Medium Shots Research Articles

Exploring textual–visual strategies in internet-based light food advertising: a study of Taobao advertisements in China

Amidst global health concerns such as COVID-19 and rising obesity rates, the connection between food choices, societal well-being, and cultural shifts has gained attention. In China, the rise of “light food” consumption on platforms like Taobao reflects a growing trend towards health-conscious dietary preferences. With a dataset comprising 633 images and 45,817 words, condensed into 50 images for analysis, this research aims to understand how these advertisements influence perceptions of healthiness and desirability, and whether there is a discrepancy between advertised health benefits and actual nutritional content. This study delves into the advertising strategies employed for light food products on the Taobao platform in China, utilizing a Textual–Visual Thematic Analysis (TVTA) framework. Noteworthy findings include: (1) Internet-based light food advertising adopts a dual textual and visual approach. (2) Identification of prevalent multimodal devices, such as medium shots, varied camera angles, vibrant colors, and large size. (3) Uncovering inconsistencies in presentation that may pose potential consumer misperceptions. These discoveries underscore the nuanced landscape of light food advertising, offering valuable insights for both academia and industry.

Representasi Toxic Masculinity Pada Film “Seperti Dendam, Rindu Harus Dibayar Tuntas”: Analisis Semiotika Model Jhon Fiske

This article aims to describe the representation of toxic masculinity in the film "Seperti Dendam, Rindu Harus Dibayar Tuntas" through the main male character and film scenes. The film analysis of "Seperti Dendam, Rindu Harus Dibayar Tuntas" employs the semiotic data analysis technique using John Fiske's model. There are three levels of coding in this model: the level of reality, the level of representation, and the level of ideology. The research findings indicate that the representation of toxic masculinity portrayed by the main character at the level of reality is evident in the category of costumes, as seen in Ajo Kawir's simple attire. The level of representation code depicting toxic masculinity is displayed through cinematography techniques such as medium shots, close-ups, two shots, and over-the-shoulder shots. The ideology level observed is the high individualism of Ajo Kawir, who exhibits a sense of superiority, acts in his self-interest, and is stubborn. The toxic masculinity of the main character is influenced by past traumas and the patriarchal society depicted through John Fiske's semiotic model. The level of reality of social codes is conveyed through costumes, speech styles, and expressions. The level of representation of social codes is presented through camera work and lighting. The level of ideology of social codes is depicted through actions, dialogues, and character traits.

Visual Content Analysis of Victimhood in Conflicts in Kashmir and Yemen

This study examines 141 photographs of conflict victims in Kashmir and Yemen from two Pakistani English newspapers, "Dawn" and "The Express Tribune," during 2019. The analysis found that Kashmiri victims were more frequently humanized in the photographs compared to Yemeni victims, with a greater use of close-up and medium shots. Meanwhile, Yemeni victims were more often depicted through long shots, which suggests dehumanization. Additionally, the study found that men received more coverage in the Yemen conflict, while women were portrayed more often in the Kashmir conflict to generate audience sympathy. Violent events were the most commonly reported topic in both newspapers.

From horizontal to vertical Film changes in mise en scene

A vertical film that has an aspect rasio 9:16. X&Yvertical film is Indonesia’ first vertical film to be uploaded on the Tiktok platform. The purpose of this study used the descriptive qualitative method. Data collection techniques: data reduction, data presentation, and drawing conclutions. This study uses observation and documentation methods as data collection techniques. The study result indicate that it is different from the horizontal film. X&Y vertical film often maximize top-down framing. The framing logic that changes in X&Y vertical film determines the type of size shot used. When applied to the vertical film, the size shot on the horizontal film will be different. X&Y film use a lot of size shot, such as medium closeup and close up. Using medium shots and medium closeup in the vertical film gives the audience a solid and intimate impression. Changes bin shot size will also affect the composition of the mise en scene elements. In addition, there are also adjustments to mise en scene elements such as lighting, setting, properies, blocking, and actors. X&Y film uses a lot of composition and top-down blocking to take advantage of the height of the vertical framing. The top and bottom spots appear in a vertical frame. X&Y movie only on the Tiktok platform. There are not many media that support viewing in a vertical format.

