INTRODUCTION:

The database below assembles and offers results of my own „cinemetric“ measurements of films and television episodes. I achieved those measurements by counting film shots by hand-clicker, processing the number of shots in particular software, or making a shot-by-shot analysis. To calculate the average shot length (i. e. ASL, a concept created by Barry Salt), I measure the film’s length in seconds (24fps in case of sound films) and then divide it by the number of counted shots.

In my database, it is possible to find more than 3200 measurings of more or less contemporary films and television episodes from many countries. Besides the fact that you can find here hundreds of ASL measurings of movies from the last decades, the database is unique for at least three other reasons. Firstly, it includes an almost entire number of preserved films of Czech silent cinema and at least 33 % of Czech sound cinema production from each year till (so far) 1933. Secondly, it covers a large number of films from Eastern European countries. Thirdly, it consists of many entirely rare silent films from the 1910s all around the world. Since I am updating the database regularly, it will continue growing more prominent.

It is needed to point out that very ASL values themselves are not the final results of any research. Those values are meant to be used as tools for further analysis. For what kinds of research may ASL be used? In the case of a particular film, the very ASL value will help us get a rudimentary awareness of its editing pattern, but it will not tell much more. When analyzing a particular movie, it is therefore much more helpful to observe the ASL’s variations during its course (for example, the ASL of individual scenes, sequences, or acts). On the other hand, by the force of ASL values or shot counts, we can gain a lot of various and inspiring suggestions for stylistic research in the case of groups of films. An acquaintance of ASL values can facilitate the juxtaposition of various film or television works of a period, region, genre, company’s or director’s production. The mere fact that certain films of a particular director (or period, region, company, genre, etc.) have identical or similar ASL values may not be a priori remarkable. That is because an identical or similar ASL value can be caused by a significantly different configuration of longer or shorter shots. However, it is worthwhile to consider the similarities in the case of rather high and low ASL values – assessed against the background of the relevant norms. Nevertheless, more remarkable and predictable is when we find out that certain films of a particular director (or period, region, company, genre, etc.) have significantly different ASL than the others. These different ASL values imply a notable variability of creative choices that filmmakers made. Since that, we can put forward many research questions. I believe that my database offers extensive and reliable background for such questions.

In 2020 I added two entirely new parameters to the database, offering slightly different quantitative perspectives and comparative options than the existing ones. The first new parameter is the average number of cuts per minute of the film (CPM), which may be easier for some users to imagine than the average shot length in seconds. The second, in my opinion, a much more important new parameter is the number of cuts per hour of the film (CPH), which allows the detection of long-term trends and massive comparability. I work with this parameter in two forms in my database: optimally (a) in the form of the exact number of cuts per the first hour of the measured film; and (b) in case I do not know this number, in the proportional number of cuts per hour of the film. The exact number of cuts per hour is noted in the database with precision per unit of shots and is based on my own measurement (at a projection speed of 24fps). The proportional number of cuts per hour has been rounded to „fifties“ and „hundreds“. I’ve made hundreds of control tests of such a calculation in the cases of movies with already known the exact number of cuts per hour, and it’s relatively accurate in terms of broader trends. For the time being, I have decided to state the number of cuts per hour only for sound films because we can speak with certainty about the standardization of the projection speed in their case.

Radomír Douglas Kokeš
Department of Film Studies and Audiovisual Culture
Masaryk University
Brno, Czech Republic

MY PARALLEL PROJECT:
DATABASE OF MOBILE FRAMING STATISTICS (1929-40) / www.douglaskokes.cz/pdz/mfs/

Douglas‘s Film Database of Shot Counts and Average Lengths (ASL)
Douglasova filmová databáze počtů a průměrných délek záběrů (PDZ)

9th June 2022
Number of items: 3223

The Last Measurings (just a selection): Sangue blu (1914), Machiste (1915), Tih Minh (1918), Za svobodu národa (1920), Děvče z Podskalí (1922), Bílá nemoc (1937), Confidential Report (1955), The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961), El Dorado (1966), Grand Prix (1966), Marketa Lazarová (1967), Alfred the Great (1970), Kelly’s Heroes (1970), Shagajj, strana! (1981), Ladyhawke (1985), A Chorus Line (1985), The Predator (1987), Kouř (1990), Point of No Return (1993), Hard Target (1993), Lekce Faust (1994), The Day After Tomorrow (2004), The Lake House (2006), Kong: Skull Island (2017), Curtiz (2018), Akinjeon (2019), Drive My Car (2021), Margrete den Første (2021), Nordsjøen (2021), The Protégé (2021), á-B-C-D-é-F-G-H-CH-í-JONESTOWN (2022), Ambulance (2022), The Batman (2022), Death on the Nile (2022), Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), Jurassic World: Dominion (2022), Lightyear (2022), The Northman (2022), Poslední závod (2022), Top Gun: Maverick (2022)