

蒂姆：嗨。谢谢你，罗伯特。

罗伯特：首先告诉我们，你是怎样着手回答这些问题的？

蒂姆：好吧，这是个非常棘手的问题，因为当我们观察这个世界的时候，我们认为自己接收了很多信息。但是作为一个视觉科学家，我知道事实上我们对世界的印象是很有限的，只局限于出现在我们视觉中心的影像。因此，记录人们对场景印象的一个方法就是使用一种叫眼动监控仪的设备，它是一个高速的摄像系统，能够监控你的视线停留在哪一个特定的场景，同时也能够发现场景的哪部分没受到关注。这样我们就能知道哪些部分有可能被人们所认知进而变成长期记忆。

罗伯特：那么你有多少用于做实验的观众？

蒂姆：75人左右。

罗伯特：（实验的）结果就是一种能够显示所有这些目光关注所在的热图与《钢铁侠2》实际情景的叠加。除了别人以外，你还曾就这和执导这部电影的乔恩·费儒一起讨论了这个问题。我的意思是，与乔恩·费儒对自己电影的认知相比，你发现了什么不同的东西吗？

蒂姆：这个实验做得真的非常好，因为我们做的是现场实验，现场实验很有挑战性，因为（实验结果）很容易在晚上出现较大的差错。我让他先给我介绍续集的内容，然后他告诉我一些我從来没有意识到的电影制作细节，那就是那个场景是在美国的一个停车场拍摄的。他从来没有去过摩纳哥，大概70%的场景都是计算机的绘图，或者后期加工的效果。所以很多场景都是人工制作的。他作的一些决定，例如如何通过细节来引起观众的注意，都是取决于他对观众会看哪些场景的一些推断。因为他认为任何特定的时候，观众们都会关注主角，关注他们的面部表情、爆炸的场景或者动作，而这些都会出现在屏幕中央。

罗伯特：而你的实验充分地证明了他的观点，对吗？

蒂姆：没错。所以当我把实验结果展现给乔恩的时候，他很惊讶，因为他有两个身份——导演兼制片人，他在想，我要把更少的预算花在背景（刻画）的特效上，因为人们不会注意到这些。而热图清楚地表明，你会有一种叫注意力同步的效应，就是指当大部分的观众都在看同一个时间同一个地点发生的场景时，如果你对周围缺少细节上的刻画，那么观众就不会注意到它。所以他们不会发现周围的场景，至少第一次观看时不会注意到。

罗伯特：所以这就是不必去摩纳哥拍摄任何东西的一个有利论点——费用很贵。你可以用计算机绘图来制作周围的场景，没有人会注意到有什么不同。

蒂姆：对，至少在第一眼观看一个场景的时候会这样。这取决于你想展现什么，以及你的观众。例如，我跟许多动画师聊过，像是梦工厂（美国影业公司）和皮克斯（动画工作室）这些动画制作公司会把很多时间和金钱都投资在服装和背景的细节上，因为他们知道观众会一遍一遍地看他们的电影。你看一部电影的次数越多，就越有可能关注到全部的场景。

罗伯特：现在，我有一个观看经历与你的发现刚好相反，那就是用高清电视机观看棒球赛，与标清的电视机作对比。我很喜欢看棒球赛，这对我来说最大的不同就是，用高清电视机观看比赛，我能注意到在本垒外很后排的粉丝们的脸——他们对我来说是实实在在的存在。而不知道为什么，这对于我来说是一个更真实和有趣的经历，尽管我也能在标清的电视机里跟进赛事。

蒂姆：嗯。我们正处在一个有趣的科技时代，这就是为什么美国电影学院想要举办电影的神经学和心理学的活动。因为他们意识到有许多关于科技的选项：高清、标清、高帧频、三维、计算机绘图，他们需要了解是什么影响观众的体验。而你描述的只是一个简单的决定就能产生的事——我用高清相机，还是标清相机？但是你可以关注更多的细节，你可以用不同的角度看待它。所以这是我们真的需要了解的事物，了解大脑的视觉和听觉部分是如何运作的，了解观众对这些电影和电视的剪辑是如何反应的。

罗伯特：好的，蒂姆·史密斯，谢谢你与我们分享你的研究以及你和电影导演们开会的内容。

蒂姆：嗯，非常感谢。感谢你的邀请。