In Depth Cine
MEDIA | CINEMATOGRAPPHY
What role does neurocinematics play in shaping our emotional responses?
By Jana Younis
February 5, 2024 FFilm is not what it seems. Inside the world of film, is a world of neuroscience, psychology, and if you're like me, a hobby unlike any other. A hobby that made me question how a simple succession of rolling images can cause such intense impacts on my mind, emotions, and beliefs. So how does it affect the way our brain works? Emerging at the crossroads of cinema, psychology, and neuroscience, neurocinematics engages tools from these fields to plunge into the relationship between films and our brains.
Media is a powerful concept that can inspire, influence, entertain, inform, and stimulate thoughts and emotions. As the media evolved, a somewhat new area of study has emerged to understand better and address the media as it relates to human behavior and psyche. This field is referred to as “media psychology”.
Media psychology includes analysis and applications dealing with all forms of media technologies: emerging technologies and applications, such as social media, mobile media, interface design, educational technologies, interactive media technologies, traditional and mass media, such as radio, television, and very notably, film.
Study 1: Inter-Subject Synchronization of Prefrontal Cortex Hemodynamic Activity During Natural ViewingA subsequent study compared the participants' brain activity while watching The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly to their responses to an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, and an unedited 10-minute shot of a New York City park. Once again, the researchers used the similarity in participants' brain activity as a metric for measuring the engagement levels of the scenes. The results indicated that the Hitchcock episode produced comparable brain activity across all viewers in over 65% of the cortex, the brain's outer layer. In contrast, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly showed similar activity in 40% of the cortex, while Curb Your Enthusiasm and the real-life New York City park only exhibited such similarity in 18% and 5% of the cortex, respectively. This study highlights Hitchcock's ability to orchestrate synchronized responses from different brain regions among diverse viewers.
Study 2: Inter-subject correlation for different filmsAccording to Jean-Luc Godard, French-Swiss film director and screenwriter, cinema is a multidimensional art that uses different complicated stimuli such as music, sound, and pictures. In addition to this, the way a film is edited has a significant role as it incorporates numerous photographs and sounds to provide a consistent configuration. The combination of these elements creates a complicated sensation that can influence the mind of the audience multi-dimensionally.
Behind the camera, cinematographers are in charge of the visual arts aspect of the storytelling in a film, and the details and meaning behind each shot. Exploring the role of the eyes and the brain in color perception sparked curiosity about its application to film, along with contemplation on how the brain processes the overall visual information presented in movies. Consequently, the focus naturally shifted towards the workings of cinematographers, individuals who play a pivotal role in deciding what visual information reaches the brain and how the brain interprets it.
In the context of visuals and cinematography, color and lighting play a crucial role in eliciting specific emotional responses. The choice of different colors can evoke distinct feelings; warm tones, for instance, may instill a sense of warmth or intimacy, while cooler hues can convey a feeling of melancholy or suspense. Additionally, the framing and composition of scenes contribute significantly to the overall impact. The way scenes are framed can influence the audience's attention and focus. Close-up shots, for example, have the power to intensify emotions, drawing viewers into the intricacies of characters' expressions, while wide shots serve to establish the broader context of the narrative.
The first reference that comes to mind is Euphoria. Let’s unpack the cinematography in season one of Euphoria and break down the visual and technical approach taken to achieve the desired on-screen look. In initial discussions with Rév, the cinematographer for Episodes 1 through 4 of Euphoria, Levinson conveyed his desire for the show's visual style to capture the way teenagers envision their lives rather than focusing on realism. They termed it "emotional realism," grounded in the characters' emotions rather than a faithful representation of the world. This formed the basis of their vision, which they developed technically.
While maintaining an elevated overall aesthetic for Euphoria, Levinson and Rév approached each scene individually, determining its emotional essence before deciding on lighting and camera movements. The color palette was intended to be vibrant yet not excessively varied, relying on primary colors with a particular emphasis on the orange-blue color contrast, especially in night and day scenes.