Young Women and Disgust in Contemporary Norwegian Comics: A Close Reading of Ane Barstad Solvang's Frykt & medlidenhet

Young Women and Disgust in Contemporary Norwegian Comics: A Close Reading of Ane Barstad Solvang's <i>Frykt</i> &amp; <i>medlidenhet</i>

Realism and Fantasy in Jia Zhangke’s The World

Abstract One of the most prominent sixth-generation filmmakers, Jia Zhangke tells compelling stories about China’s floating population. He documents the quotidian activities of marginal people with long shots and long takes, showing their love, despair, and regrets. Scholars often consider Jia a neorealist or postsocialist realist, but close analyses of his works reveal his penchant for adding fantastical images to true-to-life stories. In his first officially released film, The World (2004), for example, Jia pairs long takes with animation and medium shots to capture the “surreal, unsettling effects” of a rapidly changing society. This generic mixture, I argue, allows the director to expose the psychologies of isolated migrant workers inhabiting multiple realities in a complex world. Jia’s willingness to investigate new ways of envisioning thoughts and emotions illustrates the corrosive effect of greed in postsocialist society and helps expand film’s formalistic commitments to the ethics of representing the real.

P. Ramlee’s Cinematographic Auteurship of Cultural Values Representation in Antara Dua Darjat and Ibu Mertua-Ku

This paper looks into an investigation on auteur theory’s model of cultural representation through visual narrative employment in P. Ramlee’s two heavy-dramas: Antara Dua Darjat and Ibu Mertua-Ku . By employing a qualitative approach, case study embedded and thematic analyses implored two concepts; film syntax and cultural values in both film texts. The findings found that P. Ramlee employed and manipulated visual narrative conventions in his motivated choices of synchronic (space) and diachronic (time) shots in both film texts. In representing cultural values such as communal, brotherhood, responsibility and manners, P. Ramlee portrayed them through distinguishable utilization of cinematography tools – i.e. taking advantage of deep depth of field in layering actions and emphasizing carriers (actors) of values in medium shots. Finally, through the exhaustive exploration of Antara Dua Darjat and Ibu Mertua-Ku ’s visual narrative, it was manifested that P. Ramlee fulfilled the characteristics of an auteur as technically competent, infused personality in his works and idiosyncratically instilled interior meanings across his masterpieces. Though studies on P. Ramlee are somewhat saturated, this exploration was initially a challenge to the glorified realm in which P. Ramlee was placed by critics and fans. True to the nature of research, this exploration summed up to an outcome which not only concurs to the filmmaker’s adoring critics but also theoretically accords P. Ramlee into the realm of the auteur. Keywords: Film studies, Auteur theory, film syntax, P. Ramlee, cultural values representation.

Show me where the action is!

Reality TV shows have gained popularity, motivating many production houses to bring new variants for us to watch. Compared to traditional TV shows, reality TV shows have spontaneous unscripted footage. Computer vision techniques could partially replace the manual labour needed to record and process this spontaneity. However, automated real-world video recording and editing is a challenging topic. In this paper, we propose a system that utilises state-of-the-art video and audio processing algorithms to, on the one hand, automatically steer cameras, replacing camera operators and on the other hand, detect all audiovisual action cues in the recorded video, to ease the job of the film editor. This publication has hence two main contributions. The first, automating the steering of multiple Pan-Tilt-Zoom PTZ cameras to take aesthetically pleasing medium shots of all the people present. These shots need to comply with the cinematographic rules and are based on the poses acquired by a pose detector. Secondly, when a huge amount of audio-visual data has been collected, it becomes labour intensive for a human editor retrieve the relevant fragments. As a second contribution, we combine state-of-the-art audio and video processing techniques for sound activity detection, action recognition, face recognition, and pose detection to decrease the required manual labour during and after recording. These techniques used during post-processing produce meta-data allowing for footage filtering, decreasing the search space. We extended our system further by producing timelines uniting generated meta-data, allowing the editor to have a quick overview. We evaluated our system on three in-the-wild reality TV recording sessions of 24 hours (× 8 cameras) each taken in real households.

