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.

羅伯特·西格爾（主持人）：設想你在一家電影院正看著動作片——《鋼鐵俠2》。

（電影《鋼鐵俠2》原聲片段）

羅伯特：（電影的一幕）一輛賽車在空中飛過，它的輪胎都松動了，在地上彈來彈去，一眾粉絲把這一幕深深地印在腦海里。這是摩納哥大獎賽，觀眾們都站在看臺和海邊公寓的陽臺上。事實上你看到了什么？你會關注哪里？好吧，蒂姆·史密斯著手用科學的角度來回答這個問題。他是倫敦伯克貝克大學的視覺科學家，他參加了近期由美國電影藝術與科學學院舉辦的一個會議。他從倫敦來到我們這，歡迎你來到我們的節(jié)目。

蒂姆：嗨。謝謝你，羅伯特。

羅伯特：首先告訴我們，你是怎樣著手回答這些問題的？

蒂姆：好吧，這是個非常棘手的問題，因為當我們觀察這個世界的時候，我們認為自己接收了很多信息。但是作為一個視覺科學家，我知道事實上我們對世界的印象是很有限的，只局限于出現(xiàn)在我們視覺中心的影像。因此，記錄人們對場景印象的一個方法就是使用一種叫眼動監(jiān)控儀的設備，它是一個高速的攝像系統(tǒng)，能夠監(jiān)控你的視線停留在哪一個特定的場景，同時也能夠發(fā)現(xiàn)場景的哪部分沒受到關注。這樣我們就能知道哪些部分有可能被人們所認知進而變成長期記憶。

羅伯特：那么你有多少用于做實驗的觀眾？

蒂姆：75人左右。

羅伯特：（實驗的）結果就是一種能夠顯示所有這些目光關注所在的熱圖與《鋼鐵俠2》實際情景的疊加。除了別人以外，你還曾就這和執(zhí)導這部電影的喬恩·費儒一起討論了這個問題。我的意思是，與喬恩·費儒對自己電影的認知相比，你發(fā)現(xiàn)了什么不同的東西嗎？

蒂姆：這個實驗做得真的非常好，因為我們做的是現(xiàn)場實驗，現(xiàn)場實驗很有挑戰(zhàn)性，因為（實驗結果）很容易在晚上出現(xiàn)較大的差錯。我讓他先給我介紹續(xù)集的內(nèi)容，然后他告訴我一些我從來沒有意識到的電影制作細節(jié)，那就是那個場景是在美國的一個停車場拍攝的。他從來沒有去過摩納哥，大概70%的場景都是計算機的繪圖，或者后期加工的效果。所以很多場景都是人工制作的。他作的一些決定，例如如何通過細節(jié)來引起觀眾的注意，都是取決于他對觀眾會看哪些場景的一些推斷。因為他認為任何特定的時候，觀眾們都會關注主角，關注他們的面部表情、爆炸的場景或者動作，而這些都會出現(xiàn)在屏幕中央。

羅伯特：而你的實驗充分地證明了他的觀點，對嗎？

蒂姆：沒錯。所以當我把實驗結果展現(xiàn)給喬恩的時候，他很驚訝，因為他有兩個身份——導演兼制片人，他在想，我要把更少的預算花在背景（刻畫）的特效上，因為人們不會注意到這些。而熱圖清楚地表明，你會有一種叫注意力同步的效應，就是指當大部分的觀眾都在看同一個時間同一個地點發(fā)生的場景時，如果你對周圍缺少細節(jié)上的刻畫，那么觀眾就不會注意到它。所以他們不會發(fā)現(xiàn)周圍的場景，至少第一次觀看時不會注意到。

羅伯特：所以這就是不必去摩納哥拍攝任何東西的一個有利論點——費用很貴。你可以用計算機繪圖來制作周圍的場景，沒有人會注意到有什么不同。

蒂姆：對，至少在第一眼觀看一個場景的時候會這樣。這取決于你想展現(xiàn)什么，以及你的觀眾。例如，我跟許多動畫師聊過，像是夢工廠（美國影業(yè)公司）和皮克斯（動畫工作室）這些動畫制作公司會把很多時間和金錢都投資在服裝和背景的細節(jié)上，因為他們知道觀眾會一遍一遍地看他們的電影。你看一部電影的次數(shù)越多，就越有可能關注到全部的場景。

羅伯特：現(xiàn)在，我有一個觀看經(jīng)歷與你的發(fā)現(xiàn)剛好相反，那就是用高清電視機觀看棒球賽，與標清的電視機作對比。我很喜歡看棒球賽，這對我來說最大的不同就是，用高清電視機觀看比賽，我能注意到在本壘外很后排的粉絲們的臉——他們對我來說是實實在在的存在。而不知道為什么，這對于我來說是一個更真實和有趣的經(jīng)歷，盡管我也能在標清的電視機里跟進賽事。

蒂姆：嗯。我們正處在一個有趣的科技時代，這就是為什么美國電影學院想要舉辦電影的神經(jīng)學和心理學的活動。因為他們意識到有許多關于科技的選項：高清、標清、高幀頻、三維、計算機繪圖，他們需要了解是什么影響觀眾的體驗。而你描述的只是一個簡單的決定就能產(chǎn)生的事——我用高清相機，還是標清相機？但是你可以關注更多的細節(jié)，你可以用不同的角度看待它。所以這是我們真的需要了解的事物，了解大腦的視覺和聽覺部分是如何運作的，了解觀眾對這些電影和電視的剪輯是如何反應的。

羅伯特：好的，蒂姆·史密斯，謝謝你與我們分享你的研究以及你和電影導演們開會的內(nèi)容。

蒂姆：嗯，非常感謝。感謝你的邀請。