Charles O’Brien: Shot Length Statistics: National Differences across Multiple Language Version Films (1930-1933)

With respect to recorded sound’s impact on editing technique, see Don Fairservice, Film Editing: History, Theory and Practice (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2001); and Karel Reisz and Gavin Millar, The Technique of Film Editing (London: Focal, 1968).

Concerning the extent of the German film industry’s commitment to multiple-version production during 1930-1932, see Joseph Garncarz, “Making Films Comprehensible and Popular Abroad,” Cinema & cie., n. 4 (Spring 2004), 72-79; and Sabine Hake, German National Cinema (London and New York: Routledge, 2000).

Concerning Pommer’s ideas on the sound-era “international film,” see Ursula Hardt, From Caligari to California: Eric Pommer’s Life in the International Film Wars (Providence, Rhode Island: Berghahn, 1996), 128; and Wolfgang Mühl-Benninghaus, Das Ringen um den Tonfilm: Strategien der Electro- und der Filmindustrie in den 20er und 30er Jahren (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1999), 243.

A variety of dubbing-related examples of this sort of modularity are examined in Natasa Durovicova, “Local Ghosts: Dubbing Bodies in Early Sound Cinema,” il film e suoi multipli/Film and Its Multiples, ed. Anna Antonini (Udine: Forum, 2002), 83-98. The quote from Pommer appears in Corinna Müller, Vom Stummfilm zum Tonfilm (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2003), 297.

An expanded version of the research presented in this paper can be found in my book Cinema’s Conversion to Sound, forthcoming from Indiana University Press in fall 2004.

See R. Clair, “The Art of Sound,” in Sound Film: Theory and Practice, eds. Elisabeth Weis and John Belton (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), 95.

For alternative approaches to computing the ASL, see Barry Salt, “Statistical Style Analysis of Motion Pictures,” Film Quarterly, v. 28, n. 1 (1974), 13-22.

See B. Salt, Film Style and Technology: History and Analysis, Second Edition (London: Starword, 1992), 214-216.

Salt doesn’t provide an ASL average for French films during 1930-1933. The figures reported here are based on my own analysis of a sample of fifty-four French films made during these years.

The standard deviation figures cited for Salt in Table I are not provided by Salt but derived from my own computations, based on data extrapolated from graphs in Salt, Film Style and Technology, 214, 216.

In Arthur Hoerée, “Le travail du film sonore,” La revue musicale, n. 151 (December 1934), 64.

This figure was generated from a sample of twenty French films of 1930-1933 whose running times exceeded sixty-five minutes.

With respect to the statistical analysis of individual films, see the writings by Barry Salt listed in these footnotes; and also Thomas Elsaesser and Warren Buckland, “Mise en scène Criticism and Statistical Style Analysis,” Studying Contemporary American Film: A Guide to Movie Analysis (London: Arnold, 2002), 80-116.

The ASL computations reported in this paragraph were based on a study of films and videos shown at the Spring School, and ought to be verified by a second examination. For films viewed on Pal or Secam video, the ASL figures were multiplied by 1.04 to compensate for the slight speed increase (i.e., 25 rather than 24 frames per second).

[The manuscript below was published in Cinema & Cie: International Film Studies Journal, n. 6 (winter 2005). 45-52. It is reproduced here with no changes.]

Multiple Language Versions and National Films, 1930-1933; Statistical Analysis, Part I

The aim of this paper is to explore ways in which a statistical analysis of national trends in conversion-era film editing might illuminate the film-historical significance of the multiple-version phenomenon of the early 1930s. A statistical analysis concerned with stylistic trends for the major film-producing countries of the time can suggest causal relations between multiple-version production and national filmmaking practices in general that complicate familiar characterizations of multiple-version production as a phenomenon of temporary and marginal film-historical importance. Moreover, in enabling comparisons that reveal novel patterns of evidence, statistical findings may defy the historian’s expectations, and thus stimulate new research and analysis. In any case, the task here is not to substitute statistical analysis for other film-historical methods but rather to explore what the project of situating multiple versions within film history might gain from new combinations of archives and methods, statistical and otherwise. Also, I must acknowledge at the outset that a conclusive demonstration of statistical analysis’ possibilities for multiple-version study will require considerably more data than I have been able to gather so far, as well as further methodological experimentation. Regarding specific possibilities for additional research, a comparative analysis of statistics pertaining to different language versions of the same script appears promising in respects indicated in the Conclusion below. In the meantime, the findings and interpretations presented below are intended as a first step in the use of statistics in clarifying the significance of the multiple versions of the early 1930s for the film-style currents of the time.