Mademoiselle de Joncquières réal. by Emmanuel Mouret

Reviewed by: Mademoiselle de Joncquières réal. by Emmanuel Mouret Anna Dimitrova Mouret, Emmanuel, réal. Mademoiselle de Joncquières. Int. Cécile de France, Édouard Baer, Alice Isaaz, Natalia Dontcheva. Moby Dick, 2018. Following Fritz Wendhausen's silent film Madame de la Pommeraye's Intrigues (1922) and Robert Bresson's Les dames du bois de Boulogne (1945), this feature is another adaptation of an episode in Diderot's novel Jacques le fataliste et son maître, published at the end of the eighteenth century. Mouret offers a contemporary reading of this pre-revolutionary love triangle tale and its twists of deception, revenge, and redemption. Viewers witness and feel the spirit of libertinage and the female characters' agency as both perpetrators and victims. Madame de la Pommeraye (Cécile de France) [End Page 251] is a beautiful aristocratic widow living in a vast estate outside Paris. For several months, she hosts Le marquis des Arcis (Édouard Baer), a prominent libertine who strives to win her heart. Le marquis succeeds in seducing her, making her his latest conquest. He leaves her mansion believing that they will stay good friends. Devastated, la Madame designs a revenge plan: "Ma colère est pleine d'un esprit de justice. [...] Je vois en moi le genre féminin, et en lui, le genre masculin." Her stratagem involves two of society's cast-out women, Madame de Joncquières (Natalia Dontcheva) and her daughter Mademoiselle de Joncquières (Alice Isaaz), who, in order to survive, have been driven to prostitution. Madame de la Pommeraye stages circumstances and meetings between the Joncquières and le Marquis. As premeditated, the exceptional beauty of Mademoiselle de Joncquières (who resembles "une vierge de Raphaël") smites le marquis, who is made to believe that the young woman is a devout virgin. Shot in soft daylight and pastel colors, the film is a visual pleasure. Although the exposition is a bit long and the titular Mademoiselle de Joncquières appears relatively late, the story captivates and flows smoothly from scene to scene. Mouret's cinematic tools create a specific sense of place and time. The juxtaposition of nature scenes and lavish interiors contributes to the impact of the first part of the film. Mouret uses long shots for the magnificent outdoors and close-ups and medium shots inside the mansions. Later, the characters' dangerous liaisons are filmed mostly in the buildings' closed spaces, adding to the sense of psychological manipulation. At times, the dialogue is too theatrical, but the conversations capture the old-fashioned eighteenth-century French language and expression. Henceforth, the gossip of Parisian aristocrats conveys the fate and disgrace of the Joncquières. The conversations flow seamlessly with the film score: baroque music played on a harpsichord, a typical musical instrument in pre-revolutionary France. The superb costume design by Pierre-Jean Larroque earned him a second César des meilleurs costumes in 2019, following his work on Marguerite (2015). The feature premiered at Toronto International Film Festival (2018), ranking as one of the top three films. It will please not only the fans of period dramas such as Les liaisons dangereuses and Ridicule, but anyone interested in representations of the turns and twists of human nature. Anna Dimitrova Columbus State University (GA) Copyright © 2019 American Association of Teachers of French

Confessional Cinema: Religion, Film, and Modernity in Spain's Development Years, 1960–1975 by Jorge Pérez

