How do movies control where we look?

What is it about?

Filmmakers are experts in controlling where we look on the screen. How do they do this? I estimated where viewers look at the beginnings and ends of over 30,000 shots in 24 movies. Results supported three general filmmaking practices in the screen composition of popular movies. First, filmmakers generally put the most import content—usually the face of a character—slightly above the center of the screen. Second, in dialogs, which account for about half of popular movie content, they place speakers slightly to opposite sides of the midline. Third, in all other shots, they generally follow important content in one shot by similar content in the next shot on the same location, but again near the center of the screen. The first practice seems to follow from the nature of our visual fields of view and the relationship of heads to bodies (eyes and mouths are most expressive, but shoulders and other body parts, which push the head upward on the screen, are relevant too). The second practice follows from social norms of taking turns in conversations and an image composition norm called nose room, and the third from the consideration the speed of re-engaging attention (not having to move one’s eyes from one part of the screen to another).

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Photo by Augusto Oazi on Unsplash

Photo by Augusto Oazi on Unsplash