Below are some exerts from a corner in wheat, over the short time the subject has been held we have already grasped a fundamental idea on the types of film, the differences between film makers, their motivations, and some technical aspects as well. During the screening of a corner in wheat I noticed that when “the wheat king” moved his hands to shoo away the bystanders, a rapid increase of speed occurred. It is true that the rate at which movement is filmed is affected by cameras being hand cranked and the speed of movement of the characters within, yet the actors are moving at what we perceive as a normal rate in the time preceding the speed up of the “wheat kings arm”, what then is the reasoning for this? (2:46)
The 24 fps rate at which film is exposed means the film has to stop 24 times per second for us to see the images moving like drawings in a flip book, this gradual movement incrementally moves the image otherwise u would see the frame running through the image, in affect this 24 fps makes the image blur so we see it as fluid.
The answer for the speed up of the wheat kings hand is due to the fast moment of the actors hand being filmed at the same rate as all other movements so the increments in which the hand moves between each framed is increased in relation to normal movement. Then when the film is played back the background people are moving normally whilst the hand seems to have this supernatural speed which I think adds to the drama of the gesture. This example is apparent also due to the hard edges, think about an image of smoke being played in only 10 fps, due to the soft edges the movement of the smoke in increments on the film goes un noticed and the smoke seems to travel at a constant speed without jumping but if an object with a hard edge is in its place it would jump, similarly if a sharp edge is filmed and played at 24 fps the eye detects the movement more due to the contrast of the sharp edge in relation to the background.