Reviewed by: Confessional Cinema: Religion, Film, and Modernity in Spain's Development Years, 1960–1975 by Jorge Pérez Aurélie Vialette Jorge Pérez, Confessional Cinema: Religion, Film, and Modernity in Spain's Development Years, 1960–1975. University of Toronto Press, 2017. 280 pp. With the surge of scholars and students interested in cinema, there is no doubt that Jorge Pérez' new book, Confessional Cinema: Religion, Film, and Modernity in Spain's Development Years, 1960–1975, will become a must-read. In the introduction of the book, "Film, Religion, and the Desarrollismo Period," the author makes clear the originality of his book. Critics have usually considered that the end of Franco's dictatorship (the "desarrollismo" period) was marked by a secularization movement that applied as well to cinema. However, Pérez affirms that religion was a strong socio-political and cultural [End Page 457] force of this period. The unexplored corpus of over fifty films he works with proves not only how popular religious films were but also how religion was a driving force in the modernization process in Spain at that time. As Pérez states "my concern is with the links of film texts… to their contexts of production, distribution, and reception within the broader historical matrix of the modernization process in the last phase of the Franco regime and the crucial role that religion played in that period" (14). Both in the introduction and throughout the book, Pérez clearly distances his approach to cinema (that is, underscoring the significance, vitality and popularity of religious films in late Francoism) to what he calls "blanket statements regarding cultural production during the period of desarrollismo" (38) that for him simplify the role of the Church in Spanish society. And he convinces his readers. Chapter one is titled "Lighting Sainthood in the Time of Technocracy" and concentrates on the importance of the lives of the saints and religious heroes in Spanish cinema. Hagiographic films, the author argues, were a response to the modernization of the regime. The goal, according to him, was to provide reassurance to spectators and to reinforce traditional values. Pérez criticizes that "Spanish film scholars cannot accept that the hagiographic film, a genre associated with comforting platitudes rather than with promoting social change, could gain so much currency at a time when Spain was promoting its affinities with the more modernized European countries" (39). The author focuses on the use of the technology of lighting in order to demonstrate that these films were "a genre in between two epistemic moments" (40). They could endorse the sacred representation of Spanish national identity or embrace modern values. The lighting treatment reveals an ideology in these films: "both projected and embodied the tensions generated by the changing role of religion and the Church in the Spanish public sphere as well as by the transition from political theology to the paradigm of economic theology in the regime's political imagination" (43). The technical analysis of El señor de La Salle is particularly pertinent in that it underscores how cinematic techniques were used to create social models, in this case the model of a modern sainthood through framing devices "such as medium shots and medium close-ups in heroic angles that magnify his already imposing figure" (71). The second chapter of the book, "Praying for Development in Post-Vatican II Comedies," introduces the reader to confessional comedies and explain how characters in these films were depicted in the process of adapting to the dynamics of capitalism. Pérez shows how confessional comedies engaged in political issues to underscore how Spain could become modern without renouncing to its religious values. The author suggests that "the massively consumed post-Vatican II comedies had a ritualized dimension performing the function of glory in the new paradigm of economic theology supporting the regime" (79–80). Technical analysis of the films (among the well-known film Sor Citroën) is superb. Pérez pays attention to the composition and editing of each film, that is to the use of zoom lenses, framing devices, synergical crosscuttings [End Page 458] and iconography. The analysis of these key technical aspects reveals how filmmakers approached the tensions...

How to show the interpreter on screen? The normative organization of visual ecologies in multilingual courtrooms with video links

This paper discusses different aspects of participation in judicial settings which combine a reliance on video conferencing technology, to allow for remote defendants in prison, and the presence of interpreters in the courtroom, to interpret for the former when they do not speak the language of the court. In such a multimedia and multilingual courtroom setting, distinctive participation-related concerns emerge with respect to the face to face multilingual courtroom situation. Based on video recordings of naturally occurring courtroom activities, we discuss a relatively neglected issue regarding interpreters’ visibility in video-mediated courtrooms, and show that the ways in which the interpreter is made visible enact relevant participation frames for him/her. The paper shows how the choice of video shots and where these are placed in sequences of talk-in-interaction displays the participants’ view of the interpreter's role within a continuously evolving multimodal participation frame. While interpreters are usually shown in medium shots, and as much as possible not alone but together with the participants whose talk they are interpreting, there are times when the interpreter is made visible through a close shot. The paper discusses such a deviant case and explains how such a move is made relevant by an unusual configuration of footing in the talk to be interpreted.