Multiple Versions and Film-Editing Practice

With sound-film style so evidently a function of technical constraint, and certain recording methods more or less necessitating certain editing methods, film editing during the conversion years is often characterized as a function of recording technique. [

] In the context of the new sound cinema’s technical requirements, questions arise regarding the effect of multiple-version production on film style. For instance, did the technical requirements of multiple-version

The question as to how multiple-version production affected national film style as a whole seems particularly imposing in the case of the German cinema during 1930-1932, when multiple versions were estimated to have made up roughly one-third of the German film industry’s entire output during this time. [

] Did the demands of multiple-version production on such a large scale affect German sound-film technique generally? One factor to

Statistical Analysis of Film Style

With respect to national style differences, an inevitable starting point for statistical analysis is the work of Barry Salt, whose presentation at this year’s Spring School examined international trends during the 1910s. Focusing on the early 1930s, my presentation juxtaposes my own findings on the average shot lengths of conversion-era films from France and the United States with analogous findings by Salt. My figures were gathered in the context

For an inquiry into the significance of multiple versions for the period’s broad stylistic trends, the “average shot lengths” for films comprising a national film industry’s output for a specific period provide a place to begin. A film’s average shot length, or ASL, can be computed by dividing its total running time by its total number of shots. [

] Once the individual ASLs for films comprising a

In light of the history of silent-cinema practice, this decline in the cutting pace--a reversal of a twenty-year trend--would seem to count as a major film-historical event: whereas the cutting pace of films increased worldwide beginning circa 1905 and continuing up until sound conversion, during conversion, the direction of change effectively reversed, as the cutting pace for films made both in Europe and in the United States dropped substantially.

Nonetheless, a more differentiated picture of conversion-era film style, attuned to the period’s wide diversity of film-style options, is suggested by statistics regarding the impact on film editing of national differences in sound technique. For instance, when the French cinema is examined relative to the American cinema, a significant national divergence in the direction of stylistic change becomes evident. [

] (See Table I) Whereas Salt’s figures

Table I. Statistics on national film-style trends during 1930-1933

National Differences in Data Range and Dispersal

Suggestive of the impact of multiple versions on film-editing technique are national differences in the dispersal of the average-shot-length data cited above, with the French cinema of the early 1930s exhibiting a data range and standard deviation much wider than that for the contemporaneous American cinema. Concerning the range for films of 1930-1933, my analysis of French films records a low of 3.8 and a high of 31.7, which yields

A closer look at the films comprising the sample reveals that the wide range for the French films cuts across differences in genre, with even films falling within the category of commercial film theatre exhibiting a broad spectrum. Thus, the genre expected to exhibit a standardized approach to editing—the commercial stage adaptation--instead turns out to feature remarkable variety in editing technique. For instance, ASLs for some examples of “théâtre

One 1934 account attributed wide variations in a French film’s total number of shots to specific sound-film production methods: a post-synchronized “film reposant sur la technique ‘cinéma’” might comprise up to 900 shots (in which each shot was filmed separately, in silent-era fashion) whereas a direct-recorded “vaudeville filmé” might include 400 shots or less. [

] At a general level, this sort of technical breakdown among types of

The French film industry appears to confirm characterizations of sound-film technique as a function of the filmmakers’ intentions with regard to distribution, although in a national rather than international context. Geared to making films not for export but for the domestic film market alone, French film companies of the early 1930s—notably Pathé-Natan, the country’s largest production company, but also other firms, such as Braunberger-Richebé--adhered to an understanding of sound-film

Conclusion

The figures and analysis presented above suggest some possibilities offered by statistical analysis for multiple version study. But statistical analysis can also constitute research phenomena on a smaller scale than the broad style trends considered here--most typically, the hundreds of shots comprising a feature film. [

] In allowing for precise comparisons of different versions of the same title, micro-level analyses of this sort may offer possibilities

In the meantime, an implication of the research presented above is that industrial-scale multiple-version production in the United States and in Germany opened the way in those countries’ film industries for a pre-designed modular film-sound technique, whereby scenes were assembled, according to plan, from separate and interchangeable components. In contrast, the French film industry’s domestic-market emphasis seems to have allowed for an ongoing commitment to improvised simultaneous sound-image