Rév explained the lighting approach, utilizing ambient blue for day interiors and incorporating elements like moonlight, blue backlight, and yellow-tinted streetlights for night exteriors. The cinematographer stressed the importance of sticking to defined colors, even in party scenes, to avoid visual inconsistency. The lighting setup involved a mix of traditional tungsten lights, HMIs, SkyPanels, and LED lights.
The first season of Euphoria showcased distinctive camera movements as a unifying design element. Rév emphasized the role of camera movements as the glue that ties together different storylines. To achieve the sophisticated movements, extensive preparation was done, with storyboard artist Peter Beck collaborating closely. Although storyboards were a guide, the team was open to improvisation, giving them a sense of freedom while staying within the overall plan.
A standout example of camera choreography in Season 1 was the 10-minute tracking shot in "Shook One: Pt II" at a carnival. Rév explained that the goal was to connect all characters in a single shot, traversing various locations within the carnival. The complex sequence involved a dolly, a technocrane, and four camera stitches. Despite the challenge of shooting two-thirds of the carnival scenes in just seven days, meticulous planning and a disciplined cast ensured the successful execution of the ambitious tracking shot, showcasing the collaborative efforts of the production team.
A crucial component of film editing that determines a story's rhythm and flow is pacing. The film's tempo is greatly influenced by the way shots are put together, which in turn affects the audience's emotional reaction. While a slower tempo permits times of reflection and relaxation, a faster speed can create a dynamic and thrilling atmosphere by inducing feelings of tension and urgency. Film editing is a potent tool that works in concert with tempo to evoke particular feelings in the viewer. A sequence of fast cuts, on the other hand, may cause feelings of bewilderment or disorientation, whilst a montage of happy recollections can evoke sentiments of nostalgia. In order to ensure a smooth and captivating viewing experience, invisible edits are essential in film editing psychology. These edits prevent abrupt or subtle cuts that can upset the rhythmic flow of the movie. Furthermore, the setting in which the movie is shown—in a theater, on television, or through internet streaming services—becomes an important factor that affects how the audience views and interacts with the movie.
Lets delve into the editing and pacing of Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. Tarantino's aesthetic has been influenced by the trend of enhanced continuity editing. His signature approaches include fast-paced, shot-rich scenes with many of shots, as well as moments with heavily clipped dialogue. His former editor of several of his big pictures, Sally Menke, describes his approach in this way: "the Tarantino thing is to make the mundane feel very spicy".
The pacing and editing of "Pulp Fiction" have a significant impact on viewers' emotional and cognitive engagement. With a non-linear narrative, Quentin Tarantino's unusual style compels audience participation as they put together the broken storyline. In contrast to conventional linear storytelling, this cognitive challenge engages viewers' minds and encourages them to build the entire story. The film's rhythm, which combines moments of contemplation with fast-paced action, elicits a wide spectrum of emotional reactions among viewers. While slower intervals give time for reflection, faster ones increase suspense and tension. The film's rapid cuts and transitions, along with other editing techniques, force viewers to recall and make connections between seemingly unrelated sequences, which affects memory and attention. Additionally, by manipulating the temporal elements, the viewer's perception of time and continuity is disrupted, which keeps the brain active in processing the story in an unusual way. As a result of its thoughtful editing and pacing, "Pulp Fiction" stands out as a revolutionary piece in the storytelling genre and provides an emotionally and cognitively engaging cinematic experience.
The marriage of neuroscience and cinema, known as neurocinematics, has given us exciting new perspectives on the emotional and cognitive effects of movies. From the technicalities of filmmaking and movie production to the simultaneous cognitive effects watching a movie has, neurocinematics unravels the intricate symphony of light, music, and emotion that is the cinematic experience. Watching a film is not only about being passive spectators; rather, it's a dynamic experience that engages our senses, activates our minds, and evokes strong emotions in us. And we might still discover new methods to tap into the transforming potential of film as we continue to delve deeper into our thoughts using the lens of neurocinematics.
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