Visualisasi Perempuan Dalam Film Wanita Tetap Wanita

The main issues in the study that how the visualization of women in the movie  Wanita Tetap Wanita. This research used approach of qualitative descriptive especially the analysis study. The result that can be drawn in this study that the leadership spirit visualised by Medium Close-Up shots, meaning of the personal relationships showed by Medium Shot, the social relationships visualised in Full Shot, and the eye level camera indicates the level of fairness, equality or equal. Visualization of women who demonstrate leadership at a time when women are grappling with maintaining a job with patience and able to lead a family or can be called the backbone of the family. Visualization courage by taking close up pictures that have meaning or intimacy with the expression of someone’s reaction when they face the problem of women still smile and strong, brave women at the time of visualization to show her feelings to a man who already has a wife and children with movement of the Pan Right and Leftcamera show meaning of curiosity in atmosphere around. The results of the study showed that the movie  Wanita Tetap Wanita seeks to visualize the slick condition of women in fighting for their rights at each story according man’s perspective. Keywords :  women,  Wanita Tetap Wanita, and visualization

Lenguaje y contenido audiovisual de los programas en Internet frente a los programas de televisión convencional

Introduction. The new exhibition ways for the in- motion images have brought the necessity to identify if there are modifications in the audiovisual language according to the characteristics of the media. When audiovisual works are broadcasted on conventional media and on those that are converging nowadays, the use of elements from the webs narrative can be appreciated, along with modifications and a se- lective use of the audiovisual languages elements. Objective. Compare the language and the audio- visual contents from Internet and conventional TV programs. Materials and methods. An intentional sample of 17 programs distributed in three conven- tional TV channels with their respective Internet sites and an exclusive audiovisual production blog for the web, were used. By the use of an observation tem- plate, made in Excel, and semi-structured interviews to the transmitters, the language and audiovisual content categories were analyzed. Results. The differences found were not many. In the programs made exclusively for the web, a fragmentation of the contents, a short duration of the programs, a pre- ponderance of medium shots and close-ups and a linear, agile and rhythmic edition can be seen, plus a higher interactivity level. On-demand contents are mostly for programs that are exclusively for the web, while the programs broadcasted on the conventio- nal TV signal also have streaming when they are available online. Conclusions. The productions do

The Politics and Practice of Voice: Representing American Sign Language on the Screen in Two Recent Television Crime Dramas

The Politics and Practice of Voice: Representing American Sign Language on the Screen in Two Recent Television Crime Dramas

Ball detection from broadcast soccer videos using static and dynamic features

In this paper, we propose an approach for detecting ball in broadcast soccer videos. We use hybrid techniques for identifying ball in medium and long shots. Candidate ball positions are first extracted using features based on shape and size. For medium shots, a ball is identified by filtering the candidates with the help of motion information. In long shots, after motion based filtering of the non-ball candidates, a directed weighted graph is constructed for the remaining ball candidates. Each node in the graph represents a candidate and each edge links candidates in a frame with the candidates in next two consecutive frames. Finally, dynamic programming is applied to find the longest path of the graph, which gives the actual ball trajectory. Experiments with several soccer sequences show that the proposed approach is very efficient.

The formal pace of Sesame Street over 26 years.

Television producers often use a high rate in the succession of visual and auditory features in their programs to attract the attention of viewers. In this study an attempt was made to measure the formal pace of television programs by scoring the rates of an extensive set of formal visual and auditory characteristics. Sesame Street was chosen as a focal point because this educational program--with its high pace--is very successful in its competition with the majority of commercial programs from which children can choose to watch at home. The analyzed material consisted of 49 Dutch episodes of Sesame Street broadcast between 1977 and 2003. The formal pace characteristics of separate program items from Sesame Street could be reliably established. Factor analysis indicated that clear pace factors were (a) "editing," consisting of a frequent use of different types of shots (total shots, medium shots, and close-ups) combined with a large number of cuts and (b) speech rate. Over a period of 26 years, the pace of editing increased: the mean number of cuts increased from about 4 to 8 per minute. The mean speech rate decreased from 175 to 139 words per minute.

