Projections

Both individually and together we have presented a view of a certain form of audience engagement with stories, including, among other things, a certain type of frequent kind of mainstream movie narration. We call that type of narrative erotetic and hypothesize that it engages audiences in processes of explicit but more often tacit questioning. In this journal, Jonathan Frome has criticized our approach on the grounds that it lacks evidence, explanatory power, and is unfalsifiable. In this article, we address Frome's criticisms.

The goal of the present study was to explore the impact of cinematic features on the comprehension of fiction film. Professional filmmakers filmed an event (a dance performance) to create three versions of a film (one objective long shot version, two versions edited to focus on one of the characters). Participants “thought aloud” as they watched one of the versions of the film. Think-aloud responses were coded on the cognitive framing (e.g., description, narrative) and the ways the characters were conveyed (e.g., internal states, actions). Analysis of the think-aloud responses revealed that cinematic features affected the cognitive framing of the film but had little effect on how the characters were conveyed.

This article presents the results of an artistic research project conducted to examine the role of sound design in realizing functional purposes of a film. Seven desired outcomes were tested by screening two versions of an excerpt of the film Koyaanisqatsi (Reggio, 1982): the original without sound effects and the artistic research sound design with sound effects. The resulting transformation of the original imparts knowledge that emerges from the author's embodied understanding of sound design and mixing acquired over years of artistic work. Through a content analysis of the results, the article shows that sound effects correlate to desired outcomes being met, thus demonstrating the structuring influence of sound design in film.

This article offers a psychological account of color expression in film. In the first part, we examine the distinction between color's physical properties and its psychological effects, drawing on the work of Josef Albers, among others, to illustrate how context shapes color perception. Anil Seth's embodied inferential theory of consciousness provides a broader framework for understanding these psychological processes in the light of contemporary neuroscience. The second section outlines some of the rules governing color interaction and their impact on perception, using Rudolf Arnheim's theory of perceptual dynamics in fixed images to further explore its expressive potential. Finally, the third section considers its implications for moving images, introducing a graphical method for analyzing correlations between changes in color dynamics and theme and narrative.

Philippa Gates and Katherine Spring. Resetting the Scene: Classical Hollywood Revisited. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2021, 304 pp., $36.99 (paperback), ISBN: 9780814347799.

Jeffrey West Kirkwood. Endless Intervals: Cinema, Psychology, and Semiotechnics around 1900. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2022, 256 pp., $28.00 (paperback), ISBN: 9781517912543.

Adriano D'Aloia. Neurofilmology of the Moving Image: Gravity and Vertigo in Contemporary Cinema. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021, 254 pp., €110.00 (hardback), ISBN: 9789463725255.

Amanda Lagerkvist. Existential Media: A Media Theory of the Limit Situation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022, 256 pp., $110.00 (hardback), ISBN: 9780190925567.