An Open Letter to a German Friend

MARCEL OPHULS An Open Letter to a German Friend Lucq-de-Béam, October 10, 2002 Dear Martina! Recently, while suffering through the dreadful "thematic evening" dedicated to the memory of Max Ophuls by the "Kulturmenschen" of arte, I thought a great deal about you and the very beautiful documentary film that you made a dozen years ago.1 Why the devil did the bureaucrats of Strasburg think it necessary to commission this depressing piece of routine t? biopic from a couple of old hands from Saar television ,2 when all they had to do was to rebroadcast your little gem? Their film which, other than two precious interviews,3 was really dismal, contented itself with one mise-en-scène idea, no doubt in order to symbolize "uprooting through exile": coming back again and again to bad shots of train stations, of locomotives, and to a mediocre interview (in German, of course) with a compulsive (as Vincent Amiel would say), very pedantic and conscientious, very Germanic "Ophuls expert," filmed—you guessed it—in a train compartment. The other cinematic brainwave, if I dare to put it that way, was to inflict upon us a sort of transitional choreography, with medium shots of gesticulating arms, in the manner of a poor man's Pina Bausch.4 This was no doubt supposed to express symbolically the notions of mastery and of refinement. All this only to tell you, dear Martina, that in order to understand the special place occupied by Max Ophuls' not-exactly-mainstream cinematic art in the popular culture of the past century, I think one has to be a little bit of an artist oneself. You used to be one. Are you still? That's why I have taken such a long time to answer you after receivAri ^ona Quarterly Volume 6o, Number 5, Special Issue 2004 Copyright © 2004 by Arizona Board of Regents ISSN 0004- 1610 ?6 Marcel Ophuls ing your book on the making of Lola Montés.5 It is certainly an exciting research project, but it is no longer the work of an artist. I learned a number of things from the book, including the genuine betrayal committed by that nice Martine Carol. It seems that she agreed to record a commentary for The Sins of Lola Monte?,6 the counterfeit version hacked up by the producers and whose projection is now forbidden worldwide. Madeleine Gug, the French editor of the film (and therefore , whether you like it or not, the chief editor of the original version! ) had resigned rather than participating in such a massacre. That is an important event in the film's history, and yet you forget to mention it. Why? Was it the concern with remaining "objective" that guided you this time? From my point of view as an old specialist of long documentaries on contemporary history, the word has no meaning, since we are not any of us (historians, journalists, sociologists or film makers) scientists. It seems to me so much more important to know how to assume one's own subjectivity, one's own point of view. Was it this concern with objectivity which kept you from choosing sides this time, as if your role were suddenly to act as referee between the execrable producers, Albert Caraco and his accomplices, and my genius of a father? As if, for the purposes of your research, you could no longer side with the film maker, no matter how much you admire him. What motive could have inspired you to place face to face on the printed page, for the French and German versions, the name of Jacques Natanson with that of the charming but marginal Franz Geiger, or the name of Jean D'Eaubonne with that of the very obliging Willy Schatz, as though these creative collaborators were of at least equal standing? You know very well that Natanson was my father's preferred screenwriter and that the formidable D'Eaubonne was his architect-decorator of choice during all the last years of his life. Just as you know that it was not only CinemaScope— although that ungainly format promulgated by idiotic producers in order to "compete with" (sic!) television...

Understanding computer-based digital video

E ducators and instructional design ers are interested in creating effective learning environments. Often this involves the use of various media to implement instructional strategies. The rapid growth of the Intemet, and specifically the World Wide Web as a delivery medium has led to an explosion of Web-supported and Web-based courses and instructional materials. In the mid 1990s these Web materials were generally limited to text and static images. But with the increase in network bandwidth, user connection speeds, and hardware processing speed, audio and video have become viable media for instructional environments. These trends have been coupled with growth in the installed base of CDROM (and now DVD-ROM) drives and "multimedia equipped" personal computers. So if you are interested in including video as a component of your instruction, how do you go about producing video for digital distribution via Internet or CD/DVD? My goal with this article is to help you understand the terminology, requirements (costs, equipment, etc.), and procedures for producing and delivering computerbased video. Before we proceed, you must ask yourself "Why do I want to use video?" Video is certainly a powerful medium and there are many instructional situations in which it is both appropriate and effective. These situations might include: 1. Demonstrating a procedure or sequence of steps 2. Documenting a performance or event d video and audio quality) and displayed in a small window. This precludes the showing of most motion sequences and anything but medium shots and close-ups. Also it is not uncommon to find Web sites incorporating video for the sake of technical capability, not value to the viewer. Photographs, animations, audio recordings, and text descriptions can be very effective in many situations, and require fewer computing resources and less production time than video. While acknowledging the constraints of digital video, the following sections describe the effective use of this powerful medium.

Voyages of Life

Voyages of Life Scott MacDonald (bio) Figures I I hope the reader can forgive a personal anecdote. When I arrived in Utica, New York, in the fall of 1971 to teach film studies and American literature at Utica College of Syracuse University, I brought with me a set of aesthetic prejudices—common to my generation, I’m sure—that led me to admire the twentieth century art at Utica’s Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute (the collection includes paintings by Dali, Picasso, Gris, Mondrian, Sheeler, Pollock, Rothko...) as fervently as I despised the highlight of the Institute’s collection of nineteenth-century art: the 1840 version of Thomas Cole’s The Voyage of Life . 1 Cole’s four-part exposition of the stages of human life—“Childhood,” “Youth,” “Manhood,” “Old Age”—seemed hopelessly old-fashioned, in its representationalism, in its theology, and in its assumption—an assumption obviously typical of most nineteenth century art—that human life was the life of men. During the following years, when I sent students to the Institute and asked them to write essays about what they saw, I became accustomed to their admiration for Cole, whose accessibility they often used as a weapon in their attacks on the Institute’s “obscure,” “self-indulgent” modernist painters. As a teacher, I was simultaneously bored and excited by this response: that they inclined toward the easy, old-fashioned Cole paintings provided me an opportunity to school them on the formal and ideological dimensions of the more challenging moderns. Gradually, I came to realize that, regardless of its “old-fashioned” elements (and to some degree because of them), The Voyage of Life was “modern” in its own way: in particular, that it had enough in common with cinema to be considered, if not pre-cinematic, at least proto-cinematic. Most obviously, Cole’s images had width-to-height dimensions not so different from the 16 mm films I was presenting in my film classes; and like most commercial films, they [End Page 101] focused on the development of a single character. 2 At first, it seemed a stretch to see Cole’s paintings as cinematic in any but the most general sense, if only because his four compositions are presented in extreme “long shot” (a function of Cole’s interest in seeing human development as part of Nature’s divinely instituted grand scheme), a far cry from the modern commercial cinema’s usual articulation of long shots, medium shots, and close-ups. As I watched students engage The Voyage of Life , however, I realized that those willing to engage individual images of The Voyage of Life and their relationships to each other inevitably developed an experiential process analogous to what modern film directors achieve through editing: that is, most viewers see each of the sections in an “establishing shot” and then move in to make their own “medium shots” and “close-ups.” 3 Of course, what viewers discover as they explore the individual paintings is that Cole’s articulation of the particular qualities that define each individual stage of human life make sense only in juxtaposition with the qualities defined in the other three paintings. As a result, many viewers move back and forth from one painting to another—creating their own intercutting between the four stages of life. Further, Cole’s decision to use four successive paintings with considerable time gaps between the stages of life depicted is analogous to the way in which film editing condenses time as a means of generating storytelling energy. The more I’ve examined The Voyage of Life , the more analogies to cinema I’ve discovered. For example, with benefit of twentieth-century hindsight, we can see that the four paintings are “edited” together in a manner that recalls a major theoretical debate about film editing (“montage”) that took place in the Soviet Union during the 1920s between filmmakers V. I. Pudovkin and Sergei Eisenstein. Eisenstein reviewed the debate in an oft-quoted passage from “The Cinematographic Principle and the Ideogram”: In front of me lies a crumpled yellowed sheet of paper. On it is a mysterious note: “Linkage—P” and “Collision—E.” This is a substantial trace of a heated bout...

Pressure distribution under the foot at the take off in volleyball jumps and fosbury flop high jumps

s-International Society of Biomechanics XIV Congress 1993 677 PRESSURE DISTRIBUTION UNDER THE FOOT AT THE TAKE OFF IN VOLLEYBALL JUMPS AND FOSBURY FLOP HIGH JUMPS Thomas L. Milani and Ewald M. Hennig Biomechanik Labor, Universitat GHS Essen, Germany For injury prevention and to optimize the perfomlance of athletes, the knowledge of local pressures under the foot may reveal important informations for medical doctors, therapists, and coaches.Using in-shoe pressure dishibution measurements, the present study was performed to investigate the loads beneath the foot in high jumps and during the take off phase to volleyball jumps. Founy healthy track and field athletes volunteered to participate in this study. They performed 5 repetitive trials of fosbury flop and volleyball jumps in one experimental session, using the same shoe. Ten piezoceramic sensors were taped onto the plantar surface of the foot at defined anatomical landmarks. All measurements were performed with a portable, battery operated unit at a rate of 750 Hz per channel. Data collection was triggered by remote control using a radio-controlled signal. Based on five jumping trials the mean peak pressures, impulses, relative loads and contact times under the foot were determined. The general pattern shows a high lateral loading of the foot during fosbury flop high jumps and a strong medial load for the volleyball take off. The highest peak pressure values were found for the fosbury flop under the medial and lateral heel. In the rearfoot, increased peak pressures and relative loads are apparent for the medial heel region in both conditions. This is probably due to a strong pronation at the initial contact of the foot in both movements. The extreme eversion of the foot during the fosbury flop results in an excessive pronation, thus producing high mediolateral pressure differences in the heel. Accentuated peak pressures were found under the heel and the first ray of the foot during the take off in VOlleyball jumps. This is also visible in the relative load pattern. The first ray of the foot has to bear 45.9 % of the total Ioad.This large contribution demonstrates the importance of the fust ray in lifting the body for predominantly vertical jumps. PLAYER CONTRIBUTIONS IN A RUGBY UNION SCRUM Peter D. Milbum Department of Biomedical Science University of Wollongong, Wollongong NSW 2500, Australia Despite its importance to the game and the fact the strum is the collective effort of eight players each having a distinctive role, very little information is available on the contributions of individual players. Each unit of the scmm (front-row only, front-row plus second-row, full strum minus flankers, and full strum minus lock) were measured for force generated by pushing against an instrumented strum machine. A subtractive model was used to determine the contribution of each sub-unit. The large forces exerted at engagement sometimes exceeded the reported structural limits of the cervical spine and represented a potential for serious injury. The contribution of strum units were front-row (37%), second-row (42%), flankers (9%) and number eight (12%). Vertical and lateral shear forces changed little with the addition of more players. The combined maximum forward force for each player was 17725 N which represented three times that recorded for the full strum (5760 N). This reflects the extent to which player’s efforts were attenuated by the elastic and compressive tissues in the body as well as some of the forward force being “lost” to less efficient lateral and vertically directed components of force. WEIGHT TRANSFER IN BASKETBALL SHOOTING S.A. Miller and R.M. Bartlett Sport and Exercise Science Research and Development Unit, Crewe+Alsager Faculty, Manchester Metropolitan University, Alsager ST7 2HL, UK. Three-dimensional cinematographic techniques were used to determine the pattern of weight transfer for right-handed subjects at three shooting distances (2.74 m, 4.57 m, 6.40 m). Both antero-posterior and medio-lateral support base dimensions were similar at all distances. A posterior-anterior transfer was found for all shooting distances, an increasing amount of which occurred between take-off and ball release as shooting distance increased. Weight transfer from right to left was also in evidence, with the final position being increasingly closer to the leftmost edge of the base of support. Thus, short range shots were character&d by weight transfer from right posterior to mid support base, and medium and long range shots by transfer from mid-Iear to left-anterior support base. As at&o-posterior movement is required as an aid to ball release speed, it is recommended that medio-lateral movement at release is eliminated by moving the ball to the mid-sagittal plane of the body as early as possible during the shooting process.